Josh Heupel will greet a longtime friend during the pregame handshake on Saturday night in Norman, OK.
Heupel will shake the hand of Brent Venables, the current head coach at Oklahoma and a former assistant coach with the Sooners in the 2000s.
Venables joined the Oklahoma staff as the Sooners’ co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in 1999, two positions that he held in Norman until his departure in 2011 – Venables added the title of associate head coach to his list prior to the 2004 season, too.
Venables’ arrival to the Oklahoma program was in 1999, the same year that then-Sooners head coach Bob Stoops brought in 21-year-old transfer quarterback Josh Heupel from Snow College in Ephraim, Utah.
Remembering Heupel’s first days as an Oklahoma quarterback, Venables joked this week that Heupel was a bit skinny, frail, and pasty when he first started with the Sooners. Heupel doesn’t disagree.
“Yeah, I probably was a little pasty,” Heupel said on Wednesday. “I was hiding in hibernation in the early part of my life. But when we got there I certainly had to continue to grow as a player.”
After a visit with Heupel, then-Oklahoma offensive coordinator Mike Leach knew that he had found his guy. While Heupel and Leach didn’t win the championship together during the 1999 season, the Sooners’ quarterback returned for the 2000 season and eventually hoisted college football’s greatest prize.
Orchestrating Oklahoma’s national championship-winning defense was none other than Brent Venables, in just his second year with the team.
While Heupel had a short stint in the NFL after his time in Norman, he returned back to his championship-winning program to begin his coaching career. Heupel began as a graduate assistant for the Sooners in 2004 and worked as Oklahoma’s quarterbacks coach from 2006 to 2014, adding the title of co-offensive coordinator in 2011.
What was once a player-coach relationship on different sides of the ball, Heupel and Venables spent six years together as the co-offensive coordinator and co-defensive coordinator, respectively, for the Sooners.
“Yeah, a guy that I’ve got so much respect for,” Heupel said about Venables on Monday. “Got a great family. Somebody that poured into me as a young coach and learn so much from him. He’s as good as they come when you look at what he’s done historically as a defensive coordinator. A lot of respect. Huge challenge for us this week.”
Venables shares the sentiment about this Saturday’s Top 25 clash being a challenge:
“So it’ll be exciting,” Venables said about the upcoming game. “I’m looking forward to have a great week of preparation. It’s a game that, to have a chance to win, don’t have to play perfect, but we’re going to have to play well. And you’re not going to play poorly and beat these guys. So our guys are looking forward to the challenge.”
While Heupel and Venables have a storied relationship as a player-coach and assistant coaches, neither will let their spirited memories of the other impact the game on Saturday in Norman. Because while this is a big game for Josh Heupel and his return to Oklahoma, and it is a big game for Brent Venables to stamp his mark on the program against Sooner royalty, the biggest story with this game is simply two Top 15 teams looking for a marquee win en route to an appearance in the expanded college football playoffs.
There’s more at stake than just personal feelings and nostalgic memories on Saturday in Norman. Both coaches know how hard their teams have worked and understand that the season is bigger than just “Josh Heupel’s return to Oklahoma on Sept. 21 in Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.”
Josh Heupel and Brent Venables are great friends off the field but are prepared to be fierce competitors on the gridiron this Saturday – exactly how it should be.
No. 15 Oklahoma will host No. 6 Tennessee at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night in Norman, OK.
More from RTI: Which Tennessee Position Group Is The Best Brent Venables Has ‘Seen In A While’
Here’s a look at what both head coaches have said about the other this week heading into the game on Saturday:
Tennessee HC Josh Heupel
On coaching against Brent Venables after spending so much time working with him at Oklahoma:
“Yeah, a guy that, I got so much respect for. Got a great family. Somebody that poured into me as a young coach and learn so much from him. He’s as good as they come when you look at what he’s done historically as a defensive coordinator. A lot of respect. Huge challenge for us this week.”
