Someone offers you an incredible job with a huge increase in pay and prestige. If you believe in yourself, you grab it. If not, you're going to fail in your current position because of lack of confidence. i don't blame Strong for jumping at the opportunity, but I said back then that "Red is right", he was saying what I was thinking. The problem is not the Charlie Strongs of the world, but rather clueless, self serving school presidents (Hello, little Billie Powers) and unqualified ADs (you can count on your fingers the number of good ones and have fingers left over).
I remember, at the time we hired Strong, I was hoping we would get that Penn State coach, don't remember his name. But if we did get him we might not have TH now. We don't know if it would have worked out better but Charlie set this program back big time. That's the way it goes.
It’s Time For USF Football to Cut Bait With Charlie Strong From the article: "I bought all the way into the culture change that Charlie and others hocked during the off-season.... I thought the housecleaning Strong did, as well as the new coaches he brought in, would spark something with this team....I truly thought getting rid of offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert, Gilbert’s best friend Matt Mattox, player-fighter Blue Adams, and Damon Cogdell — who was brought in to secure Miami in recruiting — would cure most, if not all the ills that plagued the program....Call it naive, but it really seemed like the program was finally getting turned back around in the right direction for Strong." I do not like to get into the personality stuff.... but are you telling me Charlie Strong used the same "housecleaning" and "culture change" nonsense at South Florida for a program improving every year coming off a 10 win season... and even worse South Florida fans bought it even though it did not make any sense?
No parallel universes but even if not hired back then, he'd never be ready for the Texas job. He was 54 years old when he took the job.....maybe when he's 65 he would've been ready? No? How about 85? (skipped 75)…...
I'm wondering if the game just passed Charlie by. Offenses have changed a lot. Quarterbacks arrive on campus ready. Even Alabama and LSU look like they have Mike Leach offenses. Defenses are behind.. Recruiting, redshirting... all have changed since he was successful at Louisville. It's a dynamic world. Head coaches have to do an amazing amount of adapting to stay current.
Petrino's players were "successful" at Loserville, not Charlie As for choosing Franklin, at least Charlie didn't sit idly by while his players raped coeds. No rumor. check the court records in Nashville.
I'd would say 30% of the people on forums still wanted him here before the Kansas game. You all know who you are. "He finally has his people, his discipline, etc....give him a channnce". After Kansas, no one could argue for Strong. And the media helped-Kansa-Really? That's like LSU getting beat by McNeese.
I'll raise my hand and admit to this, though I began wavering in my support about halfway through that season. The Kansas loss was definitely the final straw for me. I don't care who our coach is, I will support him (her) and hope for their success until the evidence that they have almost no chance to succeed is overwhelming. A KU loss in football was pretty damning evidence to me.
Shane was injured and could barely throw. Texas was not deep then. TCU showed Strong had lost the team. It was curtains.
I guess you did not read the part of my post where I said he has not recovered and many people actually regress in their career from taking a big risk and suffering confidence shaking failure... so no I think Charlie might be done as a HC period Much less ever be ready to be a HC here However to Uisge beatha’s point I hope I get a chance to take a $25 million misstep and get a golden parachute. Charlie’s friend was right in the end. Even if it took 15 years off Charlie’s life
Sorry, I care who Texas's coach is. I don't want a Barry Switzer or Art Briles type at Texas. I thought that was what separates most Texas fans from a lot of other fan bases. We are all passionate about winning, but with a coach with class and integrity.
Had Texas beaten Kansas that day by even just one point Charlie would have been our head coach the next year and we would have missed out on Herman. Too many people were bought in on the "Give Charlie a chance!" mantra. Even after he was canned the media was saying racism even though he proved to be the worst coach in Texas football history. I consider Kansas one of the best losses in program history.
You know, this has been a strange decade where the game seems to have passed a lot of coaches by. I would never have believed Jim Harbaugh would not do better at Michigan. I would never have believed Justin Fuente would not do better at Virginia Tech. The game may have passed Chip Kelly by, but he was also a huge cheater and the disaster at UCLA could just be him not being able to cheat anymore. Also, I cannot believe Texas fans wanted him so badly. It is possible with Strong, however, I really wonder how much Urban Meyer was running the defense at Florida. I mean, his defenses at Texas and South Florida are just too awful.
Oh, I get what he was saying. I was just joking. My point stands though. Kansas was horrible but Charlie excelled at failing so much that his team went ahead and lost to them. I don't think KU had much to do with it. I get, and in hindsight understand, that losing to KU that day was his Mackovic losing to Rice moment.
Also, speaking of Kelly, there is another theory for Strong's success at Louisville. It involves Clint Hurtt and all the NFL drafts picks they had.... Texas did not let Clint Hurtt stay on, and I think we forced Chris Vaughn out. Without a Clint Hurtt of Vaughn, Strong is not having the same success at Texas or South Florida.
To be clear, not many on here “wanted” Charlie. The question was, having hired him, having gone through a damaging finish to the Mack Brown era, having committed to a lot of money for Strong, and yes, having gone out on a limb to give a black coach a head coaching job for a variety of reasons, was firing him after 1 1/2 or 2 years better than riding out the play we made for a bit longer to see whether it got better. So, it’s not like we so affirmatively wanted him; I had barely heard of him before the hire.
I am sure it will age anyone (it aged Mack for sure) But I bet its especially hard on your health if you are no good at it.
Yes, but that same administration can at least point and say, "but at least we didn't aggy it up like aggy did with Jimbo"
That was actually the most mind-bending part of Charlie's tenure for me, that he would have actually kept his job had he won that game. The program was a hot mess few wanted to touch when it came time to replace Mack and at that time I believed Charlie deserved a solid four years to turn the program around. By the middle of the 2016 season however, I'd given up on Strong. To me it was obvious he was completely in over his head and we'd already seen his best. Some may disagree with this but I was actually rooting for Kansas to pull the upset on us that day. It's not the first time I've rooted against the team either. When BYU ran for 500+ yards on us in 2013, the Diaz-Akina defense was being exposed as a fraud, and Mack was wandering around looking for Greg Robinson to explain it all to him.... I was rooting for us to lose that game as badly as possible. I understood that losses, and bad ones, were what it was going to take to get late-era Mack and Charlie out of here. I hate having been pushed to this place but looking back on it, there are good losses. UCLA 97' and Kansas 16' are two of the best in school history.
I never ever wanted Strong here. I felt he had no clue how to run a program like Texas, and I believe the administration should have known better. Unfortunately, I was proven right and there should have never been an embarrassing loss to Kansas, plus many others, had a proper decision been made. I never understood all the Charlie love on this site back then. - Mike
