What Bob Stoops said about Josh Heupel before Tennessee and Oklahoma played in Norman last season
The Tennessee Vols will play the Oklahoma Sooners in Neyland Stadium on Saturday night.
The Tennessee Vols will host the Oklahoma Sooners this weekend in Neyland Stadium.
This season’s matchup between Tennessee and Oklahoma doesn’t have quite as much hype as last year’s game in Norman.
The Tennessee vs Oklahoma matchup a year ago was Vols head coach Josh Heupel’s first time returning to Norman since he was fired by then OU head coach Bob Stoops in early 2015.
Tennessee beat Oklahoma 25-15 last season, resulting in one of the Vols’ biggest celebrations of the season.
What Bob Stoops said about Josh Heupel before last year’s game between Tennessee and Oklahoma
Stoops chose not to do interviews last season the week of the Tennessee vs Oklahoma game.
“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,” tweeted Stoops the week before the game last season. “All attention needs to be on those two coaches and their programs. 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 and 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!”
Stoops didn’t discuss Heupel’s time at Oklahoma the week of the Tennessee game last year, but he did talk about his former quarterback a few weeks before the game during an appearance on The Family Business.
“Oh no question,” said Stoops when asked if he thinks Heupel is one of the most important players to play for Oklahoma. “I said it in my book, The Making of a Head Coach, that we’ve had so many Heisman winners at quarterback, national award winners, NFL players through the years since I’ve been here. I just mean we may have had more talented guys, but I don’t believe — to me, he’s the most valuable player of all of them. Because he was one of the true leaders to start it.
“He, and guys like Rocky Calmus and on and on. Certain guys got it started. And had the mindset to win. Obviously the way he (Heupel) played — I don’t think there’s a more important position than quarterback. To lead us to an undefeated season is definitely — he was a huge piece of getting it all started.”
Stoops has previously told the story of Heupel, who played at Oklahoma in 1999 and 2000, standing in front of the team before the 2000 season and telling his Sooners teammates that they could win every game on the schedule (which is exactly what Oklahoma did that season, on their way to winning the national championship).
“I can remember [Heupel] going game by game,” said Stoops. “He knew the schedule. ‘Why can’t we beat them?’ and then ‘why can’t we beat them?’. And then at the end he kept saying why not us?”
“As a staff, we always did a good job of intentionally putting in front of our players and our staff the championship teams, the great hall of fame players,” continued Stoops. “And [we] kept saying ‘this is what we are to be, this is who Oklahoma is and we’re going to do everything we can to be this.’ And sure enough, Josh, at the end, after going through every game, said ‘why not us?’. And those guys took an attitude of ‘it’s going to be us’.”
It’s easy to see why Heupel is still beloved by so many of his former Oklahoma teammates.
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The Tennessee Vols will welcome the Oklahoma Sooners to Neyland Stadium on Saturday night.
