ORLANDO, Fla. — UCF football coach Josh Heupel has left to take over as the Tennessee Volunteers’ head coach, following former Knights athletics director Danny White and leaving the program with two major vacancies to fill.
Heupel shared the news with the UCF football team Wednesday morning, then flew to Knoxville to celebrate the highest profile coaching opportunity of his career.
“What an awesome day for myself and my family,” Heupel said. “I’m excited to be a part of the Vol Nation and the Volunteers family.”
Heupel’s hiring capped a whirlwind 48 hours that left many UCF fans’ heads spinning.
The 42-year-old first emerged as the top candidate for the job Tuesday night and the Orlando Sentinel confirmed early Wednesday morning he reached an agreement with White to lead the embattled Tennessee football program.
“I got an opportunity to talk with our football team in Orlando this morning,” Heupel said Wednesday. “It was important to me that we did that at the same time. … I love the players in Orlando and it was a hard morning — I said that about my kids when they found out that their home is going to change and now they’re excited about it too — but it was a tough conversation because you care deeply about the people you’re pouring a lot of time and energy into.”
VolQuest.com’s Austin Price was the first to report Tuesday that Heupel emerged as the top candidate to replace Jeremy Pruitt as the Volunteers’ coach. Pruitt was fired on Jan. 18 after three seasons following an internal investigation into recruiting violations.
White was named the AD at Tennessee on Jan. 23. He hired Heupel take over the Knights’ program on Dec. 5, 2017, after Scott Frost left to take the Nebraska head coaching job.
“We’ve rocked their world and they’re in the same boat as my family,” White said about the past few days.
He reiterated that Heupel was his No. 1 option and the only person offered the job, knocking down reports Tennessee approached other high profile coaches who declined the job.
“If anything, I was trying not to hire the head coach at UCF ...” White said. “I love UCF and I hate the transition this is causing for those student-athletes down there.”
In three seasons with the Knights, Heupel went 28-8 with an American Athletic Conference championship in 2018 and a Fiesta Bowl bid. The team is coming off a 6-4 campaign, its first four-loss season since 2016.
Before he was hired at UCF, Heupel spent two seasons as the offensive coordinator at Missouri. He also spent time at his alma mater, Oklahoma, where he was quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator before being fired in January 2015.
Heupel’s buyout at UCF is $3,593,750.
White signed a five-year contract at UCF in March 2020 paying him more than $1 million a year, and Tennessee will pay the $2.5 million buyout for his leaving before May 11, 2021.
In total, the Vols likely will end up paying $6.1 million for the duo and the tally could climb if Heupel takes any assistants with multiyear contracts and buyouts with him.
Some current and former UCF players responded to the news via their Twitter accounts.
“Had to find out through social media … Wow,” defensive lineman Noah Hancock wrote on Twitter. He later added, “I wish the best for Coach though, hope he’s successful in the SEC @ Ten.”
Added former receiver Marlon Williams, “SMH that’s why you have to make the best decision for yourself. [They’ll] turn around and do what’s best for them!”
And star quarterback Dillon Gabriel posted he didn’t get a phone call or one-on-one conversation with Heupel before he left. Former UCF quarterback McKenzie Milton urged Gabriel to focus on having a great season.
Now there is more pressure on UCF to swiftly fill White’s vacancy so his successor can lead a search for Heupel’s replacement.
UCF president Alexander Cartwright told the Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Bianchi shortly after White’s exit that the Knights will conduct a national search to replace the athletics director, hire a search firm to compile a “diverse” list of candidates and will “move quickly” to have a new AD in place within the next month or two. Depending on how White’s official last day at UCF coincides with the new athletics director being hired, Cartwright said UCF deputy AD Scott Carr could serve as the interim AD.
“There’s going to be a lot of interest in this job,” Cartwright said. “This position is one of the premier positions in the country and I’m even including a number of the Power 5s. This is a position at a place where our athletic program is up-and-coming, we have tremendous resources and are in a great location. "
American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco has seen his fair share of coaches and athletics directors leave the conference for Power Five jobs. He said it’s just the price that’s paid for success.
“We want people to come in and do an exceptional job,” Aresco told the Orlando Sentinel. “We want to keep hiring exceptional people. Yes, some of our coaches will leave and some of our ADs will leave for P5 jobs but if they’ve done a great job where they were, they’ve made their situation better. Why wouldn’t we want that rather than hiring mediocrity? It’s not helping our league for that to happen.”
Carr praised Heupel, who owns the highest winning percentage among all Knights football coaches.
“We would like to thank Coach Heupel for his contributions to UCF, and we wish Josh, Dawn, Hannah and Jace the best in their new endeavor,” Carr said in a statement. “We are a perennial top-25 program with a very talented team returning for the 2021 season.
“The future of UCF athletics is very bright with the hard work and dedication of our student-athletes, the passion of Knight Nation, our talented staff and coaches, and the leadership of President Cartwright. We are confident that we will find the right head coach to lead our football program.”
