A story about the Tennessee Vols head coach is told by Bob Stoops. The extraordinary competitiveness of Josh Heupel
A fascinating anecdote regarding Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel’s extraordinary competitiveness was recently shared by former Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops and former OU assistant Cale Gundy.
Naturally, Stoops and Heupel have a lengthy and complex past together.
Before working as Stoops’ assistant at OU from 2006 to 2014, Heupel was the quarterback for Oklahoma’s squad that won the 2000 national title, which was Stoops’ only head coaching victory.
Following the 2014 season, Stoops fired Heupel, and it is said that the two have not been romantically involved since.
Nonetheless, the former Oklahoma head coach continues to have positive things to say about Heupel, as seen by a story he shared earlier this season with former Sooners tight end Josh Norman.
According to the account, Heupel stood in front of the whole Oklahoma team before the 2000 season and went over the schedule, team by team, explaining how the Sooners could go undefeated—something they would ultimately do.
The story was shared this week on “Conversations with Coach” by Stoops and Gundy, the running backs coach for the 2000 Sooners.
“He told everybody ‘we’re going to win the national championship’,” Gundy said.
Stoops went on, “I can remember him going game by game,” “He was aware of the timetable. One question is, “Why can’t we beat them?” followed by another. Finally, he persisted in asking, “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,” Stoops stated. And we didn’t stop saying, ‘This is who Oklahoma is, this is what we are to be, and we’re going to do everything in our power to be this.'” Indeed, after finishing all the games, Josh asked, “Why not us?” in the end. And those men adopted the mindset that “it’s going to be us.”
Adding, “It was the perfect recipe,” Gundy said. “The chemistry was ideal. And it affected the players, our coaches, and the administration as a whole. Everyone in our workplace. Everyone had the same objective. I kept thinking about Josh Heupel, though, and those meetings where he asked, “Why not us?” The question, “Why not us?” struck everyone in the face, in my opinion. We are capable of doing this.
Obviously, winning a championship requires a whole team and coaching staff. However, I believe it’s reasonable to argue that the Sooners don’t finish the 2000 season as national champions if Josh Heupel is taken off the squad.
Heupel, incidentally, got back at Stoops and Oklahoma earlier this season when Tennessee defeated the Sooners 25–15 in Norman.
