Everyone knows that Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel won a national championship as Oklahoma’s starting quarterback in 2000.

But not everyone knows that Heupel was barely able to play in the national championship game against Florida State.

Former Sooners head coach Bob Stoops told the story this week of Heupel injuring the thumb on his throwing hand the week before the game, and then watching Heupel look terrible in pregame warmups.

“What people don’t realize, and it’s been talked about a little bit, but not a bunch,” said Stoops on The Bozcast. “Heupel, he’s a left hander, he hurt his thumb in the middle of the week.

“And it’s bad, but not too bad. And you know Josh, he wasn’t saying a word. You know how tough he is. He was like, ‘Nah, I’m gonna play.’ We’re in warmups, we’re seeing [Heupel throw] all kinds of bad balls. I looked at our quarterbacks coach Chuck Long and our offensive coordinator Mark Mangino and they go, ‘What are we going to do?’ And I go, ‘We’re playing him — we’re not changing anything now.’ But that affected our whole day, Josh’s Thumb (did). But he fought through it, and we did what we had to do to win.”

Heupel completed 25-of-39 passes for 214 yards in the Sooners’ 13-2 win over the Seminoles. He also had 23 rushing yards on 13 attempts.

That’s certainly not the first story of Heupel’s toughness that we’ve heard from his Oklahoma days.

Former Sooners tight end Josh Norman detailed a couple of years ago what Heupel went through that entire 2000 season.

“As a team leader, he was a guy you could just count on,” said Norman. “Because you saw what he went [through]. When I tell you that run to the national championship, those last three or four games, honestly, it was hard for him to throw the ball from me to that trash can. If you go watch the games, he always wore long sleeves. And it was because literally from his wrist all the way up to his armpit — black and blue. He was jacked up.

“If you go back and watch the first game against Kansas State, shoot both games against Kansas State that year, they ran that 4-6 defense. They were bringing cover zero like 80 percent of the time. And the air raid ain’t known for seven/eight man protections. You got five or six at the most. They were coming after him. And they were getting to him. He was getting the ball out, but they were lighting his tail up. And you see that — literally like peeling him off the ground. And he’d just get up and you could just see the hurt and the pain in his face. But he’d look to the sideline, get the play, walk in the huddle, he’d call it, he’d make the play. He’d deliver every time. And just hearing that, it does something to you. So he was a great leader, man. We have so much respect for that dude. And that’s the reason all of the guys that played with him just love seeing what he’s doing even to this day.”

One of the reasons Heupel connects so well with his players is because they know he’s been through everything that he’s asking them to go through. And he went through it at the highest level of college football.

Heupel is still that same guy — he just has a headset instead of a helmet these days.