Relax, Vol Nation. Josh Heupel isn’t going to leave Rocky Top after a single season to run the Oklahoma football program. Or run any other program for that matter.
But most especially not OU, even though he led the Sooners to a national championship and was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy during his two seasons there as a player, as well as being a Sooner assistant for almost a decade.
That’s because his coach at Oklahoma, one “Big Game Bob” Stoops – the man who also failed to renew Heupel’s contract as co-offensive coordinator following the 2014 season – just may be pulling the strings on who’ll replace Lincoln Riley, who shocked the football world on Sunday by taking the Southern Cal job.
In one of the stranger interim tags ever placed on someone, OU athletic director Joe Castiglioni tabbed Stoops to be the interim coach for the Sooners through whichever bowl game they play.
Given that Stoops retired five years ago while handing the reins of one of college football’s most storied programs to Riley, this would seem somewhat equivalent to UT placing an interim tag on former Vols head coach and athletic director Phil Fulmer.