Josh Heupel

Joshua Kenneth Heupel ( ; born March 22, 1978) is an American football coach and former player. He is the head football coach at the University of Tennessee. Previously he was head coach at the University of Central Florida, where he compiled a 28–8 record. Heupel played college football as quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners. During his college playing career, he was recognized as a consensus All-American, won numerous awards, and led Oklahoma to the 2000 BCS National Championship. After two years unsuccessfully trying to make an NFL roster (featuring brief stints with the Miami Dolphins and the Green Bay Packers), Heupel became a coach. He served as co-offensive coordinator for Oklahoma until January 6, 2015, when he was let go in a restructuring of the program despite having four successful seasons. He was named the assistant head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach for the Utah State University Aggies on January 23, 2015. After one season at USU, he was hired on Barry Odom's staff at Missouri, where he was the offensive coordinator before being hired for his first head coaching position at UCF. In December 2017, Heupel was named the UCF head coach. On January 27, 2021, Heupel was named the 27th head coach at Tennessee. Early years Heupel was born and raised in Aberdeen, South Dakota. His mother, Cindy, was a high school principal, and his father, Ken, was a head football coach at Northern State University. As a child, Heupel watched game film with his father. He attended Central High School in Aberdeen, where he played high school football for the Central Golden Eagles. In the second half of the first game of his sophomore season in 1994, he became the Golden Eagles' quarterback in a scaled-down version of the run and shoot offense. As a senior, he was named South Dakota's player of the year. He got recruiting inquiries from major college football programs at the universities of Houston, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Wyoming, but "it seemed I was always the second or third guy on their list," according to Heupel.