Josh Heupel was hired as Tennessee football coach on Wednesday, giving the Vols a package deal with his athletic director, who was hired only six days ago himself.

Athletic director Danny White announced he has hired Heupel as Tennessee’s 27th head coach. He’s now the Vols’ fifth different head coach, not counting interim or acting coaches, since the end of the 2008 season.

White said they looked at a number of candidates before coming to Heupel, someone he has worked with the past three years. White said Heupel wins with integrity, has a history of winning titles and is an architect of explosive offenses.

“He is a players’ coach and the kind of person the student-athletes go the extra mile for,” White said in a statement. “I saw that first-hand, and you can see it in his coaching record.”

Heupel will be introduced at a news conference later Wednesday.

He was 28-8 in three seasons at UCF, where White hired him to replace Scott Frost after the Knights went 13-0 in 2017. White signed Heupel to a one-year extension in December 2018 that kept him under contract through the 2023 season.

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AP College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo contributed to this report.

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More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

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