Texas Football: Impact Charlie Strong USF firing has on Longhorns

A former head coach of the Texas football program, Charlie Strong, was just let go from his position with the South Florida Bulls on Dec. 1.

A former head coach of the Texas football program, Charlie Strong, was let go at his second job in the last four years. The South Florida Bulls reportedly made the move to let go of Strong after his third season with the program. There wasn’t really any significant progress that Strong made either during his tenure on the Forty Acres or with the USF football program.

The current head coach of the Texas Longhorns football program, Tom Herman, is the one who replaced Strong when saw the door off the Forty Acres following the 2016 season. Prior to that, the Longhorns hired Strong away from a solid stint with the Louisville Cardinals football program.

Most of the appeal surrounding Strong as a head coaching candidate stemmed from his success at Louisville. One of his last huge successes was the 2016 Heisman Trophy winner and stud Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. Strong recruited and developed Jackson early in his career before former Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino was his last on campus there.

However, the tenure of Strong with the Longhorns didn’t go very well from the start. It also seemed like he was setup to fail to some degree with Texas. The patience that it would take for the Longhorns to instill the sweeping changes that Strong desired would take much longer than the fan base wanted.

And Strong actually took a step back with this program in his final year in Austin. It was all capped off with a horrifying road loss to the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence in the final game of the 2016 season. Strong also only got to bowl eligibility once in three seasons on the Forty Acres.

USF was a good football program when Strong showed up to replace former head coach Willie Taggart (who left that program to take over as head coach of the Oregon Ducks). Strong went 21-16 in three years at USF. That was just a flipped version of his record with the Longhorns, which sat at 16-21.

However, what impact does this firing of Strong with the Bulls have on the Longhorns?

First of all, the coaching carousel really started gaining steam on the first day of December. The conclusion of action in Week 14 in college football really brought about sweeping coaching changes. Herman let go of third-year defensive coordinator Todd Orlando and demoted offensive coordinator Tim Beck on the same day Strong departed USF.

This could really be the last time that a Power Five program or a big time Group of Five program gives Strong a chance to be the head coach anytime soon. But he was very good at player development during his time at Louisville and he was a solid defensive coordinator during his tenure on the Florida Gators coaching staff.

With all the coaching changes that started with Strong and the weird coaching rumors surrounding USC Trojans head coach Clay Helton, the Longhorns could jump on some of these big names to fill their new openings. Strong wouldn’t have a direct impact in terms of filling one of those roles, but he is just one of the major dominos to fall in this coaching saga on Dec. 1.

What this firing of Strong also does is cast the doubt of the choices the Longhorns made to fill their coaching roles of late. There’s not much that the Longhorns football program did right of late in terms of filling coaching vacancies of late. Hopefully Herman can salvage some of that hope in the next year or two.