Texas Football: Coordinator Search Turns Bizarre

By Donny Hunt | Dec 11, 2015

The losses just keep coming for Charlie Strong and Texas football as news broke Friday afternoon that Tulsa OC Sterlin Gilbert has turned down the offer to become the Longhorns new OC.

On Friday evening, Texas Longhorns Head Coach Charlie Strong, Athletic Director Mike Perrin, President Greg Fenves and Assistant Coach Jeff Traylor boarded a plane for an emergency flight to Tulsa. Their mission: to try to salvage the disaster that has been the search for a new offensive coordinator after presumed hire Sterlin Gilbert suddenly changed his mind and turned down the job. It’s not ridiculous at this point to say that Strong’s future at Texas could be riding in the balance.

This is turning out to be a worst case scenario for Strong and one of the reasons that I mildly advocated that Texas consider a change at the end of the season. Everyone knows that Strong is coaching for his job in 2016 and top flight OCs are reluctant to hitch their wagon to a guy who may be running full speed at a cliff.

This makes two public refusals of the job in three days. the public perception is going be that no one wants the job. That perception is further enhanced by reports that Cumbie turned down the job when Texas couldn’t assure him that Strong would be the coach past 2016.

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This is certain to be used as a negative recruiting tool by other teams. Not to mention that this is publicly embarrassing for the school. The timing couldn’t be worse either, as Texas is hosting a recruiting event this weekend.

If the Texas contingent fails, the assumption is that Strong returns to Tony Franklin. Rumors had him interviewing Franklin yesterday, but there is little reason other than monetary for Franklin to take the chance. He should be in line for head coaching opportunities soon and would probably stand to gain very little in trading Berkeley for Austin at this point.

So what does Strong do now? In my opinion, he has three options available to him. First, he needs to slow down and treat this just like he treats recruiting. A quick, easy answer isn’t there, so he needs to look for a diamond in the rough. Most likely an FCS OC or even head coach with an offensive track record. He almost has to take a wild chance at this point, so evaluate the guys carefully and look for someone who would likely benefit from the move to Texas even if it is only for one year.

His second option is to scour the discard bin for previously successful OCs who have been out of the game for a while. Call this the Greg Robinson gambit if you want to. Off the top of my head I can’t think of anyone but I’m sure that there’s someone out there (Norm Chow?) who might fit the bill.

The third option and the one that might be most likely, is Strong determines that his undiscovered star is already on staff and turns to Jeff Traylor to be OC and instead turns his focus to finding a quarterback coach to share duties/assist Traylor. There’s certainly been some sentiment for Traylor, especially post-Iowa State. This move wouldn’t be a sexy hire, but might be the safest hire.

Regardless of what Strong ultimately does, this fiasco of a search so far is doing him no favors and does little to instill confidence in this staff going forward. That’s just based off of surface information.

There is another report that Gilbert turned it down because he was told that his offer was three years when it was only two. That sort of miscommunication is inexcusable and if true, only serves to further the perception that Strong is in over his head and drowning.

The bottom line is that, after the disastrous regular season, Charlie Strong needed a smooth and successful offseason to put the fan base at ease. What has happened so far is anything but smooth and successful. If early indications are a predictor of future success, we’re in for another long season next year.

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