Heading into the 2015 season, even the most optimistic Texas Longhorns fans knew that they wouldn’t be challenging for the Big 12 title never mind the college football playoff. The aim for this year was to improve from last year and remain competitive against the top teams in their conference according to Head Coach Charlie Strong in the off-season. Last year they lost five games by more than 20pts including a 48-10 defeat to TCU on Thanksgiving to close the regular season and a bowl loss to Arkansas 31-7.
Under Charlie Strong they are going through a massive re-building project after the last few years of the Mack Brown tenure. After the 2009 BCS National Championship defeat to Alabama, Texas went 30-21 under Brown before they finally decided to move on. With Strong deciding to rid the team of some bad characters by kicking them off the team and recruit the kind of players that made him successful at Louisville. Players went to training camp last year with blank white helmets and Strong said they would have to earn the right to have the Longhorn logo on them. To outsiders all the signs were good as he looked to instil a tough work ethic on the Longhorns.
Fans were reasonably patient through 2014, knowing that there would be growing pains with an inexperienced squad but this year they are expecting to see signs of improvements from last year. But the start of the 2015 season has angered the loyal Longhorn fan base as they’ve won just one game from their opening five whilst being blown out by Notre Dame and TCU. Whilst special teams mishaps gifted victories to California and Oklahoma State to leave Texas reeling. They now need to win five of their remaining seven games just to become bowl eligible and match last season’s win total of six. Apart from a home game to Kansas and a visit to Iowa State, the Longhorns will probably be underdogs in the remaining games they have in the Big 12 meaning their chances of reaching a bowl are slim.
The dismal on-field performances have been coupled with issues off the field as well. Athletic Director Steve Patterson was fired after alienating pretty much the entire fan base in the hopes of raising more money amongst other problems. Just as the dust settled over Patterson’s firing then Strong had to deal with a player using Twitter at half time to retweet a message from an Aggies fan requesting him to transfer to the school.
Despite all these issues, it doesn’t seem right to fire Charlie Strong right now despite the pressure building in the media. The re-build was always going to be a long process with a lot of problems along the way and that’s why they gave Strong a five year deal when he signed. He knows how to build winning football teams but the problem in college football is that it takes good three or four years of good consistent recruiting to dramatically improve a team. You can’t sign a top 10 class like Texas did this year and expect many of them to start right away without encountering some struggles as these young players learn to adapt to the speed of the college game. So let’s hope Charlie Strong is given more time before his tenure with the Longhorns is prematurely ended.