On Brent Venables saying Heupel was ‘skinny, frail and pasty’ and threw a wobbly ball when he was working out on his Oklahoma visit, what he remembers about the visit
“Yeah, I probably was a little pasty. I was hiding in hibernation in the early part of my life. But when we got there I certainly had to continue to grow as a player. I might have always had a little wobble on my ball, but staff there, Mike (Leach) and obviously the strength staff there, did a great job of helping me transform. But really our entire football roster.”
On what stood out about Brent Venables when Heupel was playing quarterback, and what it was like going against Venables’ defenses on a weekly basis in practice
“There’s so many things that I learned from Brent, but as a player, you saw his energy and his passion, his focus every day. Super consistent inside of the building, in the meeting room, in his preparation, the detail that he had in his preparation and how he poured into his players. I saw those same things as a coach working with him there as well. Brent’s made a huge impact on my career.”
On if he remembers some of the lessons that he took from Venables and if there are still some that he carries with him to this day
“Yeah, I mean, a lot of the things that I just talked about. Brent’s got great attention to detail and has an ability to relate to his players extremely well while still pushing them to be their best. Those are things that absolutely stick with me.”
On Venables saying earlier on the SEC Teleconference that Heupel played through an elbow injury in his throwing arm the second half of the 2000 season in which they won the national championship
“Well, it still doesn’t look right if you look at it closely, but there were a couple other bruises too that caused me some problems at the end of the year. That team in general, the ability for guys to be resilient, play through whatever they were going through was a huge part of why we were able to go win a championship.”
Oklahoma HC Brent Venables
Tuesday Opening Statement
“And (I) have a long history, like a lot of people in Oklahoma, with Josh, a good friend of mine and his wife Dawn and their family. Everything that Josh has represented in his career, just as a human being, as a coach, he’s first class in every way. He’s got a long history here and, again, he’s done a great job everywhere he’s been. Whether it’s Utah state, Missouri, UCF, certainly Tennessee. Winners know how to win and that’s what he’s done. So (it’s) cool to see that.”
On his memories from the first time he met Josh Heupel at Oklahoma in 1999, the impact Heupel had with the Sooners in two seasons at quarterback
“That’s a great question. And I’ll be a truth serum here. We wanted to get Akili Smith. Mike (Stoops) and I, we were only here for a couple of days and we were at Kansas State and we knew (about Akili Smith). Mike recruited California and Akili was coming out of whatever junior college, Mount Sac or somewhere.
And he was the prototypical dude. I can’t even remember how big he was, but he was a big, strong, strapping dude that could spin it. He looked the part — could run, could pass.
“And we didn’t know anything about Josh, but he was outside of the office windows. There’s the quarterback. He was on the visit and there maybe two guys on the visit and he was one of them. And he was outside, we had an old turf field down there and he was playing catch. And, again, I’m saying this an incredible appreciation and respect for Josh. Couldn’t have been more wrong. Don’t judge a book by its cover. And he was skinny and just frail. And it’s the middle of winter, just kind of pasty and the ball was coming off, southpaw, he probably hadn’t played in a couple months and the ball was wobbly. And Josh could occasionally do that. And we’re like, that ain’t it. (Mike) Leach, he didn’t even want to bring Akili Smith in on a visit. ‘I’m not interested.’ And so a lesson learned.
“But Josh, amazing work ethic and humility, same guy every day. Didn’t try to be anybody that he wasn’t. Incredible humility, respect for his teammates. And I don’t know what the culture was like before we got here (in 1999), so it’s not really fair for me to say that he changed it, other than there was some brokenness and he brought people together and he was able to relate to people regardless of what they come from. And that’s the 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. And he led the way, offense to defense. One of his best friends was Torrance Marshall and still is to this day. And if you know Torrance, he went to South Bay High School and South Miami. And of course Josh is from Aberdeen (North Dakota), and they couldn’t come from two completely different environments. And to watch those guys pretty quickly bond and become friends and help the locker room, and amongst others, there were plenty of guys that helped create the culture, but Josh led the way. So he’s always been a leader. And he’s always had this innate ability to have great poise, great focus, but also have some fun, that competitive balance that allows you to be loose and confident and precise.”
