A DECADE AGO, simply after a 40-6 loss to Clemson within the Russell Athletic Bowl, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops known as longtime assistant Cale Gundy. Stoops requested Gundy if he might meet him at Bison Witches in downtown Norman. There, Stoops informed Gundy he was going to hearth his offensive coordinator, Josh Heupel.
The Sooners had simply suffered by their worst season beneath Stoops. TCU and Kansas State upset them. Baylor blew them out. And Oklahoma State, propelled by Tyreek Hill's punt return, rallied to win a Bedlam additional time thriller.
Then, within the bowl sport, Brent Venables' Clemson protection shut down the Sooners in a humiliating defeat.
“Bob had to make a change,” Gundy recalled. “I don't know, it was tough. … it wasn't just struggles on the offensive side. But Bob had to make that decision. An unbelievably tough call.”
Heupel was — and stays — OU royalty. In 2000, he quarterbacked the Sooners to their seventh nationwide championship; OU hasn't gained a title since.
Heupel later proved to be a valued assistant in the course of the Sooners' prolific run by the 2000s. He mentored Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks Jason White and Sam Bradford. In 2011, Heupel grew to become offensive coordinator, and over the subsequent 4 seasons, OU averaged 475 yards per sport, Tenth-best in faculty soccer throughout that span.
But in 2014, Stoops realized that his Sooners wanted a spark. And so, shortly after assembly Gundy, Stoops fired Heupel, later calling it the “worst day” in his 18 years as OU's coach.
“I have this deep appreciation for Josh, certainly first and foremost as a player,” stated Venables, OU's coach now and its co-defensive coordinator when Heupel starred for the Sooners. “I've always looked back and said, ‘Man, we couldn't have done it without Heupel.' His leadership, what he was able to do from a transformation standpoint to our locker room, the guts and the toughness that he played through. … I've always held him up here on this pedestal, from a player's standpoint.”
Saturday, for the primary time for the reason that firing, Heupel returns to the stadium the place he grew to become a Sooners legend. In his fourth season at Tennessee, Heupel brings the surging sixth-ranked Volunteers to Norman for OU's long-anticipated first convention sport as a member of the SEC.
Heupel has downplayed the importance of the reunion. He has additionally prevented opening up in regards to the firing. Heupel stated Monday that he was “tremendously grateful” for the chance OU gave him, each as a quarterback and a coach.
“I wouldn't be here,” he stated, “if I didn't have all those experiences.”
Those shut to Heupel, nevertheless, know the firing damage.
“I hope enough time [has gone by] that he still understands how much he means to this state, how much he means to the program,” Bradford stated. “I hope that he gets a warm reception. I hope that he's able to appreciate that and take that in before the game gets going.”
HEUPEL ARRIVED IN Norman in 1999, months after Stoops took over a struggling OU program that had reached a nadir. Since the tip of World War II, the Sooners had boasted extra victories (443) than another college. But OU hadn't loved a profitable season since 1993.
Stoops employed Air Raid guru Mike Leach from Kentucky to name performs. Immediately, Leach went trying to find a quarterback. He ended up concentrating on an unknown left-handed junior faculty switch from Snow College in Utah.
“I have no idea how Leach found Josh Heupel,” stated Tulsa offensive coordinator Steve Spurrier Jr., son of legendary Florida coach Steve Spurrier and a part of Stoops' first OU workers. “But one of the really important variables for Leach when he recruited quarterbacks was, what kind of completion percentage did they have? He doesn't have to hit deep balls. Doesn't have to have a really strong arm. But he has to throw completions. That was always crucial in his offense. And that was always crucial in his evaluation of quarterbacks.”
Heupel did not have the rocket arm coveted by NFL scouts or different blue-blood faculty packages. He could not run a lot, both. But Heupel might put the ball on the cash. And, as a coach's son, he knew the place to go together with it, too. That first yr, Heupel spent a lot of his free time with Leach mastering the Air Raid, an offensive scheme designed to unfold the sphere and assault the protection with fast passes.
“Josh was a QB rat. He wasn't into going out and partying. He was a football junkie,” Gundy stated. “That was perfect for Mike Leach, because obviously Mike liked to stay up late at night.”
That first season, for a program finest recognized for Barry Switzer's wishbone working assault, Heupel led all Power 5 quarterbacks with 310 completions, as Stoops' Sooners confirmed promise.
