After years of relying on Jeremy Pruitt recruits, an $8 million quarterback or transfer portal guys, Tennessee football head coach Josh Heupel is facing a new kind of pressure in 2025. He’s got to prove he went after the right guys on the recruiting trail out of high school all these years.
When it comes to players signed out of high school under Heupel, it’s clear as day the success was greater on defense. Guys like James Pearce Jr. blossomed into superstars. The problem is we know Heupel wasn’t heavily involved in scouting those guys. His focus is offense.
To this point, running back is the only position in which Heupel signed a player out of high school on offense to reach All-SEC. Hendon Hooker, Darnell Wright and Jalin Hyatt were Pruitt signees. Miles Kitselman last year was a transfer. Heck, even among the running backs, Jaylen Wright committed when Pruitt was there.
That leaves Dylan Sampson as the only player Heupel targeted on offense for Tennessee football to reach All-SEC to this point. Entering year five, that’s unacceptable for somebody who was hired as an offensive guru and got famous helping his players put up video game numbers.
Well, this year, Heupel has nowhere to hide.
With Bru McCoy, Squirrel White and Dont’e Thornton Jr. gone, Heupel has just one receiver, Chris Brazzell II, he didn’t sign out of high school. His main two running backs were also high school signees, as are all of his tight ends except for Kitselman.
Offensive line is still loaded with transfers, as he returns Lance Heard and adds Sam Pendleton and Wendell Moe Jr., but that won’t be enough for him this year. He’s got to rely on high school signees, including David Sanders Jr. and somebody on the interior.
So far, there have been numerous red flags with Heupel and high school signees. He has yet to start an offensive lineman at Tennessee he signed out of high school, and then there was the Nico Iamaleava saga this spring. Add in the fact that he chose to start Joe Milton III over Hendon Hooker, and talent evaluation is a real concern with him.
This is his make-or-break year to address those issues. If Matthews isn’t a star receiver, Lewis isn’t a really good running back and the interior of the offensive line has no depth, there’s no way to believe in Heupel in the future. He hasn’t evaluated talent well to this point, and you have to judge him on how he does being unable to hide behind that.
