Jump to content

So...about Charlie Strong at USF...


horn_of_the_morning

Recommended Posts

We can shit on Mack's cupboard management all day long, but we lost several games during Charlie's tenure due to special teams disasters including an OU game. We also had a verified former horn go on reddit and mention that special teams units never got coached by Charlie. We got shut out by KSU. Next year we get shut out by Paul Rhoades ISU. Next year we lose to Kansas.

I'm sorry. As fucked up as Mack's decline was, it was never that bad. I refuse to believe that Mack could fuck it up that badly for 3 consecutive season. Even the limp dick, bitch tits version of Mack was good for 8-5. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bill Connelly's S&P+ doesn't give a fuck about what we think a coach's IQ is or any of that shit and it has this year's team ranked at number 36. That's almost the same exact ranking Charlie's last two seasons came in with -- his first season we were down around 50th, and his last two he came in 37th each year. Mack's big glorious 8-5 swan song season, we were also number 37.  

After what happened to UNT and UH I fear for our chances in the Sugar Bowl, and it's gonna suck because my stepmom is a Dawg, and I am watching it with her and my dad.

Again, call me a pussy all you want, but there is something wrong with football in Texas that's bigger than our own program and that we need to address. Strong did so by recruiting more in Louisiana and Florida and Herman is continuing that. Mack's delusion that he could get all he needed from within 300 miles of Austin is what got us to this position of mediocrity we are now in.  I keep coming back to something Scipio Tex wrote in 2015:

Quote

Texas high school players are spoiled.  Reviewing south Florida film was a wake-up call.  The field is a drained mangrove swamp covered in broken glass and No Dumping signs.  There's a bullet riddled cigar boat sticking halfway up out of the end zone.  The game stops whenever a pit bull wanders onto the field.  There's a referee wearing lycra shorts and tank top with a fanny pack. 14 people in the stands; two of them there to serve warrants.  Gatorade buckets full of pruno. I've counted only nine men on the field on at least half of the highlights.  Meanwhile, Texas kids have been training like Ivan Drago since they were 11 and their stadiums are Elysium.

The Friday Night Lights culture causes kids to peak too early, mentally and physically, in other words. The average state of Texas CFB team this year was almost three scores below the S&P+ median. That is horrid. As @Huckleberry has noted on here, there are simply too many schools playing what used to be called D-1 football. These days there are 12, when at one time it was only UT, aggy, SMU, Rice, UH, TCU, Tech and Baylor. That's a lot of recruits for one state to support but now you add in UTSA, UTEP and Texas State where all the coaches are saying "come here and you can play right away," and you've got a mess. And that's not even including the likes of Stephen F and Sam who pick off a blue-chip every now and then.

The same thing has happened on a smaller scale in Florida. The U, FSU, and Gatah used to all be in the top ten or twenty every single year. And then along came UCF, USF, and those two schools I collectively call Florida Intergalactic. The big Florida three have not been the same since. They don't have the depth they once had, and the little schools are picking off a few studs here and there. 

Florida's population is about 2/3 that of Texas, but they have half as many FBS schools. Do the math. I mean, Rice was always going to suck, barring some sort of Stanford-like commitment to sports they've never in my lifetime showed any inclination to trying. UTEP is in a recruiting wasteland but still poaches a few guys. It's the schools like UTSA and Texas State that have me worried. They are in fertile recruiting grounds / attractive destinations and even though they were both among the five or ten worst teams in FBS this year, they almost certainly both had players on the roster that could have helped us this year, or on down the line. 

So, getting back to my original point, Herman is going out of state more, and it's not as easy to get fired up about some recruit we have to watch on Hudl rather than see in person or read about in the local paper or Dave Campbell's Texas Football (yeah, I'm an old) but it is absolutely the right thing to do. The state's pool of talent is not as big as it once was and there are almost twice as many schools. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Mack's delusion that he could get all he needed from within 300 miles of Austin is what got us to this position of mediocrity we are now in.  

Statements like that take away what very little credibility you may have.

What got us to a place of going from a national afterthought the last few years of Mack to being a national laughing stock was the felony-like incompetence of Charlie Not-At-All. How many offensive coordinators did he have at UT? 3 in 3 years? He didn't even know the offense Watson was running at the start of year 2. Defense ... his strong point? The worst in Texas football history which immediately improved upon Herman's arrival. Special teams? Even YOU can see how grossly incompetent he was in that phase of the game.

His recruiting? We lack depth now because so many of his recruits simply didn't pan out.

In game adjustments? He obviously did not know that that is not just acceptable, but expected during a game.

