I like Heupel. He’s been an absolute breath of fresh air after the last 3 clowns. But I’d only give him about a 1 in 3 chance of winning an SEC East in the next 5 years. Anything short of winning the East is less than I can ultimately be satisfied with. Do we just need to give up on being good or do you guys think he can eventually close the gap with Georgia?
Get what done? No, Tennessee will not likely win an East title in the next 5 years. But 8-9, maybe even 10 wins feels like it's possible, if not likely in a couple of years, and if you get to that point, you have a a base to build upon as long as you're not Dan Mullen
Georgia won’t be a juggernaut every year, but with all of Florida’s advantages, every coaching change in Gainesville is terrifying. And they usually beat us even when they’re bad. I’m not sure if Heupel gets us over that hump—I think recruiting is a major unknown and there’s a lot up in the air that doesn’t depend on just us. The fact that he knows how to design an offense is nice though.
I think Heupel and company are good enough to get to Atlanta within 4-5 years. Things change with the portal now and I think he's a great offensive mind, surrounded by good coaches.
You really can’t judge him on this years class. See what the portal brings, hopefully we get deeper for next year, but 2023 will be much more telling on the recruiting ability of this staff. We can definitely compete for the east if they can bring in some talent/depth and continue to squeeze as much out of them as they have with this roster.
Florida was dog shit for 100 years, hired Spurrier and watched him dominate. They were smart to fire Zook quickly and once again hired a generational talent as head coach in Meyer. I don't see another Meyer or Spurrier around. The facilities suck and Gainesville is a shit hole. Florida talent goes to Clemson, Georgia and Alabama, they aren't even staying in state
Heupel has to get talent here in a hurry. He's going to do well in 2023 and 2024 in state, he's working his ass off on that. This year is more about portal and JUCOs. I like everything he's doing but his success here will hinge on his ability to get talent here
Like Groves said, CH has to get talent. I don't think it should be an issue because there is enough to show that Tennessee is on an upward trajectory. I hope there is some sort of NIL coordinator/agent/whatever developing deals for players (if that's legal, I don't know shit about NILs) because that is going to be the deciding factor for many of these top recruits moving forward. So to answer the question "Will Heupel get it done?", shit man I don't know.
I don't think other teams and such externalities are relevant yet. Florida, Georgia, Alabama, etc are not supernatural beasts. They recruit the same players everybody else does. Alabama just gets them. Florida, despite consistent success against us, IS an up and down team and we can eclipse them if we are building up. There is a multi-step path to competing for the conference championship. 1. Be in the SEC (check) 2. Don't lose to Vanderbilt or Kentucky (in progress) 3. Win games you are supposed to win (in progress) 4. Have built a deep talented roster (incomplete) 5. Start knocking off Top 25 teams with some regularity (incomplete, would say in progress if we beat Ole Miss) 6. Quit losing OOC games in September (incomplete) 7. Compete in all 4 quarters in every game (in progress) 8. By this step, we should be favored against the likes of Mizzou, SCAR, Mississippi State, and the current iteration of LSU. Refer to step 3. 9. By this step we should be favored or on par to the likes of TAMU and Auburn. Refer to step 3. 10. Beat florida. Beat georgia. Beat alabama. Once that ceiling is freshly broken, capitalize in recruiting. And you are there. I don't know how long it will take, but we will know a lot in 3 years and should be at step 8. That last step is a doozy, but if you do the other 9, it will be attainable.
I don’t disagree with much of what you said, except to point out that the question was about winning the East in five years, and externalities definitely matter for that question. If we’re building a good team and Florida is doing whatever they’re doing, honestly we should move ahead of them, but I’m kinda in “believe it when I see it” mode with those guys. We make them look top ten even when they’re crap.
I guess I am not hung up at all on there being a difference in winning the east in 5 years, and a scenario where we are squeezed out at 10-2 by a 10-2 UGA.
Oh I’m not that hung up on it either, I only mentioned the externalities because of the way OP framed the question.
The biggest externality is how the league handles scheduling once Texas/OU join the fold. If they (in my opinion stupidly) keep two divisions and move Bama/Auburn east and Mizzou west, winning the East becomes the equivalent of winning the conference pre-‘92. Hard to expect that more than once or twice a decade. If they go pods and we get a cushy North pod with Vandy/UK/Mizzou (we can dream), we should win that 9 out of 10. The actual result will probably be somewhere in the middle, but I don’t expect Bama/UGA/UF to stay on the schedule every year. Who replaces them will shape the next phase of UT football almost as much as anything Heupel and Co. do.
Heupel has Tennessee at 10-2 consistently, he's winning the east a few times. Two plays against Ole Miss and two plays against Pitt and Tennessee is 7-3 right now with a 2nd place finish in the east guaranteed.
Regardless of yesterday’s game, I still feel like UT football is on an upward trajectory. To feel like that in mid November is something I can’t remember for a long, long time. Two years from now, if we’re still losing games like this consistently and going to low-tier bowl games I’ll change my stance but for right now Heupel is looking very much like a guy that can and will “get it done”.
We got pretty fairly beaten last night, left a lot of plays on the field, didn’t play anywhere near our best against the #1 team in the land, and at no point did I really feel like “damn, this is embarrassing”
I broke this down awhile ago, but it is actually impossible for us to end up worse off than we already are playing UF, UGA, and Bama every year. There are ways we can be the same, and ways we could be better off. But not worse.
This is the most confident I've been about the program since 2009. I think Heupel can get us back to the point of being a 9ish win team every year and getting to Atlanta every 4-5 years. I don't think he can ever get us over the hump and competing for national championships. Year one has been encouraging, we've dominated bad teams and held our own against UF/Bama for a large portion of both games. With competent officiating in the Pitt and Ole Miss games, we could have finished year one 9-3. All this has been done with a roster that doesn't even have enough decent players to make a quality two-deep for an SEC team.