There have been teams make one-year runs to the College Football Playoff with no real chance of winning a title nor returning anytime soon. Cincinnati and Texas Christian come to mind.
I once wondered if that might be Tennessee’s ceiling under coach Josh Heupel. Given what the Vols are doing in recruiting, the ceiling just became the floor. With the influx of talent, there’s no reason to believe Tennessee won’t be in the mix for the College Football Playoff for the foreseeable future. Just making a one-year run? That’s not what the Vols are building.
Just when you thought expectations for the Vols’ fourth-year coach couldn’t get any higher, there’s reason to think Heupel could build a dynasty in Knoxville and not just a team that can make an occasional, fun jaunt up the rankings in hopes of a title that a more talented team will ultimately wrestle away. Nope, Tennessee can be better than that. They can be a perennial contender for a championship. Why and why now? Simple, Heupel is proving to be a far better recruiter than anyone could ever imagine.
It was pretty easy to give Heupel practically zero credit for landing five-star quarterback prospect Nico Iamaleava. After all, Iamaleava received $2-million per season for three years to be a Vol. There are plenty of coaches that could have benefitted from toting that pay check in their playbook. However, Heupel followed that up with two more highly rated quarterback signees: four-star prospects Jake Merklinger in 2024 and George MacIntyre, who is committed to the 2025 class. Recruiting has changed, but not enough to dispel that Heupel has quarterbacks lined up like a Taylor Swift concert.
Heupel was having good success in recruiting just depending on his offensive prowess, ability to develop players and his positive team culture. That’s worked pretty well. The Vols are in the conversation to make the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff this season, but is Tennessee a “big boy” again? Probably not, but they’re seriously close, perhaps a year away and, if the Vols keep recruiting as they have been recently, they’ll be a heavyweight for the foreseeable future, right? It certainly worked for the baseball team.
The best way to win a championship is to keep knocking on the door, not just load up under one player, even if he is named Nico. If the Vols keep recruiting as they have, they’ll knock the door down.
Tennessee currently ranks fifth in the nation in recruiting. The Vols haven’t finished in the top-5 in recruiting since 2015, in which the Vols finished fourth. Since then, Tennessee has only finished in the top 10 once. The Vols are soaring. There was plenty of proof of that when the Vols hosted several prospects this weekend for a recruiting get-together.
The Vols began the weekend with a monstrous, albeit predictable pickup from four-star safety Lagonza Hayward, Toombs County High School in Lyons, Ga., who committed to Tennessee on Saturday over Florida and Georgia. Then, Tennessee picked up four-star tight end prospect Da’Shaan Brame, from Derby (Kans.) High School on Sunday. Brame was committed to Oregon. Let’s just say it was a good weekend for the Vols.
Here’s something to take note of: Hayward and Brame are two of Tennessee’s four highest-rated commitments for the 2025 class. Heupel isn’t picking up lower-rated prospects to round out a class before the season begins. No, that might have happened earlier in his tenure, but it’s clear: Heupel’s standards have gone up. Way up. Moreover, Heupel is proving that Tennessee doesn’t have to extend early scholarship offers in hopes of landing a future star. The Vols no longer have to find diamonds in the rough; they can compete for any jewelry they want and have a pretty good shot at taking home the hardware. Oregon and Georgia are all too aware.
Heupel’s current recruiting pitch is perfectly well rounded. He has the pizzazz of an exciting offense, an entertainment extravaganza to be built where the Vols used to just play football and NIL money at his fingertips. However, it would be unfair to credit those extracurriculars. Heupel is reaping the success he’s having in recruiting because of good old fashioned recruiting, which consists of hard work and relationship building. Yes, there have been some recruiting misses, especially along the offensive line, but Heupel will soon have more highly rated options to choose from if his recruiting continues on this path.
Getting a head start on other programs with earlier evaluations and early scholarship offers was the plan initially, before Heupel established himself at Tennessee. There were hits and misses, as one would expect. Fortunately, there were enough hits to keep the Vols relevant in recruiting. Now, they’re trying to make sure there’s no ceiling on Tennessee’s program anytime soon.