We became a laughing stock because of that grossly incompetent fraud. And if Texas were not as concerned about being a national leader in everything we do, athletically, academically, etc., we should have taken the position that he was fired for cause and told him to go pound sand on the remainder of his contract.

So, by all means, keep blaming Mack for where the program is 5 years after Mack left. Keep ignoring all of the facts indicating the level of gross neglect and incompetence demonstrated by Coach Potato. When the messenger, in this case, YOU, is so delusional and either unwilling or incapable of addressing and admitting the significance of the overwhelming body of evidence which contradicts his views, the message too, is lost and disregarded.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Lidig8r said:

Statements like that take away what very little credibility you may have.

What got us to a place of going from a national afterthought the last few years of Mack to being a national laughing stock was the felony-like incompetence of Charlie Not-At-All. How many offensive coordinators did he have at UT? 3 in 3 years? He didn't even know the offense Watson was running at the start of year 2. Defense ... his strong point? The worst in Texas football history which immediately improved upon Herman's arrival. Special teams? Even YOU can see how grossly incompetent he was in that phase of the game.

His recruiting? We lack depth now because so many of his recruits simply didn't pan out.

In game adjustments? He obviously did not know that that is not just acceptable, but expected during a game.

We became a laughing stock because of that grossly incompetent fraud. And if Texas were not as concerned about being a national leader in everything we do, athletically, academically, etc., we should have taken the position that he was fired for cause and told him to go pound sand on the remainder of his contract.

So, by all means, keep blaming Mack for where the program is 5 years after Mack left. Keep ignoring all of the facts indicating the level of gross neglect and incompetence demonstrated by Coach Potato. When the messenger, in this case, YOU, is so delusional and either unwilling or incapable of addressing and admitting the significance of the overwhelming body of evidence which contradicts his views, the message too, is lost and disregarded.

Going too easy on Mack here, imo. Would have been interesting to see Mack flop around for the next three years. Interesting in sense of "may you live in interesting times." 

And I do have a niggling fear that the seemingly positive results of this season are a bit of pyrite. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Lidig8r said:

Statements like that take away what very little credibility you may have.

What got us to a place of going from a national afterthought the last few years of Mack to being a national laughing stock was the felony-like incompetence of Charlie Not-At-All. How many offensive coordinators did he have at UT? 3 in 3 years? He didn't even know the offense Watson was running at the start of year 2. Defense ... his strong point? The worst in Texas football history which immediately improved upon Herman's arrival. Special teams? Even YOU can see how grossly incompetent he was in that phase of the game.

His recruiting? We lack depth now because so many of his recruits simply didn't pan out.

In game adjustments? He obviously did not know that that is not just acceptable, but expected during a game.

We became a laughing stock because of that grossly incompetent fraud. And if Texas were not as concerned about being a national leader in everything we do, athletically, academically, etc., we should have taken the position that he was fired for cause and told him to go pound sand on the remainder of his contract.

So, by all means, keep blaming Mack for where the program is 5 years after Mack left. Keep ignoring all of the facts indicating the level of gross neglect and incompetence demonstrated by Coach Potato. When the messenger, in this case, YOU, is so delusional and either unwilling or incapable of addressing and admitting the significance of the overwhelming body of evidence which contradicts his views, the message too, is lost and disregarded.

Charlie was a palate-cleanser. The big cigars saw where Mack was leading the program -- into the ditch -- and he had to go. If we'd hired Tom Herman in 2014, we'd all be cursing his name too, because those teams were going to suck no matter what, especially after Ash went down. We had no OL and no legit QB.

In his first year, when he had experienced players on D, they were salty, and then they all graduated, and Strong had to replace them all with kids, because what was left over after that was trash. So he recruited a boatload of NFL-caliber DBs and Poona and Malik and many of the same people who were calling for Charlie's head said this year "if only these guys Charlie had recruited stuck around for their senior year we'd be undefeated," or something similar. 

And Chris Warren III was tearing up the league in preseason before he got hurt. Why the hell was Herman giving Kyle Porter carries over him last season? Can anybody explain that? Yeah, yeah, Warren's big game was against a laughably bad Tech defense, but when did Porter ever succeed against any D, anywhere?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Gigglebush said:

 

I'm sorry. As fucked up as Mack's decline was, it was never that bad. I refuse to believe that Mack could fuck it up that badly for 3 consecutive season. Even the limp dick, bitch tits version of Mack was good for 8-5. 

Do you not remember 2010? 

And that 8-5 was misleading because the big 12 was so bad that year. Every top half of the conference program was breaking in a new QB except for us and we had a golden path to the conference title and still managed to fuck it up. 

