https://volswire.usatoday.com/2021/04/28/mike-leach-reflects-on-recruiting-quaterback-josh-heupel-at-oklahoma-sooners/Leach was then hired as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Oklahoma in 1999.
After being hired with the Sooners, Leach set out to find a quarterback who could come in and run his Air Raid offense.
He narrowed it down to a pair of JUCO signal-callers in Josh Heupel from Snow College and Sean Stein of Long Beach City College.
Leach settled on Heupel who would throw for 3,460 yards and 30 touchdowns in 1999. Leach left Oklahoma following the 1999 season to become Texas Tech’s head coach. Heupel would guide Oklahoma to the BCS national championship in 2000.
Leach discussed why he settled on Heupel to be his quarterback and run the Air Raid offense at Oklahoma.
“Josh had thrown a lot of balls,” Leach said. “Josh was really accurate. Really accurate and really smart. Really knows football, a coaches kid. I liked all of those things and we had to do it as fast as we could. Josh came and spent a couple of days with me and we didn’t have furniture yet because we were just moving into the Switzer Center there, they just built it. We sat on the floor watching film after film, that was when it was VHS still, and talked offense.
“I thought Josh always had a great command of the field, a great knowledge of the game. The other thing was he was really accurate. He did not have a strong arm, but he was real accurate.”
Heupel has since launched his head coaching career at UCF (2018-20) and being hired at Tennessee on Jan. 27.
Leach mentioned he had no question that Heupel would become a coach.
“No question in my mind,” Leach said of Heupel. “I absolutely knew he was going to be a coach.”
