Josh Heupel was introduced as Tennessee’s head coach on Jan. 27.
Heupel comes to Tennessee after serving as UCF’s head coach from 2018-20, compiling a 28-8 record. It was his first time as a head coach and was able to fully run a program and offense to his liking.
As an assistant, Heupel served as a sole offensive coordinator at Missouri (2016-17) and Utah State (2015).
His offense features various Air Raid, run and shoot and veer and shoot concepts.
At Utah State, Kelly Bills coached alongside Heupel as quality control working with quarterbacks and wide receivers.
“The thing that I love about that type of offense, what Josh is running at UCF to what he most likely will run at Tennessee — the Art Briles Baylor stuff,” Bills said on the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days.” “I do think it has some Air Raid principles to it, some run and shoot principles, but when you are watching that film, I have broken down those Baylor teams until I am blue in the face. When you really break it down, the simplicity of that scheme is almost comical. They’re not doing a lot of stuff. It is pretty basic and pretty simple stuff.
“What the name of the game of that offense is, what makes that tick, is getting the ball into the hands of your playmakers on a consistent basis. They are defiantly using some wider splits to take advantage of the entire field. They are obviously using tempo to catch a defense off balance to wear them down, and they are taking vertical shots. They have a really good run game and they are getting the ball to the playmakers on a consistent basis, which that is the way to win football games. I have been in offenses before where they have good schemes, but you go play a game and you realize that we ran our scheme really good, but our best player maybe only touched the ball one or two times a game. That’s just not acceptable, you can’t win games doing that. I think that is kind of the star of the show of that offense, getting the ball in the hands of those playmakers in space and then you are forcing the defense, to not only line up versus fast tempo, but forcing them to cover really good athletes in wide-open space, which is always difficult.”
Wide splits
The veer and shoot aspect of Heupel’s offense is wide splits, stretching wide receivers from numbers to numbers.
“We definitely implement those in our offense,” Bills said of having wide splits. “Once I started doing it, obviously with high school, college and the NFL, we are all copy cats. Those Baylor offenses, I started to realize that it does make those defenses, those outside backers declare what they are going to do. They really have to declare whether they are going to be a box player and play the run or whether they are going to be out in space and be assigned to those coverage principles.
“From a quarterback perspective, it definitely clears up the pre-snap vision, and then at the end of day, what you take from that film is that there are one-on-one matchups all over the place. You are forcing that defense to really cover in space.”
Installing the offense
Spring practices will be an important time for Heupel to install his offense with Tennessee’s player personnel.
Bills mentioned Heupel will surround himself with a staff to help install the offense with preparation needed for the season.
“Spring ball is phenomenal because that is where you work your kinks out, and obviously, you’re working those kinks out through the summer, and you’re trying to get those ironed out before you start fall camp so you can be off and running,” Bills said. “With what I know about Josh and the staff, the guys that he has around him, there’s no doubt in my mind that they know what they are doing.
“They are going to implement the culture and that scheme real quick and be off and running.”
The entire show with Bills can be listened to here or below. Bills discusses becoming Dixie State’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, coaching with Heupel and the 2021 spring season.
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