“We had the players. We just had to get the right coaches, structure, discipline. … and the right quarterback,” stated Rocky Calmus, an All-America linebacker for the Sooners then. “Josh would be the first to tell you he didn't have the strongest arm, but he was accurate. He read it and he could put it where it needed to be.”
The Sooners have been on the best way up. Yet virtually nobody thought-about them nationwide championship contenders heading into 2000. OU opened ranked twentieth within the preseason polls. The night time earlier than their first preseason observe, Heupel addressed the group and informed them they wanted to purpose increased.
“I wish somebody had recorded it. To this day, it's the best speech I've ever heard,” stated White, a redshirt freshman that yr. “His whole point was, why not us? He kept saying it. Why can't we win the Big 12? Why can't we win a national championship?”
Gundy and Spurrier stood at the again of the room. When Heupel uttered “national championship,” they regarded at one another in disbelief.
“We were not prepared for that. But Josh Heupel was,” Gundy stated. “The belief that Josh Heupel had and what he portrayed while he was here got this whole team going. The belief that we could be better than everybody, that we could win every game — that came from Josh Heupel.”
Flying beneath the radar, the Sooners roared by a three-game stretch that OU followers would time period “Red October.” The Sooners annihilated No. 11 Texas 63-14, then knocked off second-ranked Kansas State 41-31. That arrange a showdown in opposition to top-ranked Nebraska. The vaunted Huskers shortly jumped to a 14-0 lead.
“We couldn't have started off any worse,” stated Torrance Marshall, OU's different star linebacker then alongside Calmus. “But Josh didn't blink an eye. He didn't let that moment be too big for him and had the leadership to bring us back.”
With two Huskers in his face, Heupel lofted a 34-yard landing go on third-and-14 to Curtis Fagan in stride to tie the sport. The Sooners rolled the remainder of the best way to win 31-14 and declare the No. 1 rating within the polls.
Like another participant, Heupel nonetheless had nerves. Calmus remembered him both throwing up or dry heaving within the locker room prior to each sport. Calmus would look ahead to him to “get it out,” as the 2 captains normally took the sphere final. But Heupel's demeanor whereas on the sphere helped give these Sooners a singular resiliency.
“He was remarkably calm in who he was,” Spurrier stated. “A calm confidence about him that rubbed off on other people.”
The Sooners did not all the time win simply. But they remained calm in tight moments, particularly in dramatic victories over Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and Kansas State once more within the Big 12 championship sport. The undefeated Sooners superior to the Orange Bowl to face Florida State for the nationwide title. The defending champion Seminoles, led by 28-year-old quarterback Chris Weinke, have been double-digit favorites to repeat.
Before flying to Miami, the Sooners held a watch get together at their group facility to see if Heupel gained the Heisman Trophy. Instead, Weinke narrowly edged out Heupel in one of many closest Heisman votes in historical past.
“I felt that Josh got robbed,” Marshall stated. “I was prepared to show [Weinke] why he shouldn't have gotten it.”
Starting with the Orange Bowl coin toss.
“I told [Weinke], ‘You got my boy's trophy,' and he said, ‘No, I don't.' I said, ‘Yeah, you do — and we're going to find out today,'” Marshall recalled. “And I meant it. I was dead serious about it. … We wanted to go out there and show them that we were the better team, we had the better quarterback, and you guys did make a mistake and didn't give the right person the Heisman.”
The OU protection compelled Weinke into three turnovers, together with a Marshall interception, and did not permit the Seminoles offense to rating. Heupel and the Sooners did sufficient offensively to win 13-2, capping off a magical season.
“We backed it up,” Calmus stated. “It was perfect. We got the main trophy.”
HEUPEL CAME BACK to OU in 2004 as a graduate assistant, working with White and the opposite quarterbacks.
“I remember thinking to myself then, that dude's going to be a great coach,” White stated, “just because of how he's handled me.”
In 2006, after a brief stint at Arizona, Heupel returned to OU to be its quarterbacks coach. That preseason, beginning quarterback Rhett Bomar was dismissed from the group for accepting cash from a neighborhood automobile dealership for work he did not do. On the fly, Heupel helped Paul Thompson regulate from receiver to enjoying quarterback once more. Thompson wound up throwing for 22 touchdowns, as OU gained one other Big 12 title.
After each observe that season, Heupel spent a half hour individually working with Bradford, then a redshirting freshman manning the scout group. Two years later, in 2008, Bradford gained the Heisman, main a record-setting OU assault that scored 60-plus in 5 straight video games.
