Section B·Page 10
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, December 6, 2000
Sports
Heupel's past powers remarkable rise
Oklahoma quarterback and Heisman Trophy hopeful Josh Heupel launches a pass over Kansas defensive end Demond Bennett. The Sooners defeated the Jayhawks 34-16 Sept. 30 at Oklahoma. Kansan file photo
The Associated Press
NORMAN, Okla. — Josh Heupless was about 5 when he first asked to join his dad at the office to watch game film.
"Most kids, when you bring 'em, they're fooling around or drawing on the board. He was right in the middle of the coaches."
"I said, 'If you come and you mess around, that'll be the last time you do it,'" said Ken Heupel, then an assistant coach at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D.
It wouldn't be the last time Josh Heupel made an impression in a film room. On his recruiting trip to Oklahoma in December 1998, he spent seven hours watching tapes of the Sooners' offense, which he now runs so well he could win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday.
Heupel threw for 3,400 yards and 30 touchdowns last year. But as this season began, he was generally considered the third-best quarterback in the Big 12, behind Major Applewhite of Texas and Eric Crouch of Nebraska.
He's now considered one of the nation's best.
"Josh is the heart of this team," coach Bob Stoops said after his top-ranked Sooners beat Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game.
"He doesn't like to hear that or doesn't want me to say that. But I don't know if anyone else has had the road that we've had, played the games that we have, and come out undefeated. We've more than earned our way, and he's THE factor."
Heupel threw for 3,392 yards and
20 touchdowns in Oklahoma's 12
games, and was most impressive
when most was at stake.
During a three-game stretch in October when the Sooners beat Texas, Kansas State and Nebraska to move to No. 1, Heupel was 66-of-108 for 1,049 yards, four touchdowns and just one interception.
HEISMAN CANDIDATES:
Drew Brees, QB, Purdue
Drew Brees, QB, Purdue
Josh Heupel, QB, Oklahoma
LaDanian Tomlinson, RB, Texas
Christian
Chris Weinke, QB, Florida State
The winner will be announced by the Downtown Athletic Club Saturday in New York.
He was intercepted twice in each of the final three games of the regular season. But he rallied his team in the fourth quarter to beat Texas A&M and led a clinching drive in the fourth quarter of a victory against Texas Tech.
Heupel was intercepted three times in the Big 12 championship game. He also threw two touchdown passes, ran for a score and used an option pitch to convert a critical fourth down that led to the go-ahead touchdown.
"He's been doing that all year," said quarterbacks coach Chuck Long, once a Heisman runner-up. "He played exceptionally well in the middle of the year. During the course of a season, though, you're going to get some bumps in a road.
"He made the plays when he had to, and that's the sign of a great quarterback."
When he joined his father at work, which was often, Josh
would throw to the receivers, or act as the option quarterback for his dad's defense.
When Josh Heupel practiced on teams with kids his own age, he routinely left his mother waiting longer than all the other moms.
She still waits for him. Cindy Heupel hasn't missed any of her son's games, home or away, in the past two years. Never mind that it's roughly 800 miles from the family house in Aberdeen to Norman.
Her husband, now head coach at Northern State, also travels to see his son play, even though he has to miss some of his own team's games.
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