Utah State to hire Josh Heupel as offensive coordinator, per report

Utah State is reportedly hiring former Oklahoma Sooners co-offensive coordinator Josh Heupel to be the Aggies new offensive coordinator. The news was first reported by Scout.com's Jack McEvoy. Heupel's name has been batted around to replace Kevin McGuire who left Utah State to become the quarterbacks coach at Oregon State.

Heupel has been the co-offensive coordinator with Oklahoma from 2010-14 and was let go on Jan. 6, and part of the reason was that the Sooners offensive struggled in big games. The offense scored just 14 points against Baylor and six against Clemson in their bowl game, both loses.

With Oklahoma struggling in a year they had aspirations to make the College Football Playoff, head coach Bob Stoops felt he needed to make some changes, and Heupel was one of a few offensive coaches who took the fall for an underachieving season.

Heupel was successful in managing Oklahoma's offense during his time with the Sooners. In 2014, the offense averaged 36.4 per game and in his five years as co-offensive coordinator the offense averaged 36.7 points per game. The lowest output was in 2013 which saw the offense average just 32.8 points per contest.

This is a big get for Utah State, Heupel is a former Heisman Trophy runner-up in 2000 and led the Sooners to a national championship over Florida State in the Orange Bowl. His NFL career lasted a few seasons but once he got into coaching he moved up the ranks in just a few years.

Having a successful college career, coaching at a big time university and having NFL experience is probably more than what Utah State could have asked for. Also, Heupel is no stranger to the state of Utah, he played at Weber State and Snow College.