Tennessee football: Josh Heupel in much different place from last time he faced Purdue

When Josh Heupel leads Tennessee football onto the field against the Purdue Boilermakers in the Music City Bowl in Nashville Thursday, he’ll be doing so in a much different position from the last time he faced Purdue. During that time, things were wildly different.

Heupel was less than three years removed from being fired by his alma mater, the Oklahoma Sooners. He was rebuilding his career after one year as offensive coordinator of the Utah State Aggies and then another year as offensive coordinator under the Missouri Tigers.

In his second year at Mizzou, we had no way of knowing what would become of Heupel. Sure, Mizzou had the best offense in the SEC in 2016, but they were 4-8, and questions were abound about Barry Odom.

Things started off slowly Heupel’s second year. After scoring 72 points against the Missouri State Bears, he failed to break 14 points for three straight games. It started with a 31-13 loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks. Then came this Purdue game.

At the time, Purdue was in its first year under head coach Jeff Brohm. Well, on this day, Brohm’s team dominated. They shut down Heupel’s offense and won the game 35-3. By the end of the game, Heupel’s offense had gone 101 minutes without scoring a touchdown.

Kickoff for that game, though, was an hour and a half before the game that would finally begin the unraveling for Butch Jones with Tennessee football. That disaster happened the same day Jones coached away a sure win at the Florida Gators, one of the most abysmal coaching performances in history. How Jones and Heupel responded to that embarrassment were completely different.

Jones wilted beneath the pressure and oversaw a collapse en route to the worst season in UT history. Heupel, on the other hand, helped his offense regroup, and to this day, he has never again coached in a game where the offense didn’t score a touchdown.

After that loss to Purdue, Mizzou fell 51-14 to the Auburn Tigers. Then they lost just 40-34 at the Kentucky Wildcats before falling 53-28 at the Georgia Bulldogs, but neither loss was Heupel’s fault. Finally, the next week, they turned things around.

Starting with a 68-21 win over the Idaho Vandals, Mizzou went on a run, thanks to Heupel’s offense, that saw them win six straight and earn a bowl berth as Drew Lock became a passing legend in the SEC. Highlight in that run was Heupel’s offense hanging 50 in a win against Tennessee football that got Jones fired the next day.

Of course, the end of that season came with the disastrous coaching search by the Vols that eventually landed them Jeremy Pruitt. Ironically, at the time, they almost landed a deal with Brohm to become their head coach, but it fell through. Heupel, meanwhile, was hired as head coach of the UCF Knights. He was ironically replaced by former UT head coach Derek Dooley.

Four years later, though, everybody is happy. Brohm is at Purdue, and Heupel is the most celebrated first-year head coach in the SEC. He’s now ready to lead Tennessee football against Brohm with much more national respect than he had the last time he faced Purdue. Maybe that’ll help the result be different.