re: Racism at UTx (white coaches vs. black coaches)

quote:

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Here is what I don't get. Strong is a good coach. He was an excellent DC at Florida and very good at Louisville as a head coach. Texas has been a dumpster fire since they lost to Bama in the BCS championship game. Could the problem be more Texas than the Head Coach of Texas?

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I've thought about this, and while there's probably no single answer, here goes.

At Florida, he was coaching plus athletes (even plus for the SEC) on defense that Urban (and himself) brought in. Honestly, whenever a coach gets hired out from under a Saban or a Meyer, there's probably always a concern whether that coach was benefiting from the greatness of those guys or is also a great coach. Anyway, he's coaching plus athletes in a bit of an innovative defensive scheme at the time (3-3-5...I'm assuming he ran that there quite honestly) against SEC offenses that were mainly more traditional pro/I style. And it obviously worked well - combine that with the fact that Florida had a great offense under Urban and it put even more pressure on opposing offenses. And at Florida, I doubt Strong had any "game management" responsibilities.

At Louisville, I believe there's no doubt that Strong was bringing in plus athletes on the D side to that conference. Under the radar recruits who gave him an athletic advantage over the AAC (or whatever it was) teams he was playing against. And he had the fortune (a bit) to get a 1st round NFL QB (who frankly, didn't put up the biggest of numbers there). Some of the failings that got him canned at UT (game management, special teams, staffing decisions...he fired his first OC there a few games in) started to expose themselves at LVille but not enough to make him lose a bunch of games.

Coming to Texas, the athletic difference was minimized, people had started to figure out his 3-3-5 and all the stuff that first started to be exposed at Lville was magnified here. Staffing decisions were terrible. Game management was terrible. Even defensive scheming was terrible in several games this year...essentially refusing to acknowledge when certain offenses were decidedly one dimensional and trying to take away that dimension (KState comes to mind immediately). Anyone who watched the OK State game and still thought he should be retained doesn't have a clue about the sport.

And Kansas.

I also think his personality is a bit "isolationist" to begin with - tends to try and do everything himself without delegating well. That might certainly have been necessary at LVille but at any big program, is impossible.