BTW, next year looks to shape up similarly. OU losing QB and hopefully no gift transfer to bail out Riley. WVU losing QB. TCU losing QB (assuming Robinson transfers and he sucked anyway). We should be favorites to win conference next season. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Bill Connelly's S&P+ doesn't give a fuck about what we think a coach's IQ is or any of that shit and it has this year's team ranked at number 36. That's almost the same exact ranking Charlie's last two seasons came in with -- his first season we were down around 50th, and his last two he came in 37th each year. Mack's big glorious 8-5 swan song season, we were also number 37.  

After what happened to UNT and UH I fear for our chances in the Sugar Bowl, and it's gonna suck because my stepmom is a Dawg, and I am watching it with her and my dad.

Again, call me a pussy all you want, but there is something wrong with football in Texas that's bigger than our own program and that we need to address. Strong did so by recruiting more in Louisiana and Florida and Herman is continuing that. Mack's delusion that he could get all he needed from within 300 miles of Austin is what got us to this position of mediocrity we are now in.  I keep coming back to something Scipio Tex wrote in 2015:

The Friday Night Lights culture causes kids to peak too early, mentally and physically, in other words. The average state of Texas CFB team this year was almost three scores below the S&P+ median. That is horrid. As @Huckleberry has noted on here, there are simply too many schools playing what used to be called D-1 football. These days there are 12, when at one time it was only UT, aggy, SMU, Rice, UH, TCU, Tech and Baylor. That's a lot of recruits for one state to support but now you add in UTSA, UTEP and Texas State where all the coaches are saying "come here and you can play right away," and you've got a mess. And that's not even including the likes of Stephen F and Sam who pick off a blue-chip every now and then.

The same thing has happened on a smaller scale in Florida. The U, FSU, and Gatah used to all be in the top ten or twenty every single year. And then along came UCF, USF, and those two schools I collectively call Florida Intergalactic. The big Florida three have not been the same since. They don't have the depth they once had, and the little schools are picking off a few studs here and there. 

Florida's population is about 2/3 that of Texas, but they have half as many FBS schools. Do the math. I mean, Rice was always going to suck, barring some sort of Stanford-like commitment to sports they've never in my lifetime showed any inclination to trying. UTEP is in a recruiting wasteland but still poaches a few guys. It's the schools like UTSA and Texas State that have me worried. They are in fertile recruiting grounds / attractive destinations and even though they were both among the five or ten worst teams in FBS this year, they almost certainly both had players on the roster that could have helped us this year, or on down the line. 

So, getting back to my original point, Herman is going out of state more, and it's not as easy to get fired up about some recruit we have to watch on Hudl rather than see in person or read about in the local paper or Dave Campbell's Texas Football (yeah, I'm an old) but it is absolutely the right thing to do. The state's pool of talent is not as big as it once was and there are almost twice as many schools. 

Good gosh the hand wringing over utsa and tsu, in addition to saying sfa and Sam get blue chips every once in a while... are you a futureman sock? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, bluto said:

Good gosh the hand wringing over utsa and tsu, in addition to saying sfa and Sam get blue chips every once in a while... are you a futureman sock? 

Texas HS football cannot supply all 12 schools in D-1, especially not with OU, LSU, Bama and even Ohio State coming in here and skimming off 5-stars. Thankfully, Strong and now Herman are raiding other states for talent. Mack did too, briefly. He had a pipeline to Shreveport for a while and recruited legacies like the Sendlein brothers and Kasey Studdard from out west and then sucked most of the legit talent out of Denver for a bit, but despite his claims of killing himself in Florida, he never pulled a single recruit out of there that I can recall nor any out of south Louisiana.

NFL-caliber players fall to the lower divisions all the time. Back when the Buffalo Bills were perennial AFC champs (if Super Bowl losers) their whole roster was stocked with players from tiny schools. Yeah, they had guys like Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, and Bruce Smith, but their grunts and some of their stars came from schools like Kutztown (Andre Reed) and shit like that. It always surprises me when I watch Sunday Night Football how many players come from little bitty non-powerhouse schools. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When the old coach is asleep at the wheel, merely working hard to maximize your opportunities should get you back close to his last season within 2 years at the most. MB left the cupboard in sorry shape, and any personnel deficiencies as cause for poor performance in the first two years CS was here are partially attributable to him. CS, however, had the TEXAS name to sell to Jucos and grad transfers starting the day he was hired. It was his (very well-compensated) job to bring in whatever short- and long-term personnel he needed to win games. He fixed the OL so well that the only apparently NFL-level player Herman inherited to play was CW. Instead of bemoaning the lack of OL that MB left CS, the Strong apologists should note that Herman's worst season was better than CS's best despite losing CW (and much of what other "talent and depth" we had on the line) for most of the season. Yeah, CS baked that OL "cake" for Texas himself.