“He was the single greatest influence in my football career,” stated Bradford, taken by the Rams as the primary total choose within the 2010 draft. “He believed in me before I believed in myself. He saw something in me that I hadn't quite seen in myself. And he figured out a way to bring it out of me.”
Heupel additionally recruited Landry Jones, who took over for Bradford and ended his profession with 16,646 passing yards, probably the most of any Power 5 quarterback in faculty soccer historical past.
“He had a huge hand in all of it,” Jones stated. “If you're going to call any school Quarterback U now, you have to start with Oklahoma. And you think about the guys that he had, and just the quarterbacks at Oklahoma, it started with him.”
White even remembered stopping by OU exercises in 2018 and seeing Heisman winner Kyler Murray training the identical footwork drills that Heupel had taught him again when he was a freshman virtually twenty years earlier.
“Josh really set the tone for what it was to play quarterback at the University of Oklahoma,” White stated. “He set the standard.”
White, Bradford and others got here to consider that Heupel was on monitor to probably succeed Stoops as OU's head coach. That all modified in 2014.
After firing Heupel, Stoops changed him with East Carolina offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, one other Leach protégé out of Texas Tech. Three years later, Stoops retired and OU named Riley its head coach as a substitute. Under Riley, OU superior to the playoff in three consecutive years with three totally different quarterbacks: 2017 Heisman winner Baker Mayfield, Murray and Alabama switch Jalen Hurts; all three are actually NFL starters.
But in 2021, Riley stunningly bolted OU for USC.
“Regardless of why he got fired, we lost a guy that truly believed in Oklahoma football, and those are the guys you want,” White stated of Heupel. “We lost a great coach with unlimited potential.”
HEUPEL'S POTENTIAL AS a head coach is lastly being realized at Tennessee. A decade after being fired at Oklahoma, Heupel has reemerged with one of many hottest groups in faculty soccer. The Vols have gained their first three video games by a mean margin of 59 factors.
UNLV coach Barry Odom, an Oklahoma native, remembered going through Heupel whereas enjoying linebacker for Missouri in 1999. Odom relished speaking trash to opposing quarterbacks. Heupel was the one quarterback who talked again.
“His competitive spirit is unmatched,” Odom stated. “He carries a chip on his shoulder, but he uses it in a very productive way. … he's a stone-cold killer. That's the way he played, and that's the way he coaches.”
When Odom acquired the top job at Missouri in 2016, he employed Heupel from Utah State. In his one yr with the Aggies, Heupel had recruited and signed Jordan Love, who's now the beginning quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.
Over Heupel's two seasons as Missouri's offensive coordinator, the Tigers ranked sixth nationally in each yards per dropback (8.01) and passing touchdowns (69).
Before the 2018 season, UCF athletic director Danny White gave Heupel his shot to be a head coach. Three years later, White introduced Heupel with him to Tennessee.
“We were just really impressed with the level of knowledge of the offense,” White stated, “going back to his time as a player at Oklahoma playing in it and then how he's evolved it and adjusted it depending on the personnel — and the way he explained it was just next level.”
In Heupel's second season in Knoxville, Tennessee went 11-2, together with three straight wins over ranked opponents, which culminated with an exhilarating 52-49 victory over No. 3 Alabama.
This yr, headlined by electrical freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava, Heupel seems to have his finest Tennessee group but.
Stoops has declined to do any interviews this week about Heupel's return, citing the “great respect” he has for Venables and for Heupel, whom he noted was “the catalyst” for OU's return to prominence this millennium.
But Venables stated he is not shocked how Heupel has bounced again, noting that “he's always been a winner.” Gundy is not shocked, both.
“Instead of moping on it, dwelling on it, he kept his head up and found another place,” Gundy stated. “He's done nothing but run with it ever since.”
Marshall has remained shut with Heupel, bonded by the nationwide championship they gained collectively. Marshall, who has attended a half-dozen Vols video games, stated he was “disappointed” when OU fired Heupel. But although “that cut was deep,” Marshall identified “it led him to where he is” — main the Vols.
“That just shows what type of character and what type of person he is,” Marshall stated. “Lick your wounds and figure it out. He just went back to the drawing board. … put his head down and grinded it out.”
The grind has introduced Heupel again to OU, albeit on the alternative sideline.
Marshall stated will probably be “emotional” for Heupel returning “to the place where it all started for him.” But he is hoping Heupel can nonetheless “feel the love” from a program he as soon as helped put again on the map.
