Josh Heupel cracks joke about Oklahoma fans ahead of Tennessee road game in Norman
Saturday night, Josh Heupel will make his return to Norman. Now the Tennessee head coach, he was Bob Stoops’ offensive coordinator after playing at Oklahoma – and he had a joke about what type of reception the Vols could expect from the fans.
Heupel played two years at Oklahoma after starting his college career at Weber State and Snow College at the JUCO level. He then got his coaching start with the Sooners in 2004 as a graduate assistant, then returned to Norman as quarterbacks coach from 2006-10. In 2011, Heupel moved up to offensive coordinator until his departure in 2014.
Saturday, he’ll head back to Memorial Stadium. He expects a raucous crowd – except when the faithful welcome Tennessee with, as Heupel joked, total silence out of respect.
“Should be a great crowd,” Heupel told reporters. “It’s a passionate fan base. I’m expecting them to be extremely quiet for us, out of respect to me and our program, too.”
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Heupel won a national championship as a player at Oklahoma and helped the Sooners to a Big 12 title as offensive coordinator. After his departure from OU, he spent a year at Utah State before becoming the offensive coordinator at Missouri from 2016-17.
In 2018, Heupel got his first head coaching opportunity at UCF, where he had a 28-8 record before taking over at Tennessee. He quickly turned the Vols around, going 30-12 over three seasons and winning the SEC’s Coach of the Year award in 2022.
Now, he’s heading back to Norman to go up against his alma mater and former employer. Although Heupel spoke about his return, Stoops said he’s declining interviews because of his history with both head coaches.
“Having a strong history with both Brent Venables and Josh Heupel as players/coaches has led to far too many requests for interviews – so I’m respectfully declining them all. All attention needs to be on those two coaches & their programs,” Stoops wrote in a post on social media. “I have great respect for both coaches. I’m grateful for their great work here at OU; Brent as a coach here for 13 years including our national championship in 2000. Josh as our 2000 national championship QB & coach for 10 years. I’ve often said he is the MVP of all my recruits because he was the catalyst that got us started in ’99.”
“I wish them both great success moving forward! But in the end I’m all – Boomer Sooner!”