Josh Heupel’s Tennessee Volunteers suffered a 33-27 home loss to the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday. Before that, his squad held a 6-2 record and remained in the hunt for a College Football Playoff berth. While Heupel’s team is now entering a crucial late-season stretch that will determine its playoff hopes, some fans have already begun calling for his firing.
Four Southeastern Conference head coaches have been fired during this season: LSU Tigers’ Brian Kelly, Florida Gators’ Billy Napier, Arkansas Razorbacks’ Sam Pittman, and, most recently, Auburn Tigers’ Hugh Freeze.
Kirk Herbstreit Calls Out Tennessee Fans for Demanding Josh Heupel’s Firing
Following Tennessee’s loss to Oklahoma, some Volunteers fans are now calling for Heupel to be the next SEC coach to be fired. However, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit had a blunt response to that notion.
“I heard some nonsense from Tennessee fans about Josh Hypel’s got to go,” Herbstreit said in his podcast. “Everybody who loses has got to go…man bullsh**. Have you thought about where Tennessee’s football program was before Josh Heupel got there? Have you thought about how many years you were irrelevant? Off the field issues, drama..”
“You should be, like, ‘lock Josh Heupel and his staff down for a hundred years.’ You can’t win every game. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a good coach. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a good program. You’re lucky to have Josh Heupel… You guys are heading in a great direction…it’s [firing Heupel] not the answer.”
Heupel led the Volunteers to a College Football Playoff appearance last year and holds a 43-18 record since taking over the program.
About his hot seat rumor, On3’s Josh Pate said he has also received messages from Tennessee fans about Heupel’s job status. Like Herbstreit, he dismissed the talk, saying that hot-seat discussions should have perspective.
“People, I’m not hating on you,” Pate said. “You ought to root for your team to win every game. What I’m saying is, some people who had unrealistic expectations for this team are now getting mad at the team for not fulfilling their unrealistic expectations. Tennessee is right in line to do what I thought they were gonna do. I had them as an 8-4 team. I thought it was a transition year…hot seat and Josh Heupel shouldn’t even be in the same sentence.”
In April this year, longtime SEC commentator Paul Finebaum said he couldn’t think of a coach “more secure” than Heupel.
Heupel is in his fifth season in Knoxville and received a contract extension in August, which runs through January 2030. The deal raised his annual pay to $9 million, with a maximum bonus of $1.7 million.
Ranked 21st on PFSN’s CFB Impact metric this season, the Volunteers are on a bye week before returning to action against New Mexico State on Nov. 15 at Neyland Stadium.