On Josh Heupel’s legacy at Oklahoma, what he thinks the reception will be
“I know speaking from coaches and also being a fan, I was a fan too. There can’t be someone with a stronger legacy. He’s a national championship (player) and timing is everything. And there was a period where Oklahoma hadn’t had a winning season for, I don’t know how many years in a row it was. Five straight years not going to a bowl game. And in the first year going 7-5. And then out of nowhere to go 13-0. And several games within that year, Oklahoma was an underdog or had to come from behind in those games. You really felt Sooner Magic was reignited and he was a catalyst of that.
“And people won’t forget that. That’s one of the coolest things about college football. It brings so much joy and we reflect so many moments that enriches your life because of those moments of success and winning and overcoming. We all feel like we were a part of that. And so both personally and professionally, and then again, make no mistake, Oklahoma fans want to see Coach Heupel take a loss on Saturday night. And there will be nobody that feels bad if they don’t do well, we know that. But people pull for people. And I think this is one of those times that you put the logo aside. And he’s got an amazing legacy at this university.
“And, again, sometimes God, His way is the right way even though we don’t understand it. And you make the hard right hand turn and he’s got something better for you. And that’s exactly what happened for Josh and his family.”
On Josh Heupel’s Tennessee offense, with its pace, spacing and vertical threats
“They’re really good. They’ve got very good players. They’ve recruited good players. Some older guys that have been in the system, they understand the system and they’ve got great skill. They got size, they got speed and they put tremendous pressure on you with their scheme, their tempo and their ability to be precise. And then on top of that really good skill. So it’s really tough. And some of it’s coming off of getting off of those play fakes or an RPO situation too.
And so many teams don’t necessarily present that. They might have a few RPOs here and there, but this team is built from the beginning of the game to the end, man. And they’re putting great pressure on you. So I love the challenge.
“Anybody that knows me, I got to read what the stats are. For people that might be like, you know, brag on our own guys. Well, these are the things we we’re looking at and this is the challenge. And I like getting the guys on the edge of their seat. Our guys know. Our guys have a great maturity. We call it ‘be a pro.’ Be a pro. If you show up to this building, man, you flip your switch — how you think, how you work, how you take notes, how you study film, have respect for the game, have respect for the process. And this process will reward you when you respect it every single week like it’s the biggest game of the year because it is. And so that being said, it doesn’t take them long to watch the tape either.
“And I’m going to call it exactly how it is. And this will be a fantastic, amazing environment. And one where I think the strength of our team is is our defense. That’s where we have the most experience, guys that are veterans in this system. We’ve got some good competitive depth there without a whole bunch of injuries, where we haven’t necessarily been exposed. You lose a few guys and all of a sudden you don’t have competitive depth and you might have another guy, but there’s nothing else behind him. So we’re fortunate from that standpoint. But it will be the biggest test that we’ve had offensively, since we’ve been here.”
On any specific memories he has from Josh Heupel’s days as Oklahoma’s quarterback
“Probably just his best quality was his poise, his control, belief in the players around him. And just as consistent of a player that I’ve been around. The 2000 season, many people probably on the outside don’t know this, but he spent the back half of the year injured. His throwing arm, his elbow as big as a watermelon swollen up at times the last probably five, six games. And the way he managed that, just his toughness, really incredible.”
On what stood out about Josh Heupel as a coach once he joined the Oklahoma staff, if he saw this kind of future for Heupel
“He just always had great humility. Loved the locker room, loved the staff room, just always wanted to learn. Really eager to understand defense even more so. But it was just a sponge and in order to, to be a sponge, you gotta possess great humility and so one of the most humble people I’ve been around.”
On the differences in Josh Heupel’s offensive scheme since 2014 and this Tennessee offense
“The pace and the vertical challenge from the get go. They put great pressure on you defensively. With those two things in particular, they’ve run the ball really, really well and they got great balance again, rushing over 300 yards a game and passing over 300 yards a game. So really those three qualities is what I think are the best parts of their offense.”
