Former SEC head coach drops incredible quote about Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel

UNLV head coach Barry Odom dropped an incredible quote this week about Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel.

Odom, who was the head coach at Missouri from 2016 to 2019, played against Heupel in 1999 (when Odom was a linebacker at Missouri) and he hired him to lead the Tigers' offense in 2016 (Heupel was Mizzou's offensive coordinator from 2016 to 2017).

The two coaches know each other well.

Odom spoke to ESPN this week for a story about Heupel's return to Oklahoma (where Heupel played for two seasons and later coached for 10 seasons). The former Missouri coach described Heupel as a "stone-cold killer".

"His competitive spirit is unmatched," said Odom to ESPN. "He carries a chip on his shoulder, but he uses it in a very productive way...he's a stone-cold killer. That's the way he played, and that's the way he coaches."

Odom is far from the first coach/player to make a comment like that about Heupel. The fourth year Tennessee head coach is known for being incredibly competitive.

Former Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops, who fired Heupel as the Sooners' offensive coordinator after the 2014 season, told a great story last winter about Heupel's extreme competitiveness and how it resulted in Oklahoma winning a national championship in 2000.

"I can remember him going game by game," said Stoops of Heupel's preseason address to the Sooners ahead of the 2000 season. "He knew the schedule. 'Why can't we beat them?' and then 'why can't we beat them?'. And then at the end he kept saying why not us?"

"As a staff, we always did a good job of intentionally putting in front of our players and our staff the championship teams, the great hall of fame players," continued Stoops. "And [we] kept saying 'this is what we are to be, this is who Oklahoma is and we're going to do everything we can to be this.' And sure enough, Josh, at the end, after going through every game, said 'why not us?'. And those guys took an attitude of 'it's going to be us'."

Heupel has an edge, he has a chip on his shoulder. And that's one of the main reasons why he has Tennessee in a position to compete for a national championship in 2024.

Related: Brent Venables' comments about Josh Heupel will give Oklahoma fans and Tennessee fans chills