Tennessee coach Josh Heupel has now gotten close to the top.
The trick is going to be staying there.
“The best is yet to come,” he said after a 31-14 dominating win over Clemson in the Orange Bowl on Friday night.
Considering the way college football is going these days at the most of an 11-2 season without a national title buys a coach two years. You usually get a third if you win the title.
A lot of the Volunteer faithful will gripe and moan for a while over an earlier 63-38 faceplant against South Carolina that came a couple of weeks after stumbling to a Georgia team that may be playing for a title.
The Vols apparently have the ship righted now with Joe Milton getting things sorted out. The biggest problem for Clemson on Friday night was moving the ball consistently.
Tennessee has found a defense that can complete for a championship, which is almost always a requirement in the SEC.
Heupel described it later as “unbelievable.”
Now Heupel has to keep it going and he knows that. He started getting the message out to recruits as soon as things wrapped up in Miami.
“Yeah, I was going to try to enjoy this one,” he said. “Thanks for ruining it.”
What he has done is get that culture thing working at Tennessee where the players are taking over the major leadership roles.
In today’s world it has to come from there. Alabama has been a half-notch below their normal intensity level and that’s a big part of it.
With all the rules and limitations, players have to drive their teammates to do those extra workouts in the off-season, stay late and things of that nature. Coaches can’t do it or be accused of being too hard on them and … hello transfer portal.
At least for now it appears Heupel has that developing quickly in Knoxville.
A large part of that was due to quarterback Hendon Hooker, who was in the conversation for the Heisman Trophy before a knee injury ended his season.
According to Heupel, he set a tone that started in the locker room.]
“This doesn’t happen without Hendon,” Heupel said. “As you build a program, you’ve got to have somebody that’s selling your message from inside that lives that message every day and gets the locker room headed in the right direction.
“Hendon wasn’t the only guy that did that but he certainly was spearheading it.”
Now Heupel’s gotta figure out how to keep the train at the top of mountain it’s reached in just two short years.
Vol fans don’t allow long honeymoons.
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