That's fine if they do. I'm content with him getting a 4th year at this point. There isn't very many replacement options at the moment. Herman to me has always been a little overrated. There were some rumors of an under the table deal that had already been done and he is coming to Texas for sure next season, but I'll believe it when I see it. Les Miles is the other guy that's available, and I'm not sure they're going to bring him in. So it's not the worst thing in the world that Strong is coming back if we can get a better replacement next season.
That's just my opinion. I think he is somewhat overrated. I still think he's a good, solid coach. But he hasn't done a whole lot yet as a coach and he's only been a head coach for a very short period of time. All the talk about him being such a hot commodity over hyped and overrated him a little bit IMO.
He won the national championship as OC at Ohio State. He won the Peach Bowl in his first year at UH with a patchwork team. What more do you want?
Strong now has Buechele, and it's more of the same. He has his players on both sides of the ball, and there's been little improvement.
Strong won a national championship as DC at Florida, too. He also won a BCS Bowl at Louisville against a supposedly much superior team. Anytime you get an OC/DC type or a HC with little experience, there are simply a lot of unknowns. That's not a bad thing, but it does mean these guys aren't sure-fire hires.
Basically what the poster above said. I mean it's not a given he can just coach well at a big time program. Different expectations and much better competition in the P5. I'm not saying Herman can't do it, I'm just saying it's not a given and some people (especially in the media) were acting like he was the next best thing to Saban. He's had two "marquee" wins. Beat an OK Florida St. team that was much more talented than Houston in the Peach Bowl that he definitely deserves credit for. Beat an semi-OK OU team that I originally thought was a decent team but turned out really wasn't. And then of course losing 2 games to sub par programs doesn't help. At the end of the day, I'd like someone a little more proven at UT. I don't want them to regret hiring yet another coach like what USC has been doing since Carroll left. I would still welcome Herman though if that's the best we can get whether that is this year or next year. If they keep Strong and Herman leaves for LSU or something, I don't think it's all that bad. There will be more candidates to choose from as they are every year. How on earth is it 'more of the same'? Buechele looks like he's going to be pretty good for the next couple of years. He had a typical freshman season where had his share of mistakes, but he has shown a lot of promise. The one thing I've given Strong credit for from the beginning of this year is bringing in a guy like Gilbert. It's been a night and day difference from the last two seasons. With him and Buechele, I think we at least have something there. This season more than anything else the defense has been the real issue. There are a lot of young players on defense, but it has been horrifically bad at times which is inexcusable.
I think Herman is going to take the best deal he can this year. He made a huge deal about the school needing to support the football team and the fans need to go to games and it's just not happening. A school of 50,000 students and a city of 4 million people can't sell out a 40,000 seat stadium? 35k is the listed attendance for their game last week. BYU had almost double that. Pretty lame.
At the same time, you could also credit Herman for Ward's development and blame Strong/Watson for Swoops' lack thereof. After all, Ward was pretty much an unranked player coming out of HS while Swoops' was a 5* with offers from Saban, Urban, Stoops, Sumlin, etc...We'll never know really but we kinda saw the same thing with Heard and think he was the best QB prospect out of the 3. Strong just hasn't been able to field a complete team. We had a really good defense year 1 with a historically bad offense. Everything was crap last season. This season, the offense was rolling early but the defense was among the worst in the nation. Now that Strong has gotten the defense somewhat on the right track track, the offense is starting to struggle. Meanwhile, special teams has been nightmare with feats that we have never seen before. As far as Herman, unless you are getting Saban, Urban, or Harbaugh (to a lesser extent), there is always going to be that risk. But I'm willing to roll the dice with it since I don't think any of the above mentioned guys will be available next season or the season after that.
He had Bridgewater and won with him in Louisville. Saban would have turned Swoopes into a tight end or another position.
You have no clue man. Texas is the 14th ranked offense in the country this year and they were 92nd last year. Not only is 14th great by itself, to say that there has been little improvement is incorrect in every quantifiable way. The passing yardage went from 118 to 38th which is also a tremendous improvement especially when you are one of the few programs starting a true freshman. The work Gilbert and Maddox have done with the OL is especially amazing which is a huge reason why Foreman is destroying it on the ground. Gilbert should have brought more of his coordinators with him. Firing strong might be the right move but it comes at the expense of the improvements Gilbert has brought to the team. This is his first year calling plays so he's going to make mistakes but you aren't 14th in the country when you don't know what you're doing.
I don't give one sh** about yards or offensive rankings. I want to win games. I'm not an Aggie; I don't do moral victories. Despite the fact that we have much better players, Gilbert, etc, we still can't put it together in all three phases. That's my problem with Strong - we can't play a complete game, so there has been no improvement in wins. But yes, the offense has been better in a lot of ways. I don't deny that.
uh huh. This post has Joe Morgan written all over it. A productive offense is not a moral victory. It's something that is a objectively valuable component for a team and part of its success and something you build around. Does it mean that we should keep Charlie Strong by itself? No but it is still a tremendous success for this year and puts your team in a better chance to win when you can rebuild the other parts of the team that are not delivering. Also, it's very silly to be making a huge deal out of the fact that there has been no improvement in wins when there are 2 (likely 3) games left. Is that improvement enough to justify keeping him? No. Your metrics are just circumstantial and some of your arguments are wrong. It will be a lot easier to justify keeping Strong if he wins the last two games but I just don't think they'll beat TCU.
Chip Brown so TIFWIW. But with Fenves' support, $20M buyout, no permanent AD, and lack of sure-fire replacement, I started to think it would trend this way. Also think Herman's luster wore off somewhat with the 2 losses for some people (not me personally), but a win over UL tonight would be big. Hate to keep harping on the "fire Charlie" train but 5-7, 5-7, and 6-6 in a crap conference with coaching mistakes and hires to boot just doesn't cut it out for me.
Gotcha. Chip gets a lot of **** but I think he is a pretty good source when it comes to stuff like this. He knows the right people and overhears the right conversation. I just can't stand him on twitter where all he does is try to get you to sign up for his website but the dude has to make a living. That's a high demand job with low pay. He ever reported that Saban was coming to UT but who knows where all of the realignment talk came from. I do not really care for the personal jabs he takes at Mack but that's his opinion. Who do you guys follow? I would suggest Anwar Richardson @AnwarRichardson for news and Sean Adams @thatsean & Erin Hogan @ErinHogan for commentary. I think Texas officals desperately want to be able to keep Strong and I get it. I would rather an AD like Oliver Luck doing the grunt work and having the biggest professional evaluation instead of our University President. I mean, the president would still need to sign off on a hire but an AD can evaluate and interview candidates in a much more informed and valuable way. I really don't know what to say. It's just not ideal. I really wonder what the program would look like if Oliver Luck was hired over Steve Patterson for AD. Would we still have Charlie Strong? Would coaches from other programs have been more willing to come here if the AD wasn't as strong a force? I mean, what coach would look at working for Patterson as a plus at taking the UT job? We wouldn't have fired so much of the athletic program staff but would that be a good thing or a bad thing? You can bet we would be further along in the effort to rebuild the Erwin Center which is years behind their ideal timeline from when they put together the medical center. Let's not forget this gem from Patterson: “The reality is that Austin has had a free arena for 3 1/2 decades at no investment whatsoever,” Patterson said. “You look at the growth projections five years out, to be a top 25 market in this country and not to have an invested a nickel in an arena is a heck of a position for the city of Austin to be in. So perhaps we ought to be looking at all the constituent groups and how they contribute or invest in a facility going forward,”
The food choices at stadium are much better because of Steve Patterson, I'll give him credit for that.
