Josh Heupel returns to Oklahoma after firing that was blessing in disguise

Josh Heupel remains ‘beloved’ by Oklahoma, says longtime Sooners athletics director.
Bob Stoops fired Josh Heupel from his Oklahoma staff in 2014. That became the inflection point of Heupel’s coaching career.
Josh Heupel says now that 2014 firing ‘absolutely’ was blessing in disguise that led him to Tennessee.

His succinct answer stands on its own. It requires no elaboration.

Two syllables. Seven letters.

That’s all Castiglione needs to explain how Oklahoma feels about Josh Heupel.

“Beloved,” Castiglione, Oklahoma’s veteran athletics director, told me this week.

No equivocation.

Heupel remains an Oklahoma legend, and Castiglione said the school plans to treat him as such in the pregame before the No. 13 Sooners host No. 7 Tennessee on Saturday.

“We’re working through all of that, but we will absolutely recognize him in a way that is appropriate,” Castiglione said.

And then the game will begin, with Heupel standing on the opposing sideline as the red-hot coach of the Vols, thanks in part to the fact that Oklahoma fired him a decade ago, the inflection moment of Heupel’s coaching career.

The January 2015 day that Bob Stoops canned Heupel, his former star quarterback and longtime lieutenant, placed an even bigger chip on Heupel’s shoulder.

It also freed Heupel of his bonds to his alma mater and afforded him the chance to restart.

Heupel set out from Norman to freely build the offense he wanted to operate. That offense put Heupel on a path to restoring Tennessee to prominence, rather than face the burden of Stoops’ shadow.

Heupel’s career shines as bright as ever.

So, is he ready to call his firing from OU a blessing in disguise?

“Yeah, absolutely,” Heupel said Wednesday. “Proud of a lot of what we did or I was a part of while I was (at Oklahoma), but I wouldn’t change anything.

“I’m fortunate and blessed to be here and absolutely love it on Rocky Top.”

Josh Heupel ‘talked a little more trash than I was used to’

Barry Odom needed only one game against Josh Heupel, a 1999 Big 12 meetup in Norman, to realize this guy was unlike most quarterbacks he faced.

“He talked a little more trash than I was used to quarterbacks talking,” said Odom, the former Missouri linebacker who’s now UNLV’s coach, “and he backed it up with his play.”

That chip on Heupel’s shoulder existed before Stoops fired him.

Maybe, that chip traces to Heupel being under-recruited as a star quarterback from Aberdeen, South Dakota. Heupel journeyed through the Football Championship Subdivision and junior college pitstops before Mike Leach recruited Heupel to play quarterback for Stoops and the Sooners. In 2000, Heupel became the Heisman runner-up and led Oklahoma to its lone national championship in the past 38 years.

That Stoops fired Heupel years later just made that chip grow a little bigger.

And that was just fine by Odom.

Odom, after becoming Missouri’s coach before the 2016 season, knew he wanted to do something outside the box with the Tigers’ offense.

Missouri had a promising young quarterback, Drew Lock.

“I wanted a quarterback’s guy,” Odom said.

Who better than Heupel?

Heupel had just finished a season as Utah State’s offensive coordinator. Odom thought he could nab him to be Missouri’s offensive coordinator. Still, Odom found Heupel hard to pry loose.

“It wasn’t easy to get him hired, because he’s a loyal guy,” Odom said.

Odom coached on the defensive side of the ball. That meant Heupel, officially his offensive coordinator, functioned as Missouri’s “head coach of the offense,” as Odom described it.

“I trusted him,” Odom said. “There wasn’t anybody in the building who outworked him.”

Heupel enjoyed free reign to install the warp-speed spread offense that became his calling card and later propelled him to head coaching success at Central Florida and Tennessee.

Missouri’s offense markedly improved in Heupel’s first season on Odom’s staff. The following year, the offense really took off. So did Heupel’s career.

When UCF came calling, Odom knew Heupel couldn’t pass on this opportunity. He always figured his time working with Heupel would be limited.

“I knew we wouldn’t probably have a chance to work together very long,” Odom said, “because I thought he would be a head coach because of his vision, his consistency, his disciplined approach and his ability to see the big picture.”

And what of Stoops’ view of the big picture a decade ago?

Did Stoops make the right call?

It’s tough to answer that definitively, but here are the facts: Stoops brought in Lincoln Riley to take over the offense. The Sooners won 11 games in each of the next two seasons before Stoops retired. Riley ascended to the Oklahoma throne, and the Sooners made three consecutive playoff appearances before Riley flew the coop to Southern California.

By then, Heupel had Tennessee cooking.

Why Bob Stoops fired Josh Heupel, an ‘iconic figure’ of Oklahoma football

Something needed to change after Oklahoma flopped throughout a 2014 season that ended with a 40-6 loss to Clemson.

Stoops changed his offensive leadership. He retained his defensive coordinator, brother Mike Stoops, and fired his co-offensive coordinators, Heupel and Jay Norvell.

This ended Heupel’s nine-year run on Stoops’ staff. More, it killed the possibility of Heupel becoming Stoops’ heir.

Stoops, in his autobiography, wrote that firing Heupel stands as “the worst day” of his 18 years coaching the Sooners.

It’s not uncommon for coaches to fire a coordinator or two after a disappointing season, and 2014 qualified as a disappointment. The Sooners opened the season ranked No. 3 and ended with a loss to rival Oklahoma State in Bedlam and a whipping in the Russell Athletic Bowl.

Firing Heupel, though, was undeniably unique. He wasn’t just any assistant. He’d become part of the soul of Oklahoma football. He’d captured the hearts of Sooners fans and provided jet fuel to Stoops’ tenure, first as player and then as an assistant who developed Sam Bradford.

“He is one of the iconic figures in Oklahoma football history,” Castiglione said of Heupel.

Castiglione, the school’s athletic director since 1998, remembers fondly Heupel’s role as quarterback during Oklahoma’s famous 2000 march through “Red October,” when the Sooners beat No. 10 Texas, No. 3 Kansas State and No. 1 Nebraska in succession.

Castiglione also stressed Heupel’s “positive and notable impact” throughout his years on Stoops’ staff.

“I don’t want to speak for coach (Stoops), but it was a really, really difficult decision to step back and see what a coach feels has to be done,” Castiglione said, “but there wasn’t any hint of anybody being a scapegoat for anything. That was totally not the case. Just a time that a leader believes that some changes have to occur.”

Stoops, who did not respond to my interview request, released a public statement in which he wrote that he has “great respect” for Heupel and Sooners coach Brent Venables, another of his former assistants.

Stoops described Heupel as “the MVP of all my recruits” and “the catalyst” of his tenure.

Then, forced to chart a new course, Heupel became the catalyst for Tennessee.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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