Brent Venables reveals battle with Mike Leach over recruitment of Josh Heupel

Josh Heupel will make his return to Norman this Saturday when his Tennessee team faces Oklahoma, and there will be a familiar face on the other sideline. Brent Venables, who was the defensive coordinator when Heupel played at OU, is now the Sooners head coach.

With excitement building for the matchup, Venables recalled his first impressions of Heupel when he came for a visit to Norman ahead of the 1999 season hoping to be the team’s next quarterback. It’s a good thing Venables wasn’t in charge of the offense, because he admitted Heupel wasn’t his first choice.

But Mike Leach, the offensive coordinator at the time, wouldn’t budge on his belief in the young QB.

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“We didn’t know anything about Josh, but he was outside of the office windows and he’s on a visit, Venables said.” There was maybe two guys on the visit and he was one of them. We had an old turf field down there and he was playing catch. Again, I’m saying this with incredible appreciation and respect for Josh. Couldn’t have been more wrong. Don’t judge a book by its cover. He was skinny and just frail.

“It was in the middle of winter. Just kind of pasty. The ball was coming off — he was a southpaw and probably hadn’t played in a couple of months — the ball was wobbly. We’re like, ‘that ain’t it.’ Leach, he didn’t even want to bring Akili Smith in on a visit. So lesson learned.”

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Heupel would go on to lead the Big 12 in passing the following season as OU went 7-5 in the inaugural season of Bob Stoops. It was what he accomplished the following year that would forever make him a Sooner legend.

Heupel would go on to lead Oklahoma to a 13-0 record and national championship victory against Florida State in 2000. He was also named an All-American that season after throwing for 3,392 yards and 20 touchdowns to 14 interceptions.

Brent Venables praises Josh Heupel as a leader

It’s safe to say that Leach proved he knew what it was talking about when it came to Heupel. Venables quickly came to see that through how the quarterback emerged as a leader to help create a winning culture for the team.

“Josh, amazing work ethic and humility,” he said. “Same guy every day. Didn’t try to be anybody that he wasn’t. I don’t know what the culture was like before we got here, so it’s not really fair for me to say that he changed it, other than there was some brokenness and he brought people together. He was able to relate to people regardless of what they come from. That’s the cool thing about a locker room, but sometimes it’s not as easy to get it to mesh, everybody from all the different backgrounds and whatnot. But it was for him. He led the way, offense to defense.

“One of his best friends was Torrance Marshall and is still to this day. If you know Torrance, he went to South Dade High School in Miami. Of course, Josh is from Aberdeen. They couldn’t come from two (more) completely different environments. To watch those guys pretty quickly bond and become friends and help the locker room, amongst others. There were plenty of guys that helped create a culture, but Josh led the way. So he’s always been a leader and he’s always had this innate ability to have great poise, great focus, but also have some fun.”

Heupel would go on to become a quarterbacks coach for the Sooners in 2006 and was later promoted to offensive coordinator. However, he was fired following the 2014 season.

That left a soured relationship between him and the program, but the hope is with his return a decade later that some of that can be smoothed over. He clearly still means a lot to Oklahoma and its current head coach.

Kickoff between the Sooners and Volunteers is set for 6:30 p.m. CT on Saturday in Norman.