College Football 2017: Winners, losers of Week 16 coaching carousel
Winner: Central Florida Knights
Josh Heupel has been named the head football coach of the Central Florida Knights. He takes over for another young up-and-comer in Scott Frost who went home to the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Heupel is a 39-year-old former quarterback. He was born in South Dakota and signed to play football at Weber State before a detour to Snow Junior College prior to signing with the Oklahoma Sooners. Heupel quarterbacked the Sooners from 1999-2000 leading them to a national championship victory over the Florida State Seminoles in the 2001 Orange Bowl.
The Knights’ new coach, a Heisman Trophy runner-up to Chris Weinke, then played short stints in the NFL for the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers. His coaching career began as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma, before coaching tight ends at Arizona and returning to Oklahoma from 2006-14 as the quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator of the Sooners. His offenses ranked ninth, fifth, 44th and 17th per the S&P+ rankings.
However, was fired by his old coach, Bob Stoops, after the 2014 season. He then resurfaced at Utah State where he moved the offense up to 76th from 85th in one season. He served as assistant head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach that season. Then, Heupel arrived at Missouri.
With the Tigers, Heupel resurrected a dead offense that ranked 123rd before he arrived. He immediately improved it to 42nd in the country. Then, in 2017, the Tigers started off rocky but turned their season around behind Heupel’s 10th-ranked offense per Bill C’s S&P+ rankings.
The Tigers will miss Heupel as he takes on the UCF job. The Knights won the day here and have hired another young bright offensive mind to make the UCF Knights an exciting team to watch and play for.
When you’re in the second-tier in your state, you have to find a niche and the UCF niche under AD Danny White is excitement. With Randy Shannon on as defensive coordinator, Heupel has a veteran presence that’s ran or been part of big-time defenses at the collegiate level at both Miami, TCU and Florida. Heupel has been around some great coaches in Bob Stoops, Kevin Wilson, Jay Norvell and Lincoln Riley as a coach and Stoops, Mark Mangino, Brent Venables and Mark Stoops as a player.