Josh Heupel knew their names and recognized their faces.

As he stood on a stage inside the Omni Hotel in downtown Dallas Tuesday, the Tennessee head coach on the eve of his fourth season leading the Vols, fielded questions about his alma mater from reporters that once covered him as a player and a coach.

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It was understandable given the setting. Oklahoma, where Heupel was a Heisman Trophy finalist and led the Sooners to their last national championship as a quarterback in 2000, made its SEC Media Days debut as new members of the league.

On a day where Heupel and Tennessee shared the stage with the newcomers and their head coach, Brent Venables more than two months before the two teams face off in Norman, Oklahoma, the connections between the programs was one of the big talking points of the day.

"(Playing at Oklahoma) will be unique for myself to be on the other side of the sideline," Heupel said. "Obviously, there's been a lot of Saturdays where I was on the home sideline. But there are so many great teammates, friends that will be there. Got great respect for the university, the program.

"A lot of friends that are coaching on the opposing sideline that day, former teammates that will be coaching on that opposing sideline, too. So it'll be unique to be back there, but excited to be there."

One of the avenues that Heupel took to becoming the face of Tennessee football where he has rejuvenated the program, returning it to the SEC's upper echelon after a decade-plus of irrelevancy, began at Oklahoma.

Heupel arrived there as a transfer quarterback from Snow College at the recommendation of Mike Leach, who had only recently joined the Sooners himself as an offensive coordinator on new head coach Bob Stoops' staff.

It was a marriage that eventually led Oklahoma to the mountain top. A year later, Heupel led the Sooners to a perfect finish, beating Florida State, 13-2 in the BCS National Championship Game in Miami.

Venables had a front row seat to that run, serving as the co-defensive coordinator at Oklahoma, where he took his first head coaching job two years ago.

"To experience my first National Championship as a coach, I've always looked back and said, man, we couldn't have done it without Heupel," Venables said. "His leadership, what he was able to do from a transformation standpoint to our locker room, you know, the guts and the toughness that he played through that 2000 season.

"So I've always held him up here on this pedestal when it comes from a player's standpoint...The success he's had. No surprise. He's always been a winner."

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Takeaways from Josh Heupel, Tennessee at SEC Media Days

Following a brief stint in the NFL, Heupel started his own coaching career at Oklahoma, joining Stoops' staff as a graduate assistant in 2004 and returning two years later as a quarterbacks coach.

Heupel worked with 2008 Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Sam Bradford in 2008, the same year that the Sooners shattered college football scoring records and reached the national championship game.

Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle was on that team as a backup quarterback. The Sept. 21 clash between the Vols and Oklahoma will serves as the Sooners' first SEC game, but it will be a full circle moment for several others.

"I got great respect for Brent (Venables), playing while he was coaching, but also being beside him in the staff room. I don't know that I ever forecasted (Oklahoma) was coming into this league," Heupel said. "Those are two really good brands coming in. Obviously Oklahoma, my experience there, I think it's an exciting time to be in this league and really unique that I'll have an opportunity to go back to Oklahoma. It'll be a completely different viewpoint on that Saturday. But it'll be unique for me.

"(I've) got family that still lives back there. A lot of friends, teammates, coaches that I stay in contact that coached me while I was there, and obviously administration, too. So it'll be a unique Saturday."

Between Tuesday's media circuit in Dallas and the week of the game, Heupel will likely table any conversation of his ties to Oklahoma.

Weeks out from the start of his fourth fall camp, there's reason to be optimistic about the bigger picture at his current job, where Tennessee is expected to take another step forward after winning 20 games over the last two years, including a New Year's Six Bowl victory.

Highly touted redshirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava is getting set to be the Vols' full-time starter. The wide receiving corps has seemingly improved and much of Tennessee's biggest contributors on both sides of the ball are back at a number of different positions.

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Everything Josh Heupel said at SEC Media Days

All of it is a byproduct of the rebuild Heupel started when he took over a program that was in the throes of an NCAA investigation that led to a mass exodus through the transfer portal.

"When I took this job three years ago, everybody can go back and kind of research what we were embarked on as far as challenges and how we had to navigate those," Heupel said. "We're at the point now where we're almost free and clear of navigating all those things. Our roster is the deepest that it's been by far, and inside of this league that's important as you go through the season. I couldn't be more excited about going and lining up with this group this fall."

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