Texas Football: 5 worst coaching hires in Longhorns history
1. Charlie Strong (2014-2016)
Record: 16-21-0 (.432 winning percentage)
The only Texas head coach that has a worse career win percentage during their time with the Longhorns than Chevigny is Charlie Strong.
Strong is also the only Texas head coach that coached on the 40 for multiple seasons that only posted losing records.
Moreover, Strong’s tenure as Texas’ head coach started ahead of the 2014 season, when he was hired to replace the 2005 National Champion with the Longhorns Mack Brown. Unfortunately for Strong, I think his tenure at Texas was doomed from the start in many ways.
Strong came into a tough situation in 2014 when the Texas program was already regressing in the latter years under Mack. His effort to try to right the ship in the locker room while instilling a culture of accountability. Strong did so by suspending and dismissing a few players ahead of the start of the 2014 season, while also making players earn the right to wear the Longhorn logo in camp.
Texas wound up getting off to a rough start to the 2014 season under Strong. The Longhorns started out with a record of 2-4 through the first half-dozen games in 2014, including some very convincing losses at the hands of the Baylor Bears and UCLA Bruins.
And after some hope was restored that Strong and the Longhorns were righting the ship down the stretch during the 2014 regular season (winning three straight games to start November), most of the optimism from that run was dashed a month later. Texas lost two straight to close out the 2014 season, giving the team its first losing record since the early 2010s.
Texas’ fortunes were no better under Strong to start the 2015 season, getting thrashed by Notre Dame by a score of 38-3 to open things up. The biggest positive in an otherwise disappointing 2015 campaign for Strong and the Longhorns was an upset win over Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry Game.
In 2015 and 2016, Strong’s squad posted two more losing seasons. Texas won five games in 2015 and 2016, including the embarrassing road loss to the Kansas Jayhawks near the end of that disappointing stretch.
It wasn’t too long after that November road loss to the Jayhawks that Strong was fired as Texas’ head coach after three seasons. Strong wound up finishing his three-year tenure at Texas with the worst winning percentage of any head coach in program history. He also only appeared in one bowl game, with no postseason wins during his three years at Texas.
Next. 3 Texas players that improved the most this spring. dark
Many consider Strong not only to be the worst head coaching hire in program history for the Longhorns but also one of the worst Power Five head coaches in the last decade. And while I don’t think all the issues that cropped up during his three years as Texas’ head coach were his fault, this clearly just wasn’t a good fit for him on the 40.