How Tennessee football is honoring Mike Leach, Josh Heupel's mentor, at Orange Bowl

MIAMI GARDENS, Florida − At the Orange Bowl, Tennessee football is honoring the late Mike Leach, a mentor of Josh Heupel's since his days as Oklahoma's quarterback.

The Vols (10-2) are wearing a 'MIKE' helmet sticker for their game against Clemson (11-2) at Hard Rock Stadium. The 'I' in Mike is in the shape of a cowbell.

Leach, 61, died on Dec. 12 following complications from a heart condition. He was Mississippi State's head coach for the past three seasons but influenced offensive coaches for several years before that, including Heupel.

“I’m really thankful for what he poured into me," Heupel said.

Leach was Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator when Heupel came to the Sooners as a junior college transfer quarterback in 1999. Leach left a year later to become Texas Tech’s head coach, and Heupel developed into a Heisman Trophy runner-up and national champion.

But Heupel and Leach kept up their relationship over the past two decades. And their one year together at Oklahoma still has reverberations in Heupel’s record-breaking offense.

Leach taught him to be aggressive, simplify the scheme, isolate favorable matchups, spread out defenses and allow quarterbacks to make quick decisions to accelerate tempo.

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Leach always evolved, and Tennessee’s 2022 offense has reflected that approach. Heupel added eclectic formations and motions to yield better matchups. He allowed quarterback Hendon Hooker to make snap decisions. And the extremely wide splits by Tennessee receivers used every inch of the field, just like Leach taught Heupel.

"Mike was instrumental in my opportunity to play at a high level, to coach at a high level. He's the guy that gave me my start," Heupel said. "At that time, college football was played in a box around a lot of the country, and his vision of playing out in space is how college football is played today.

"He meant so much to so many people around the country inside of college football and outside of it. We lost somebody that made college football extremely interesting and changed the landscape of it."

Reach Adam Sparks at adam.sparks@knoxnews.com and on Twitter @AdamSparks.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: How Tennessee football is honoring Mike Leach on helmet at Orange Bowl