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Josh Heupel makes his long-awaited return to Oklahoma in 2024, a reunion years in the making
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DALLAS — Josh Heupel only expected 1 Oklahoma question when he made his way through SEC Media Day on Tuesday. “I missed on the over/under,” he said. In truth, Oklahoma was front and center for the Tennessee coach at the league’s annual media conference. At one point, he had to ask a reporter to repeat his question because he was so taken off guard by seeing so many faces from his past in Norman.
The SEC knew what it was doing, scheduling Heupel and the Volunteers on the main stage right before Brent Venables and Oklahoma. The Vols will also be OU’s first SEC opponent as a member of the conference. And that Sept. 21 trip to Norman will be Heupel’s first time back on Owen Field since he was fired after the 2014 season.
“I’m not at Tennessee if I wasn’t at Oklahoma before that,” Heupel said.
Heupel won a national championship as the starting quarterback at Oklahoma in 2000. He was an All-American, a Heisman runner-up, and one of the best passers to come through the school. He went 20-5 in 2 seasons as a starter. After a brief professional career, he moved into coaching.
He was a graduate assistant at Oklahoma in 2004. After a season in Arizona in 2005, he came back to Oklahoma in 2006 as the quarterbacks coach. He coached Sam Bradford to a Heisman Trophy. He coached Landry Jones throughout one of the most productive careers in OU history. In 2011, at just 33 years old, Bob Stoops made Heupel his offensive coordinator.
When a once-promising season fell apart in 2014, Stoops made a change and Heupel was asked to leave his alma mater. In a 2019 memoir, “No Excuses,” Stoops wrote that day was the worst of his 18-year tenure at OU.
And the pain was felt all around. The wounds stayed fresh. Oklahoma has insisted its doors have always been open to Heupel. In 2019, Heupel told The Tulsa World that he hadn’t since spoken with Stoops but he believed “some day our paths will cross again.”
Trent Smith, a tight end on the Sooners’ national title-winning team, told The Athletic in 2020 that Heupel was the hero, the coach, and then “the chosen one,” but that he hoped to see the two sides reconcile and come back together.
“Time heals all wounds,” Smith told The Athletic then, “and I hope one day soon there’s a big pregame Josh Heupel Day.”
Fast forward 5 years and, in a ballroom in Dallas, a columnist for The Tulsa World asked Heupel to reflect on his shared history with the Sooners upon their arrival in the SEC.
That day Smith and so many of Heupel’s teammates hoped for is coming. It’s on the schedule. Sept. 21, Heupel will return to Norman.
“First time I will have been back. It’ll be unique for myself to be on the other side of the sideline,” Heupel said. “Obviously there’s been a lot of Saturdays where I was on the home sideline. But there are so many great teammates, friends that will be there. Got great respect for the university, the program. A lot of friends that are coaching on the opposing sideline that day, former teammates that will be coaching on that opposing sideline, too. So it’ll be unique to be back there, but excited to be there.”
One of those friends will be OU coach Brent Venables.
Now the Sooners’ leading man, Venables was the defensive coordinator under Stoops when Heupel played and then when Heupel joined the staff. Heupel called “Coach V” a cornerstone piece on a defensive staff full of cornerstones. He says Venables’ competitive drive and consistency were things that players noticed, and that Venables still had that same energy years later when Heupel joined the staff.
Venables spoke Tuesday of Heupel’s leadership throughout that 2000 season. Before that year, Heupel stood before the team and delivered a powerful speech, going down the schedule one by one and telling teammates no one on the slate could beat OU. He played through an injury to his throwing arm.
“What he was able to do from a transformation standpoint to our locker room, you know, the guts and the toughness that he played through that 2000 season, I’ve always held him up here on this pedestal when it comes from a player’s standpoint,” Venables said.
Venables and Heupel have stayed in touch, OU’s coach said. Venables has made a point to be there through the periods of success that come with being a coach and the pockets of failure that invariably turn up.
Heupel joked he’s not going to like Venables as much when they’re on opposite sidelines.
Related: The early point spread for Tennessee’s Week 4 game against the Sooners has Oklahoma favored by 3 points (via DraftKings). Tennessee fans can bet on several Vols-related props before the season gets under way by signing up with one of our top TN online sportsbooks.
But that day will be about Heupel — as much as he’d prefer it weren’t.
“I think first of all, whenever he comes back to town, he’s going to be welcomed. He’ll be welcomed by everybody. He’s the last Sooner great quarterback that’s won a national championship. It’s been a long time, almost 25 years,” former OU assistant Cale Gundy said. “He’s going to be welcomed with open arms. Again, I know his situation, when you go through things and you leave or you’re asked to leave, it’s tough. I was a part of that as well. But, you’ve got to move on and that’s just a part of life.”
Gundy was an assistant on Oklahoma’s staff from 1999-2022. He was there when Heupel was a player, he was there when Heupel was a coach, and he was there when Heupel was asked to leave.
“You walk on that field, it’ll be the first time he’s been there since he was let go a long time ago,” Gundy said. “I think it’s going to give him some relief and some peace, in my opinion, because as soon as he’s around that facility and walking into that stadium and walking on the field, I think there’s going to be a lot of fans yelling his name and I think that’s going to make him feel better. And regardless of what happens, the outcome of the game, he’s going to feel much better moving forward.”
Heupel was asked Tuesday how his feelings had evolved throughout the years, and he said he doesn’t know that they have or that they’ve needed to. He stressed he had respect for the program, admiration for the state, and a fond memory of what he accomplished as a player.
“It’ll be unique, my viewpoint, that day. At the end of the day, that Saturday in September is about Tennessee and Oklahoma — this year’s teams,” he said. “You’ll prepare the same way that you do, do it fiercely.”
But it won’t just be another day, another game, no matter how hard anyone involved tries to make it. The Week 4 meeting will be OU’s first SEC home game and, after years of anticipation, the atmosphere promises to be electric. Oklahoma fans will pack the stands and flood campus. Inside the stadium, they’ll get their first opportunity in 2 decades to show appreciation to Heupel.
“I think it’s probably been tough on him for so many years,” Gundy said, “but I think he’s going to have a different perspective once he walks on that field because I think he’s going to be greeted by Sooner Nation.”
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
