Charlie Strong Receives Support from Texas Athletic Director Mike Perrin

Texas Longhorns athletic director Mike Perrin threw his support behind head football coach Charlie Strong on Friday despite the team's 2-2 start to the 2016 season.        

While the Longhorns have lost two straight after starting 2-0 thanks to wins over Notre Dame and UTEP, Perrin said Friday there is no "magic number" of wins Strong has to hit by the end of the 2016 season in order to keep his job. 

"I support Charlie Strong," he said, per ESPN.com's Max Olson. "He's my coach. He's a friend. I respect him as a man. I really can't speculate or answer hypothetical questions here of what might be put before us later in the year. I just can't."

According to Olson, Perrin also told reporters he has "never considered" a mid-season coaching change.

Perrin's encouraging words come on the heels of supportive statements from Texas president Greg Fenves earlier in the week: 

The Longhorns started the season in encouraging fashion with a thrilling 50-47 victory over Notre Dame and a 41-7 thrashing of UTEP, but back-to-back losses against California and Oklahoma State sent Strong's squad tumbling out of the Associated Press Top 25. 

And while Strong—who is 13-16 since he took over as Texas' head coach in 2014—will face a stiff test when the Longhorns clash with the No. 20 Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, recent history suggests they could pull off a stunner. 

Texas defeated the then-10th-ranked Sooners, 24-17, in last year's Red River Showdown thanks to 313 rushing yards, and a similar ground-and-pound formula could keep the Longhorns competitive against the nation's 39th-ranked run defense (130.8 yards per game). 

But if Texas falls to 2-3, chatter regarding Strong's job security could ramp up as the Longhorns enter the thick of a Big 12 slate that includes showdowns with Baylor, Texas Tech and West Virginia.