1) He came in without doing his homework on the old Mack staff: He released everyone but probably the worst coach of the lot. He brought in his buddies from previous school, when he should have gotten guys who could handle Big 12 football. He should have kept Greg Robinson as Co-DC/LB coach, and brought in Bedford as Co-DC/DB coach, as well as bring in an OC who could keep pace with Big 12 football. 2) He failed to address the problems on the roster: Should have known we had QB issues and gotten a JUCO or Senior transfer to plug the gap. Same with the OL. 3) BIGGEST MISCUES : Trying to change the culture instead of BUILDING what he wanted. Basically splitting his locker room with his bad-mouthing of the upperclassmen. Sure some of them sucked, but you can't put it out there for all to see. That also makes the Freshmen THINK they are better than they actually are. He should have embraced the upperclassmen and leaned on them to improve and lead the Freshmen like all other programs normally do. He came out and publically said we wouldn't be able to compete...Who the hell does that ? I know DKR had the " I don't know how we are going to beat them" stick he feed to the media to build up the opponent, but he never said anything like Charlie did. Those very simple things would have allowed him to be successful enough in the first couple of years to put Texas back on the map and keep his job in 2017 and maybe 2018....... Good Lord, its common sense for any GOOD coach........... Charlie probably is a GOOD coach, but........ Charlie crapped his pants and let us all down.
Lots of points I agree with but I think, to sum it up, Charlie simply didn't realize that here in Texas football is not simply important, it really is everything. Right, wrong, for good or bad Texas basically bleeds for it football. Truth.
Charlie has made a lot of mistakes. 1. However, perhaps he felt the challenge was too tough to spend time learning to trust an all new coaching staff and wanted to surround himself with the guys who he credited with putting him in the position to get this job. Perhaps his AD limited the $ he could spend for staff, instead of the often voiced opinion that he could go get whomever he wanted. We did find out that AD wasn't a good fit here. We can use hindsight to say he could'a, should'a. But we don't know much except that it didn't work out like we wanted and surely like Charlie wanted. 2. It's easy to say go get a JC QB, but can you name one Texas coach who has done that? 3. He dismissed players who would not follow his rules, after several opportunities to get them on board and after seeing him hold all of them to a common standard. He never said we wouldn't be able to compete. He said that first team would not be in the NC game. “We have everything available, and I don’t know why we can’t be successful,” Strong told fans in Fort Worth during the first stop on his bus tour, per to the Austin American-Statesman. “There’s no reason for us not to be. Now, I can’t tell you how soon it’s going to be. Don’t hold me to that. Don’t say, ‘Ooh, coach said next year we’ll be in the national…’ We will not be in the national championship game.” I know we're all disappointed, but let's not rewrite history to suit our conclusion.
If he had done so, 2014 might have been a 8 or 9 win season instead of the awe inspiring 6-7 rubbish season.
His assistants have been among the highest paid in the country. The whole "UT wouldnt spend" is BS made up revisionist history. Also UT was willing to go through an embarrassing lawsuit with Oklahoma State and tell a big lie because Charlie wanted Wickline, so UT was DAMN SURE willing to do whatever was necessary to get the assistants he wanted. And yet, that was his best team.
There used to be an old measuring stick that went around in the college coaching world. IIRC it was something like "in a head coaches 3rd year, you will have a good representation of what his teams will be like in the future." That is when the coach has enough of "his" guys onboard and they know how to play, work within his system, and execute. This is Strong's 3rd season. Over the course of this year, nothing has improved, most appear to be worse. The level of play at times is disgusting, confusing, even embarrassing. The product on the field this year in not Texas Football and I do not want to see this level of play at The University, ever again.
Any coach that comes in and cannot coach the guys he inherits, is not an elite coach IMO. This is why I say if your new coach cannot win as many games in his 1st year as the guy you fired did in his last year, you have the wrong coach. In that regard, at least, Tom Herman has a big leg-up on CS.
He should have known Ash was going to be knocked out of playing football in the first game? We have two top notch OL who are both sophomores. That depends a lot on who is returning and who isn't.
OK, I got sucked in even though I think it is as useful to bash Strong at this point as it is to bash Obama since the odds of either one of them keeping their current jobs in 2017 is slim to none. That being said, the whole Wickline fiasco should have been avoided from day 1. If you really wanted him, pay the separation fee and move on. Otherwise, chose a different coach. He has wasted too many scholarships on guys (specifically QB position) who never had a chance to play for a team that stinks even though the QBs on the roster were not good. The team should have +/-5 open scholarships if it were not for the BU problems. I do not buy into the whole he is a great recruiter argument...Next coach will probably start all freshman at DB and safety, current team does not have a viable option at back up QB, wide receivers have too many drops, team does not have a viable tight end, defensive tackle will be a big problem next year as most of the guys will be true sophmores, etc...Bedford was already a complete failure in the Big 12, but he hired him anyway. One could go on and on and this is why he has a losing record. Lets be honest, choosing the 3 biggest mistakes is tough as the amount of mistakes to chose from is endless. However, the biggest mistake was not made by Strong. The biggest mistake was made by the knuckleheads who convinced us that Saban was coming and then pulled the switch.
Car, I'm starting to get the impression that you are not a CS fan. Am I reading too much into your posts?
If the firing was for lacking results on the field, this statement is dead on. Before Strong, only one UT coach (1951 Ed Price) fared worse than the one before. Even in that case Price went 7-3 following Cherry's 9-2 season. Cherry chose to retire and was not pushed out for poor performance. Besides Strong, only one coach (1937 Bible) in our history (since 1893) had a losing record his first season. If we don't finish 2016 with a winning record, Strong will be the 2nd coach (McWilliams) in UT history to have 3 losing seasons. No one has ever done it consecutively. Many fail to grasp just how horribly Strong has fared among the history of our program.