If Herman has a 5-7 season next year, it will not be Mack's fault, or Strong's. Herman will have had 2 full years to implement his culture and system, to fill gaps with transfers, and to infuse young talent with 2 of "his own" classes past the transition one. It will be a little early to see how high we may peak with a completely "Hermanized" version of the 'Horns, but it will by no means be too early to see whether we have built a solid enough foundation to beat Kansas. The argument that CS is not to blame for the fact that he is in 30th place (of 30) for coaching record at UT because of MB neglects the obvious truth that not all bad coaching performances are followed by good ones. We were bad under CS because CS was unable to make us better. Three years were not enough to be ready for Kansas.

Next year, Texas will be even more reflective of Herman, and USF of Strong. It may be enjoyable to taste both cakes again in December 2019.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Brothahorn said:

Can't believe we are still having discussions about Cholly. The man sucked here, what else is there to discuss?

Two things:

1) it's kinda a support group to relieve/relive PTSD from the Strong years

2) idiots responding to sweetjones/coordinator when they should have him on ignore

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Troof. Wickline was named OC to attempt to skirt his buyout at OSU. Fairly chickenshit move. Patterson lowballed Chuck on many of his assistants, apparently. 

When Herman was hired it was shocking how different the energy was in terms of support. Charlie was spectacularly bad and he’s going down the same road again in Florida, but the amount of rot in the athletic department that he faced can’t be denied. He had an extra steep hill to climb. That doesn’t excuse his failure nor does it mean he would have succeeded had he been better supported, but it it’s an acknowledgment of reality. 

What amazes me is how he was so good as a DC and so good at Louisville and has turned so bad since.

Edited by Mole
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Mole said:

When Herman was hired it was shocking how different the energy was in terms of support. Charlie was spectacularly bad and he’s going down the same road again in Florida, but the amount of rot in the athletic department that he faced can’t be denied. He had an extra steep hill to climb. That doesn’t excuse his failure nor does it mean he would have succeeded had he been better supported, but it it’s an acknowledgment of reality. 

What amazes me is how he was so good as a DC and so good at Louisville and has turned so bad since.

He actually wasn’t that good at Louisville.  Not awful,  but a hollow record

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Pope Joan said:

Charlie's degeneration before our very eyes sure smacked of CTE. Some kind of cognitive diminution.    Damn, I wish he'd quit coaching and enjoy his 25 million while he still knows his kids' names.  (Remember "My man 18"?)

Not everyone who is really smart cares or is able to come across as such in speaking to those he doesn't know well. I was at one of his early "get alumni buy-in" roadshow speeches with meet/greet. He did not come across as "look at me; I'm brilliant," which did not particularly worry me. He certainly did not come across as encephalopathic or significantly demented. His pressers do not look like a person with CTE either. His motor function and mood/affect never really raise any flags on the public stuff I've seen. None of this proves he doesn't have CTE or won't get it, but it seems too facile a medicalization of his issues for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Magus Ossis said:

He certainly did not come across as encephalopathic or significantly demented. His pressers do not look like a person with CTE either. His motor function and mood/affect never really raise any flags on the public stuff I've seen. None of this proves he doesn't have CTE or won't get it, but it seems too facile a medicalization of his issues for me.

I'm relieved to hear that.  Very relieved.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WTF MaybeACoordinator?

Everybody knows Mack left a problematic depth chart. Everyone knows Charlie had a rebuild on his hands. But even understanding that, he didn't succeed, in no small part because he made bad assistant hires. I'm all for giving a coach time, but when you can't manage a single 7 win season in three tears, and cap that off with a loss to a historically bad Kansas team, the jig is up.

Let it go.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

He wasn’t “so good” at Louisville. And had he won, he could’ve overcome any AD rot. But he didn’t win. Because he’s a terrible coach. 

There’s no disagreement that he was terrible here and is looking similar again at USF. He wasn’t cutting it and needed to go. His “great” recruiting was overblown as well. People were sucked in by the last day drama and the hope of his player development chops.

We’ll have to agree to disagree about his run at Louisville. He turned Louisville into and NFL factory, went 25-3 in his last two seasons, and handed a really good Florida team its ass. His teams were more than just a great quarterback.

Based on what he showed here, he would have failed in a perfect administrative situation. But on the other hand, very few or maybe no coaches would have succeeded. Charlie maximized the failure but almost anyone in that situation would have come up short. He was in a no win situation and ran with the no win part of it.

