That's the thing. Can coaches find ways (or realize) their shortcomings and work around them. With Heup, he can just pay top-tier kids to go there (well, not directly of course). He was also able to go out and spend a ton on a quality DC that he chose. People will find him the money to be successful, and so far he is. Still think things worked out better for all parties, regarding Us, DW and him.
it is annoying the Tennessee fans that act like UCF was the problem. they don’t know what they are talking about
The problem was you went undefeated one season. Heupel had good seasons there until Covid hit and you had players opt out or get kicked off the team. You still expected to go 10-0 with all players gone or hurt. The players at Tennessee love him. The recruits love him and how honest he is with them. Listen to this player talk about him.
and it wasn’t the case here . a few of the players have done an about face now but when he was here leaks galore of locker room issues. and the HS Coaches don’t lie..he either didn’t come around enough or he rubbed most of them the wrong way.
I have heard the same. I am shocked the players like him @ Tenn. From what I understand, the majority of players @ UCF did not like playing for him.
spot on. Frost by comparison fit well personality wise here. From Nebraska but felt West Coast Cool coming from Oregon. Players responded and there was buzz all over the State about UCF those few years
He visits Tennessee high schools all the time. Maybe he learned from mistakes at UCF. The culture has never been better. Heupel is cautious with who he recruits, because of culture Fit.
Heupel had a better winning percentage at UCF than Frost did. I don’t get the hate. Never did. He always had one of the top offenses. You can’t really blame the defense on him, if the coordinator was forced on him and had complete control of the defense.
the Shannon situation definitely didn’t help and is a big what if. most/all of us think Heupel is a great human being so I think most are happy for
I don’t think you can blame COVID. You pointed out the exact problem. He did great with the previous guys recruits….then his recruits were the core of the team and we trended downwards. Talent and development trended downward. Two of his recruiting classes did not produce a lot of contributing players. We’re seeing the consequences of that over the last two seasons and Gus is having to re-establish not only quality but also depth.
I’ve never bought into this ideology. Everyone blames Shannon “being forced on him” but if that was the problem, did Heup never bring it up or was his requests ignored by the AD? How come DW never did anything about it?
It’s common knowledge that DW chose Shannon and thus Heupel was “saddled” with him while here. Even if you don’t “buy it”.
So why would he agree to work for the same guy that did that to him, and apparently wouldn’t let Shannon go?
I would say Danny White saw what worked and what didn't and evolved. Danny was and still is a pretty young athletic director, approaching his role differently than others in a lot of ways. This was an experiment of his and it didn't work out, he is smart enough to recognize the flaw and adjust.
I’m sure when he was interviewed for Tennessee, he said he wanted to make his own hires. Shannon was announced as DC before Heupel as Coach. I think was a backup plan in case Heupel Essed the bed they had a former HC already in house.
his offense ended up being pass pass run up the middle punt. Did you see our record his last year here?
I would argue Malzahn 2022 year is worse than Heupel 2020. Malzahn might have got to the conference championship, but the team was just as lost if not worse at the end of the season as 2020.
I think you answered your own question in the first post of the thread. Do you think there were other SEC jobs on the table for Heupel at the time?
Newsflash:
| 1984 | 1–3 | .250 | ||
| Gene McDowell | 1985–1997 | 86–61 | 3–3 | .585 |
| Mike Kruczek | 1998–2003 | 36–30 | .545 | |
| Alan Gooch † | 2003 | 0–2 | .000 | |
| George O'Leary | 2004–2015 | 81–68 | 3–4 | .544 |
| Danny Barrett † | 2015 | 0–4 | .000 | |
| Scott Frost | 2016–2017 | 19–7 | 1–1 | .731 |
| Josh Heupel | 2018–2020 | 28–8 | 1–2 | .778 |
| Gus Malzahn | 2021– | 18-9 | 1-1 | .667 |
Uhh when he had his best offense at UCF at 42.2 ppg, 8th nationally?!? 😅🤣
Yes having the #1 classes in the conference (adding in transfers for all teams) must have been tough 😅
It’s amazing how little you know of UCF and the transition from Frost to Huepel to Gus. But thanks for stopping by, now go bang your sister or cousin or whatever you people do in the hills.
