Most folks know the story by now. After the 2014 season, then-Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops fired Josh Heupel, who was serving as his offensive coordinator at the time.
The move came despite the fact that Oklahoma's offense dealt with numerous injuries in 2014. And the defense, which was led by Stoops' brother, Mike, was the bigger issue that season (the Sooners had the No. 21 scoring offense and the No. 56 scoring defense that season).
Stoops essentially fired Heupel instead of firing his brother.
Heupel helped deliver the only national championship of Stoops' head coaching career. But that wasn't enough for Stoops to remain loyal to one of the best players in Sooners history.
Of course, Heupel is much better off because he was fired by Stoops. The move allowed Heupel to develop the offense that he wanted to run, which is the same offense he's now installed as the head coach at Tennessee.
Stoops goes with family over logic once again when it comes to Josh Heupel
Late last week, Stoops made his weekly picks for the weekend's biggest games.
And one of the games he picked was the Kentucky vs Tennessee matchup.
Stoops' other brother, Mark, is the head coach at Kentucky (and Mike is the Wildcats' inside linebackers coach). It should come as no surprise that the former Oklahoma head coach picked Kentucky to beat the Vols last weekend in Lexington.
"I'm going to say Kentucky because it's my brother," said Stoops while picking the game. "They've (Kentucky) gotta be a little more consistent as well. So hopefully they can put it all together like they did against Florida and have another one of those kind of games."
Stoops turned out to be incorrect as the Vols took down the Wildcats 33-27 in Lexington.
And I doubt anyone was surprised by the result considering Tennessee has only lost to Kentucky three times since the mid 1980s. The only Vols teams that have lost to Kentucky were three of the worst teams in program history (2011, 2017, and 2020).
I admire Stopps' loyalty to family. But it clearly clouds his judgement when it comes to making football decisions/judgements. As much as I'm sure that he appreciates what Heupel helped him accomplish in 2000 at Oklahoma, it's obvious that nothing Heupel accomplishes will ever be reason enough for Bob to pick the current UT head coach (in a football setting) over one of the Stoops brothers, even when it's obvious that he should.
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