New addition to Tennessee Vols coaching staff grew up idolizing Josh Heupel
Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Vols made a nice under-the-radar addition to their coaching staff this week. According to a report from Football Scoop's John Brice, Tennessee is adding former Southern Mississippi tight ends coach Cayden Cochran to the coaching staff as an offensive analyst. Brice reported that Cochran will primarily work with tight ends […]
Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Vols made a nice under-the-radar addition to their coaching staff this week.
According to a report from Football Scoop's John Brice, Tennessee is adding former Southern Mississippi tight ends coach Cayden Cochran to the coaching staff as an offensive analyst.
Brice reported that Cochran will primarily work with tight ends at Tennessee.
Cochran spent the last three seasons at Southern Miss.
The new Vols assistant started his college career as a player at Coffeyville Community College before transferring to Oklahoma — where he started at quarterback but moved to wide receiver within a week of joining the program. Heupel was the Sooners' offensive coordinator at the time.
Cochran spent one season at Oklahoma before transferring to Valdosta where he won a Division II national championship against Winston Salem State in 2012.
From AL.com: Cochran was an Oklahoma Sooner fan "since birth." He attended games with his grandfather, who had season tickets, and idolized Josh Heupel, a fellow lefthanded quarterback. Cochran first attended Coffeyville Community College, then went to Oklahoma as a walk-on. His first position coach: Josh Heupel.
"That was very cool. For about the first 10 minutes," Cochran said. "Then he gets in your face and is yelling at you, you realize he's your boss."
"He's awesome, he's absolutely awesome," said Cochran about Heupel on the Creative Native Podcast last spring. "So it's funny, you know, Heupel was the quarterback at Oklahoma in 2000 when they won the national championship, right? So I'm 10 years old. He's left handed. I'm left handed. I'm gonna grow up and I'm gonna be Josh Heupel. That's who I want to be. He's my hero, right? Well, it's a little bit different when you start playing for the guy. I'm at Oklahoma, fast forward to 2011, and now he's my coach. I mean, he's hard on us. He's holding everybody to the standard of what Oklahoma should be held to. And man, if you don't bring it that day, he's gonna let you know about it. And so it was just funny the dynamic of like, 'oh my gosh, like, this is literally my hero' to where, you know, he's giving me negative points for not finishing through the line or he doesn't think my effort's there on a certain drill. And so he's kind of getting into me."
"But yeah, nothing but unbelievable things to say about Coach Heupel," continued Cochran. "And all those guys that were there. Coach (Joey) Halzle, who's now the quarterbacks coach at Tennessee. He was also there at that time as a young coach. And they do such an unbelievable job. Just to get into the football scheme of things, Coach Heupel has reinvented himself into what he is right now. And that's extremely hard to do as a football coach. With what Tennessee does on offense, it's hard to handle. And he reinvented himself. He wasn't running that style of offense in Oklahoma. So I've got so much respect for him and obviously he's taking Tennessee to some really some high places."
Heupel is all about continuity on his coaching staff and adding a player who idolized him growing up certainly falls into that category.
