No one is back. Jeremy Pruitt, Shelton Felton, and Brian Neidermeyer was fired with cause on January 18th as a result of Tennessee’s on going investigation. As a result of the change at head coach the entire staff was let go, or took other jobs. Tennessee is starting over with their football program for the 5th time since 2008.

Josh Heupel gets his shot at fixing Tennessee as he comes from Central Florida after being the offensive coordinator at Missouri. Heupel brought half his staff with him from UCF in Alex Golesh (OC/TE), Joey Halzle (QB), Glen Elerbee (OL), Willie Martinez (DB), and Kodi Burns (WR). Burns never officially joined Heupel at UCF. He was hired to go there from Auburn back in January but Heupel got the Tennessee job and took Burns with him to Knoxville.

After getting the job on Rocky Top, Heupel filled out his defensive staff with coordinator Tim Banks from Penn State in a search that took multiple twists and turns. Heupel hired SEC veteran Dline coach Rodney Garner, Brian Jean-Mary (LB), Mike Ekeler (OLB/Special teams) and Jerry Mack (RB).

Scoring points is what Josh Heupel is all about. He’s succeeded offensively everywhere he has been including Missouri. Heupel calls his offense quarterback friendly and he likes to be aggressive with a vertical passing game. In 2018, UCF’s offense averaged 43.2 points a game. In 2019, it was 43.4 points a game and in a shortened 2020 season the Knights under Heupel’s offense averaged 568 yards a game.

Heupel has always found a way to score points.

Offensively only Burns and Heupel have worked in the SEC so you are limited in your knowledge of the league on the field and on the recruiting road.

Defensively, you have a group of coaches with plenty of power 5 experience and two with major SEC experience in Garner and Martinez. The group all knew each other when they are hired but they have never worked together leaving you to wonder what kind of growing pains there might be this fall.

Finally, the roster is a weakness. Give Heupel and his staff credit. They haven’t poor mouthed or bad mouthed what the have inherited. They have worked hard to help the roster through the transfer portal and they have worked hard to create a culture and chemistry in the locker room.

But there’s no question this is a rebuilding project with challenges. How fast of a rebuild can it be? Depends on a variety of things, the two biggest being off the field the investigation and on the field finding a quarterback.