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It’s time for Texas to fire Charlie Strong

By Josh Hill

Sep 19, 2015; Austin, TX, USA; Texas Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong reacts against the California Golden Bears during the fourth quarter at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Cal beat Texas 45-44. Mandatory Credit: Brendan Maloney-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 19, 2015; Austin, TX, USA; Texas Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong reacts against the California Golden Bears during the fourth quarter at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Cal beat Texas 45-44. Mandatory Credit: Brendan Maloney-USA TODAY Sports /
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It was another devastating loss for the Texas Longhorns this Saturday, so is it time to fire Charlie Strong an move on?

The Texas Longhorns are awful this season — and that’s being nice about things. If you’ve watched the Longhorns at all this season, you’ll have noticed that the quality of football is so violently subpar that the once proud program is being out scored this season 191-123. Perhaps the most painful that there is that the Longhorns have 116 points through five games in the season — as nearly getting shutout against TCU will do that to your ratio.

All of this is causing mass hopelessness in Austin and it’s making fans wonder if there are sweeping changes coming to the program in the near future. There’s not direct reports that Charlie Strong’s seat is hot, but you don’t need to phone up NASA of in Houston to acknowledge that his job isn’t what you’d define as traditionally safe.

Strong is now in his second year at Texas and he’s barely treading water with a losing record in his first two seasons with the team. Of course, this season could turn around, but ht e Longhorns are already 1-5 and look less like a football team and more like a bunch of kids trying to figure it out on the fly.

There are some out there that want to say Strong is handling the hard times well — namely Al Golden who is probably going to be out of a job at the end of the year at Miami. That’s not the glowing endorsement you want, and Strong might find it hard to get that in Austin as this year plays out. Steve Patterson is out at AD and the man who brought Strong in is now gone, meaning there’s little to no safety net for the head coach to fall back on.

One defense of Strong is that it’s just his second year in Austin and he hasn’t had a full recruiting class to develop yet. Then again, the way that Texas has been playing as of late seems to suggest that whatever recruiting classes are in Strong’s future won’t be anything to write home about. Going 1-5 to start this season and having a 7-12 through a season an a half in a job isn’t the best way to convince players to forego playing for other Texas schools like Baylor, TCU or even Texas Tech.

Strong isn’t a bad head coach, he’s just not the right coach for Texas and the further he sinks this season the harder it’s going to be to get the fanbase back on his side. Already there are loud calls from fans for Strong to be fired, and after a 50-7 loss to TCU and a 1-5 start to an already lost season, it might be time to Old Yeller him and move on.

Things are not going to get better for Texas. This is not a darkest before the dawn situation where the Longhorns need to pay their dues with Strong and then get better. The due that might need to be paid is firing Strong and admitting that he isn’t the guy to lead this team into the future.

It won’t be easy to admit failure in the Strong investment, but ego might be easier set aside than in other situations. Patterson is gone and the main man who brought Strong no longer there to fight for ego or his job. Historically, when the AD is removed, the head coach he brought in isn’t far behind and despite only having two years under his belt at Texas that might be the fate for Strong as this season continues to lose itself in darkness and misery.

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