How Tennessee football’s Josh Heupel revitalized coaching career with Missouri tenure

• Josh Heupel was fired from Oklahoma after the 2014 season
• Heupel was Missouri’s offensive coordinator from 2016-17
• Heupel’s success with the Tigers led to the head coaching job at UCF

Tennessee coach Josh Heupel has been one of the most successful recent hires in college football, but his path to leading the Vols wasn’t always pretty.

In fact, Heupel virtually restarted his coaching career after he was fired as the co-offensive coordinator at Oklahoma, his alma mater, where he led the Sooners to the 2000 BCS national championship as a Heisman Trophy runner-up quarterback. 

More: Why Josh Heupel handshakes don’t always go well after Tennessee football wins

In 2015, Heupel spent a season as the offensive coordinator at Utah State before taking the same job at Missouri, the team he and the Vols face on Saturday for the third time since Heupel was hired to coach Tennessee in 2021.

Heupel spent two seasons with the Tigers from 2016-17, leading the nation’s 14th-best scoring offense in 2017 with quarterback Drew Lock, a first-team All-SEC selection. He then became the head coach at UCF from 2018-20, where he finished with a 28-8 record before taking the job at Rocky Top ahead of the 2021 season.

Here’s a look back at how Heupel turned a past firing into a head coaching role at one of the nation’s largest programs:

More: Can Tennessee football continue to separate itself from programs like Missouri? | Adams

Josh Heupel revived career as Missouri offensive coordinator

Heupel’s success at Missouri proved his offensive scheme worked in arguably college football’s top conference. And he said being fired from Oklahoma taught him to re-evaluate his system, likely leading to the Tigers’ success.

“It gave me a chance, in some ways, just to kind of restart and re-look at what I wanted to do on the offensive side of the football,” Heupel said in January 2021. “As a coordinator, you’re always going to try to carry out your head coach’s vision. 

“There were a lot of things we did successfully. I think we were top 10 in the country in offense that year and playing with a freshman quarterback that maybe started the last tw -thirds of the season and ran into a buzzsaw in the bowl game against a really good Clemson football team. It gave me an opportunity to reshift my focus on what I wanted to be as far as an identity on the offensive side of the football.”

The two seasons with the Tigers helped revitalize Heupel’s career, although he likely saw himself spending his entire career with the Sooners: He played there in 2000, was a graduate assistant in 2004 and spent 2006-14 as the quarterbacks coach. From 2011-14, he also held the title of co-offensive coordinator. 

In fact, in a 2018 interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Heupel was thankful for how his firing paved his career path.

“Thank God it happened!” Heupel said in his first year as head coach at UCF. “It’s worked out great for me. If I had stayed there, I wouldn’t be here.

“The opportunities I have had to go to other places after Oklahoma either confirmed things or opened my eyes to things I would want to do in my own program,” Heupel added. “I’m a better coach today because I left Oklahoma.”

Josh Heupel reflects on Missouri football tenure

On Wednesday’s SEC Coaches Teleconference, Heupel looked back on his two seasons with the Tigers ahead of Tennessee heading on the road Saturday to Columbia.

“When I think back to that time period, I think about the people first and foremost,” Heupel said. “A lot of people that were influential, still have a lot of those people that are with me, former players that played there. Young coaches that have been with me over the last six years. What we were able to build there, from when we took it over to where we left it, really proud of what we did. 

“And that only happens because you’ve got quality people that are extremely competitive, but care about the people around them and know there’s a lot of those players that I’m still in contact with that I see frequently, or hear from frequently, and one of the great stops on my journey.”

More: Can Tennessee win SEC East? Vols’ path to SEC championship runs through Georgia, Missouri

Josh Heupel head coaching record

• 2018: UCF (12-1)
• 2019: UCF (10-3)
• 2020: UCF (6-4)
• 2021: Tennnessee (7-6)
• 2022: Tennessee (11-2)
• 2023: Tennessee 7-2