Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel has signed an extension through 2029 – at $9 million per year – after an 18-8 start to his tenure with the Vols.
-- Photo By Jerry Denham |The LedgerTennessee football coach Josh Heupel and athletic director Danny White didn’t technically arrive in Knoxville as a packaged deal. Yet both have seen their values escalate since reuniting on Rocky Top.
Tennessee has opened the purse springs to reward Heupel and White for their success over the last two years, handing both contract extensions and raises.
Heupel gets an extension through 2029 that will pay him $9 million per year with several bonus incentives possible. Heupel’s base salary is a $4 million increase from his previous deal.
White agreed to an extension that starts at $2.2 million annually with a six-year rolling term. White’s original starting salary was $1.8 million.
White was hired by UT in January 2021 after spending seven years as the AD at the University of Central Florida. Less than a month later, he dipped into the UCF pool to lure Heupel away from the Knights to help resurrect UT’s floundering football program.
The partnership has been lucrative on many levels.
Heupel’s $9 million annual salary makes him the fifth-highest-paid coach in the SEC behind Alabama’s Nick Saban ($11.7), Georgia’s Kirby Smart ($11.2), Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher ($9.5) and LSU’s Brian Kelly ($9.5).
In his two seasons at UT, Heupel has led the Vols to an 18-8 overall record with seven victories against Top 25 teams at the time of meeting. This past season, the Vols experienced their most success in more than two decades.
UT made its first New Year’s Six bowl appearance of the College Football Playoff era, beating Clemson in the Orange Bowl. It finished 11-2 overall with a No. 6 final ranking. The Vols started the season unranked.
“The results over Josh’s first two seasons speak for themselves,” White says. “He and his staff have energized both our football program and our fan base with an aggressive brand of football, a competitive culture that creates leaders and a relentless approach to raising the bar every single day.”
Details of Heupel’s contract released by the university reveal his buyout would be 100% of what he was owed if he were terminated without cause before Dec. 15, 2025. The buyout would drop to 75% if he were fired between Dec. 15, 2025 and Dec. 14, 2027, and decrease to 50% Dec. 15, 2027.
Heupel’s incentives package also was increased. He would earn $100,000 for making a bowl game and up to $1 million for winning the national championship. Other incentives include $50,000 for finishing in the Top 25, $100,000 for finishing in the top 10 and $150,000 for finishing in the top 5.
Heupel would receive additional money for playing in the SEC championship game, winning coach of the year and his team reaching certain academic progress rates along with receiving increased private jet usage.
If Heupel were to leave Tennessee, he would owe the school $8 million before Dec. 15. His buyout drops to $6 million until Dec. 15, 2024, and decreases by $1 million in each subsequent year. Heupel would owe Tennessee $2 million if he leaves before Dec. 15, 2028.
‘Period of dormancy’
Before Heupel took over at UT, the Vols had endured three losing seasons in four years. The program was in shambles after former head coach Jeremy Pruitt was fired for alleged recruiting violations and the roster quickly thinned as players transferred.
The revitalization this past season included cathartic victories over rivals Florida and Alabama. The win over the Crimson Tide was one for the ages as the fans stormed the field in a wild scene that led to the goal posts being thrown into the Tennessee River.
Tennessee received unprecedented publicity during the run and major donations began flowing into the athletic coffers.
The Vols set a single-season record by selling 17,297 new season tickets for football in 2022, and more than 7,500 new season tickets have been sold for the 2023 season since September.
“Despite a brief period of dormancy, Tennessee never surrendered its status as a college football powerhouse. We just needed an innovative leader like Josh Heupel to reignite the spark,” White says. “It’s been fun to crash the party, but as Josh said after our Orange Bowl triumph, the best is yet to come.”
White hopes that’s the case across the sports spectrum at UT.
Since White replaced Phillip Fulmer as AD, Tennessee has won six SEC team championships in men’s basketball, baseball, women’s soccer and women’s swimming & diving. The Vols also won their first SEC men’s basketball tournament title since 1979 in March.
Baseball and men’s tennis earned No. 1 rankings in 2022 and men’s basketball finished No. 5.
Fundraising is coming off a record year for 2021-22 for total money, cash receipts and total donors. White announced in December that Tennessee had commitments of $361 million toward a campaign of raising $500 million by the summer of 2026.
Spring Game announced
Tennessee announced last week via social media that the Orange & White Game will be held April 15 at Neyland Stadium. More details are expected to be provided at a later date.
It will be a welcome return to normal for UT fans.
The Vols did not hold a spring game in 2022 due to major construction at Neyland Stadium. Instead, they streamed one of their practice scrimmages on video boards around campus as part of an all-sports weekend.