Charlie Strong says Texas won’t lose five games again
Charlie Strong is happy his Texas Longhorns are going bowling, but he’s not considering it an accomplishment, either.
Texas moved to 6-5 and became bowl eligible with a win over Oklahoma State on Saturday night, the third straight win for the team after Texas was 3-5 following a loss to Kansas State.
Because of the three wins, Texas is guaranteed to finish no worse than 6-6. Strong said a 5-7 season would have been a disaster.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Strong said. “I mean, we almost got there. I’m like, wow, you’re sitting there at 2-4 and 3-5, and I’m like who do we have left on the schedule that we can beat? With the talent we had, I kept saying we were better than a 2-4 team. We were better than a 3-5 team. The talent was within the program, and I just didn’t think we did a really good job of coaching or putting the guys in position where they really needed to be. I told our coaching staff, we’re sitting here at 3-5, and we should not be pleased with where we are. I said at The University of Texas that should never happen. Our record of going out and getting five losses, we’re not comfortable with that at all. That will never happen within this program again. But 5-7 would have been a disaster, yes.”
Texas will likely finish fifth or sixth in the Big 12 – two of its five losses are out of conference – and attention has turned to bowl projections and where Texas may end up in the postseason. And there’s a chance that the Longhorns could play Texas A&M in a bowl game. The two schools haven’t faced each other since Texas A&M left the Big 12 following the 2011 season.
However, Strong doesn’t want to talk about a potential matchup with the Aggies. He was asked about it twice on Monday, and each time deflected the topic to TCU, who Texas plays on Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving weekend was when Texas used to play A&M.
“I’m just worrying about TCU, and whoever we play in the bowl game, we’ll be happy,” Strong said. “It’s just all about TCU right now.”
Another topic Strong didn’t directly address? The impending coaching opening at Florida. With the dismissal of Will Muschamp after the end of the season, Strong, a former Florida defensive coordinator, would likely be the biggest candidate for the job if he was still at Louisville and hadn’t taken the Texas job before the 2014 season.
“I have a great job here, and I say this, we have a lot of work to get done here,” Strong said. I’m not very pleased with where we are right now. I look at our record and know we could have been a lot better, and there is still a lot of work to get done here.”
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