Charlie Strong Saves Job, Shows He's on the Right Track with Win over Oklahoma

Saturday afternoon, Texas Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong sent a message to his critics: Don’t clean out my office just yet.

Following a week of speculation surrounding his job security, Texas’ second-year coach ended it, emphatically so, with a 24-17 upset of No. 10 Oklahoma.

Was 1-4 Texas playing poorly entering the Red River Rivalry? Sure. Nobody who watched TCU’s 50-7 demolition of the Longhorns or Notre Dame’s 38-3 season-opening smackdown could deny Strong’s group looked ugly.

Strong is only in his second season of cleaning up the malaise created by the end of Mack Brown’s tenure, but that didn’t stop some pundits, like Berry Tramel of the Oklahoman, from suggesting that Strong’s seat couldn’t be hotter and insinuating that he could be fired if Texas put up a poor effort against the Sooners. FoxSports.com's Bruce Feldman wrote that Strong was "living his nightmare" at Texas. 

Consider that seat cooled. The win over the Sooners was the most important of Strong’s Texas tenure by far, and it showed he’s the right man for the job.  

The Longhorns have a long way left to go before returning to national elite status, but reports of his demise at Texas are certainly premature. He told ABC's Todd McShay afterward on the national telecast that he was incredibly happy for his team:

"

I feel proud of our players. They came out and competed. Look at it, all week we heard so much about how they didn’t have any pride, but they battled back.  I’ve been saying it, I truly believe we have a good football team. We’ve lost some, we don’t have an answer for last week, but we came back this week.

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Little has gone right for Texas this season.

The Notre Dame and TCU blowouts were sandwiched by painful losses to Cal and Oklahoma State sealed by late special teams miscues. And this week, Strong’s players sniped at each other on Twitter, as CBS Sports' Tom Fornelli chronicled. Even Bevo, Texas’ mascot, missed the trip to Dallas this week while being treated for a “life-threatening illness," according to UT officials (via Fox Sports).

LM Otero/Associated Press

So naturally, the Longhorns put together their best performance of the season. They built an early 14-0 lead and held on after Oklahoma and Baker Mayfield closed to within 24-17 in the fourth quarter, pushing the Sooners back to a 4th-and-36 at their own 12-yard line before forcing a punt.

Afterward, Strong and his players showed raw emotion. Strong got a Gatorade bath, then celebrated with his team on the field as if they’d won a Big 12 title. And it was almost as important.  

Following a week of turmoil surrounding the program, they needed this one badly, and they got it, showing the toughness Strong promised when he replaced Brown almost two years ago.

“We came together,” Strong told McShay. “I said to them, ‘At some point, you’ve got to go, guys. We’ve got to play up to our ability.’”

The Longhorns defense held Mayfield to 211 yards passing and limited potent tailback duo Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine to 60 yards and a touchdown on 16 combined carries.

Strong’s best teams at Louisville were built with strong defenses and acceptable offenses, and that’s a model he’s using at Texas. If freshman quarterback Jerrod Heard (who had 53 yards passing but 115 yards rushing Saturday) can develop into a real threat, the Longhorns will be dangerous.

At 2-4 with Kansas State, West Virginia, Texas Tech and Baylor left on the schedule, projecting a bowl trip this season is still difficult, but there’s no question that, given patience, Strong will make real progress at Texas—and quickly. His job is safe, as it should be.