That’s how you wind up with the worst run in school history - bad and disorganized coaching, toxic and unsupportive administration/boosters, and entitled and overrated players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, Mole said:

 

We’ll have to agree to disagree about his run at Louisville. He turned Louisville into and NFL factory, went 25-3 in his last two seasons, and handed a really good Florida team its ass. His teams were more than just a great quarterback.

He beat 1 ranked team in that run.  ONE.  That was Florida 33-23.  Same one that squeaked by ULL.

He also lost to a 8-5 club and a 5-7 club.

 

The 25-3 run was extremely overrated

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

He beat 1 ranked team in that run.  ONE.  That was Florida 33-23.  Same one that squeaked by ULL.

He also lost to a 8-5 club and a 5-7 club.

 

The 25-3 run was extremely overrated

This is veering into the absurd.

The idea I think you're suggesting is that if we really studied Strong's resume before Texas, we'd see he was overrated. That's bullshit. He had a relatively short career as HC before coming to Texas, and during that time he enjoyed some success. As it turns out, Charlie Strong punched above his weight class at Louisville. Back then, his star was bright, and he was perceived by many to be ready for a big time program.

Plenty of college coaches better than Strong would not have done as well as Strong did at Louisville, under the same conditions. There's just a huge amount of variability inherent to a head coach's tenure. He recruited and developed well, and built a great team. He's obviously not good enough to reliably reproduce those results, which is why he got fired. But we don't need to pretend that he didn't accomplish all that much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, ndawg said:

This is veering into the absurd.

The idea I think you're suggesting is that if we really studied Strong's resume before Texas, we'd see he was overrated. That's bullshit. He had a relatively short career as HC before coming to Texas, and during that time he enjoyed some success. As it turns out, Charlie Strong punched above his weight class at Louisville. Back then, his star was bright, and he was perceived by many to be ready for a big time program.

Plenty of college coaches better than Strong would not have done as well as Strong did at Louisville, under the same conditions. There's just a huge amount of variability inherent to a head coach's tenure. He recruited and developed well, and built a great team. He's obviously not good enough to reliably reproduce those results, which is why he got fired. But we don't need to pretend that he didn't accomplish all that much.

He really had as good a resume as Herman. 

We also did more diligence with his hire than Herman"s.  Coach hiring is kind of a crapshoot anyway. However, I think it is a mistake to hire a very defensive-oriented coach for the Big XII. Apparently, you really kind of have to see the Big XII to believe it, as exemplified by the several quality teams and DCs thwt have been pantsed by Tech and its descendants. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

42 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

He really had as good a resume as Herman. 

We also did more diligence with his hire than Herman"s.  Coach hiring is kind of a crapshoot anyway. However, I think it is a mistake to hire a very defensive-oriented coach for the Big XII. Apparently, you really kind of have to see the Big XII to believe it, as exemplified by the several quality teams and DCs thwt have been pantsed by Tech and its descendants. 

He really did not.  Herman beat much better teams at UH in two years than Charlie did in 4 at UL.  And won an outright conference title.  Herman’s bad losses were basically when his qb was hurt or after his team knew he was gone.  

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

What’s bullshit is that it requires some to “really study”. It’s pretty simple to see. By the way, both statements can be true: 1) he enjoyed some success at Louisville; 2) he was overrated while there. 

I would say he was neither overrated nor underrated. Sure, a shitty poker player can still get a royal flush from time to time, but it's all relative. Strong may have been below our standard, but he's better than "shitty" for a program like USF. It took years of consistently causing favorable outcomes at Louisville for him to end up winning a BCS bowl. And he and his staff put a lot of 3* and 4* players into the NFL.

More than anything, I'm just saying that there's no point in using hyperbole to recast his tenure here in an exaggerated light.

Edited by ndawg
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, ndawg said:

I would say he was neither overrated nor underrated. Sure, a shitty poker player can still get a royal flush from time to time, but it's all relative. Strong may have been below our standard, but he's better than "shitty" for a program like USF. It took years of consistently causing favorable outcomes at Louisville for him to end up winning a BCS bowl. And he and his staff put a lot of 3* and 4* players into the NFL.

More than anything, I'm just saying that there's no point in using hyperbole to recast his tenure here in an exaggerated light.

Flash.in.the.pan

 

Mangino led Kansas to 12-1 with a bcs bowl victory.  Next year he was 8-5 in a much tougher conference than ACC (actually with a ranked win , which Charlie didn't have in his second "good year").

 

What happened his entire career? 2 games above .500

 

Law of averages reasserted itself.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...