Josh Heupel-Ricky Foggie

[Gopher07]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/webextra/blogs/weblog.aspx?column_id=12&bdate=10/1/2008

How different would Oklahoma football look these days if it weren't for Ricky Foggie?

OK, probably not much. Maybe just a number change.

Who is Ricky Foggie, you ask?

"I was Ricky Foggie," says OU quarterbacks coach Josh Heupel. "Guy from Minnesota. Oklahoma fans might remember him. They went up and put it on him a couple times. That was my guy."

Growing up in Aberdeen, S.D., Heupel didn't have a lot of football role models in his own backyard. So he looked to the nearby Golden Gophers of Minnesota, where Foggie had arrived as an option quarterback from South Carolina to play for Lou Holtz. Heupel picked his own jersey No. 14 because it was the same number as Foggie.

"I was running the option in the back yard," Heupel says. "Never came true for me."

Minnesota went 4-7 during Foggie's first year in 1984, but the Gophers finished the year with an upset over Iowa, a team quarterbacked by Chuck Long and featuring a fiery young graduate assistant named Bob Stoops.

The next year, Minnesota hosted a powerful Oklahoma team (it was OU's season opener, on Sept. 28!) and lost only 13-7. Foggie was good in that game, and the Gophers went 6-5 and got to their first bowl game in eight years. Holtz went to Notre Dame that year, but Foggie returned and led Minnesota to another 6-5 bowl season (the return game to Norman was not pretty: Sooners 63, Gophers zilch).

Now fast-forward to 2008, when little kids and grown men and women go to OU games wearing No. 14. They could be just as well dusting off old Josh Heupel jerseys as paying homage to current QB Sam Bradford. Bradford said he chose to wear No. 14 in part because of the success Heupel had at OU in 1999 and 2000.

But Bradford never ran around pretending he was Heupel.

"I remember dropping back and it was more, 'Sam Bradford drops back to pass … Oklahoma Sooners win the national championship!'

"Something like that."

 

[BleedGopher]

CFB: Heupel Instrumental In Oklahoma Success

http://www.keloland.com/Sports/NewsDetail7984.cfm?Id=0,78785

CFB: Heupel Instrumental In Oklahoma Success

Eight years after leading the University of Oklahoma to the title as a quarterback, Josh Heupel is headed back to the big game as a coach. And that comes as no surprise to those in Aberdeen.

Aberdeen Central Athletic Director Gene Brownell remembers Heupel's days in the Hub City. And he says the quarterback always stood out.

"We've watched him grow up as a boy and then as a young man and then obviously into manhood where he was highly successful as an athlete, but also highly successful in the classroom and in life," Brownell said.

After high school, Heupel had a standout career at the University of Oklahoma. In 2000, he was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy and led the Sooners to a perfect 13-0 record, along with a national championship.

"A very intellectually gifted young man who had excellent leadership skills," Brownell said. "Obviously, the kinds of things that you need to be a great quarterback."

Heupel has certainly utilized those skills since his playing days. As the current quarterbacks coach for Oklahoma, he helped sophomore Sam Bradford achieve what he never could: a Heisman Trophy.

"We watched the Heisman Trophy presentation and the 2008 recipient (Bradford), he said a special thanks goes out to Coach Heup. So we were pretty excited by that," Brownell said.

Brownell is happy for Heupel's success. But he's ecstatic that athletes like him are coming from Aberdeen.

"It always excites us when our kids are successful and a lot of kids aren't going to be successful at the level of a Josh Heupel or a Taylor Mehlhaff, but surprisingly so, we've got both of 'em from our school in recent time and we're very proud of both of them," Brownell said.

Go Gophers!!

 

[Governor Sibley]

I wore #39 for my first year of football.

It was either DT or the Fog. Really, there were no other options. Happily, there was not a lot of competition to be "Darrel Thompson" in my friends' backyards in my state.

 

[Goldmember]

I think it would be awesome if Foggie were to become a QBs coach (or some other position coach) if Heupel is hired as OC.