Hard not to appreciate Josh Heupel now
Hard not to appreciate Josh Heupel now
I wanted to like Josh Heupel and for a year, at least, I’m sure that I did.
That would have been 1999, the prelude season, when Heupel made an art of hitting Sooner receivers who’d been recruited by John Blake to play defensive back, guys like Curtis Fagan, Andre Woolfolk and Damian Mackey, finding them all over the field or, the next best thing, under-throwing them into pass interference calls.
It was the one and only season Mike Leach ran the Mike Leach offense himself in Norman and it was wildly exciting on the heels of three straight losing seasons defined by the previous head coach’s utter incompetence.
Fan or media member, you couldn’t help but be caught up in it. No rooting from the press box, sure, but the excitement seeped through.
So what if Oklahoma gave up leads in losses to Notre Dame and Texas, ultimately finishing 7-5 after an Independence Bowl loss to Ole Miss in beautiful Shreveport.
Heupel averaged 314.5 yards per outing through the air, fans returned, optimism reigned, this Bob Stoops guy appeared to know what he was doing, there was nothing not to like.
The next season, of course, was far more exciting, the program’s seventh national championship, though Heupel became a bore.
A Heisman Trophy frontrunner by the time Red October ran its course — 63-14 over No. 11 Texas; 41-31 over No. 2 Kansas State; 31-14 over No. 1 Nebraska — never has a college football player said so little when in demand by so many to say something, anything.
Though a player, it was as though a jukebox of rapid fire coach-speak selections lived inside Heupel’s head and, no matter what might be asked, he’d telepathically press a button in his brain and out would come a fast monotone answer, signifying nothing.
Somehow, Heupel finished No. 2 in the Heisman race despite the Sooner defense taking over the second half of the season, OU putting up just 79 points the last four weeks of its perfect and historic campaign.
The MVP wasn’t the quarterback, but a linebacker, or safety — now they call it “cheetah” — Roy Williams.
Later, as a coach, it was the same thing, particularly when Heupel produced offensive game plans bearing no resemblance to Sooner opponents’ defensive capabilities, or even his own quarterback’s.
He always had answers.
They never made any sense.
Firing Heupel was something Bob Stoops did not want to do, hated to do, yet had no choice but to do following OU’s Nov. 15, 2014, contest at Texas Tech.
The Red Raiders were giving up almost 250 ground yards per game, yet Heupel had backup quarterback Cody Thomas fling 17 first-half passes, leading to a 21-7 intermission deficit.
Running Stoops’ offense, not Heupel’s, in the second half — Thomas attempted just three more passes — OU prevailed 42-30, running for 381 yards on 51 carries.
Trust was gone.
Heupel had to go.
How he wound up at Tennessee after losing one, then three, then four games at Central Florida when Scott Frost had finished unbeaten the year before he arrived remains a mystery to me.
Of course, he’s killing it in Knoxville now and should the Sooners somehow beat the Vols Saturday night at Owen Field, anyone who says they’re not surprised will be showcasing their vast blind faith and lack of pregame understanding.
Heupel was, in a word, exhausting.
Now I might have like him again for all the success I didn’t think he had in him, likely beginning the day Derrick Strait had to break up a pass in a Stillwater end zone against a bad bunch of Pokes to secure a 12-7 victory — 12-7!!! — to keep the Sooners magical 2000 season going.
Brent Venables helped that cause along on Tuesday.
Venables confessed he and Mike Stoops, co-defensive coordinators at the time, wanted Akili Smith to be OU’s quarterback.
Smith became a star at Oregon and played in the NFL, but after Leach met Heupel for the first time on a Norman winter day, that was it, no need for Smith to visit.
“Lesson learned,” Venables said.
And if Heupel was horrendous answering reporters’ questions in the media room, he was apparently aces with his teammates in the locker room.
“He brought people together and he was able to relate to people regardless of where they came from,” Venables said. “And that’s a 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.”
Hard not to like a guy like that.
We heard later, though not mentioned at the time, Heupel was going through real arm trouble the second half of the Sooners’ national championship season.
Perhaps I should have let him off the hook. Had he come across as remotely genuine when lobbed pregame and postgame questions, I might well have.
He didn’t.
Neither did I.
Of course, covering him was my job.
He making it easy for me to cover him wasn’t necessarily his.
“There were plenty of guys that helped create the culture, but Josh led the way,” Venables said. “So he’s always been a leader … always had this innate ability to have great poise, great focus but also have some fun.”
Sounds like a good guy.
Somewhere along the way, not here, he became a heck of a coach, too.