Kirk Herbstreit has no issues when it comes to lecturing college football fanbases over their behavior. But instead of the Ohio State “lunatic fringe” this time he is turning his attention to the fanbase of the Tennessee Volunteers.
During last season’s playoff, Herbstreit’s negative comments about Ohio State fans went viral, continuing a years long battle where he has called out the extreme edges of Buckeye Nation. When Herbstreit left central Ohio for the greener pastures of Nasvhille many years ago, he said it was due to a vocal minority of Ohio State fans.
But now Herbstreit is adding Tennessee Volunteers coach Josh Heupel to the list of college football coaches that he is willing to shield from criticism. On his Nonstop podcast with ESPN colleague and fellow Buckeye grad Joey Galloway, Herbstreit took a moment to send a message to the Tennessee fanbase over what he deemed to be a ‘——–‘ narrative surrounding the Vols head coach… complete with fancy sound effects.
“Lock Josh Heupel and his staff down for 100 YEARS!” 🗣️🗣️ #nonstop pic.twitter.com/YSzMvOxcEQ
— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) November 3, 2025
“Tip of the cap to the fans, to the game ops at Tennessee. It’s as good of a scene to me as there is in the country when they’re rolling. And I think, I heard some nonsense from Tennessee fans about, ‘Josh Heupel’s got to go! Everybody, whoever loses has got to go.’ Man, ——-,” Herbstreit proclaimed.
“Have you thought about where Tennessee’s football program was before Josh Heupel got there? Off-the-field issues, drama, BS all going. This is a good football team that lost maybe the two best corners on one team. You should be just like lock Josh Heupel and his staff down for 100 years. You can’t win every game. You guys are heading in a great direction. Be grateful. It’s gonna come, you can’t win them all. And when you lose one it doesn’t mean you need to fire a coach. I’m just tired of hearing a team, all these fans when they lose a game, we got to fire our coach. It’s not, that’s not the answer,” he added.
First of all, Tennessee might not want to sign Josh Heupel to a 100 year contract extension. Can you imagine the buyout for that? It would make Jeff Landry’s head explode. Plus, Heupel would be 147 years old by the time it ended. It’s hard to imagine him making a great connection with high school recruits at that age.
The ESPN analyst did share some of his reasoning for being so bothered by the harsh criticism towards Ryan Day after losing to Michigan again last year was because of the threats against him and his family. Of course, no reasonable person would deem that to be acceptable, especially over football.
However, where Kirk Herbstreit loses college football fans is when he begins to conflate any kind of criticism towards a coach, or expectations of success, as “lunatic fringe” behavior from a fanbase. Tennessee has a proud history and Josh Heupel has done better than any coach not named Phillip Fulmer in Knoxville in recent memory. Is it so bad that fans are upset after a home loss to Oklahoma probably dashed any hopes of making the College Football Playoff this year? And if it is so unconscionable and a non-starter, why even bother bringing it up in the first place? Just to get in another shot about how terrible college football fans are?
Kirk Herbstreit really does enjoy poking the bear and calling out college football fans for activity that he deems to be unacceptable. He also let out some frustration with Ryen Russillo, calling out fans over their belief about ESPN having a slant in favor of the SEC.
It’s a bit peculiar as Herbstreit has simultaneously become much more vocal when it comes to speaking out on podcasts and letting the opinions fly. However, he backed away from doing the weekly CFP rankings show on ESPN because the backlash towards him from various fanbases (especially at Florida State) became too much to bear.
Perhaps Unfiltered Podcast Kirk Herbstreit is where we will have to find out what the longtime ESPN analyst really thinks versus his television persona.
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