Let us start off with Texas coach Charlie Strong’s press conference at the loss against TCU.
When Strong began speaking, once again, it started to sound like a concession speech. He talked about how he came to Texas to win a national championship and change lives. However, it quickly turned into explaining how tough being in limbo has been for his players, and the impact he has had in their lives.
- Strong said he expects to discuss his future at Texas with president Greg Fenves and athletic director Mike Perrin on Saturday. According to Strong, he does not know if he will be terminated this weekend. Strong said he looks forward to coming back, and believes the foundation has been laid: “It’s just like baking a cake. The cake has been baked. The only thing you need to do now is put the icing on it and slice it. That’s what this team is. The cake has been baked. Now it’s just ready to be sliced.”
- The one quote that has caught a lot of attention on Twitter is this one: “This is a team that has a chance to win a national championship because of the lessons they learned this year, the adversity that they had to overcome this year. It’s going to be tough for them. It’s all about life lessons.”
- Strong said the reason his team did not win is because they played a lot of young players and he did not have veterans to teach them. He noted the injuries to center Dominic Espinosa and David Ash in year one, plus having to play young guys last season.
- There was a lot of speculation about Strong’s job security prior to Saturday's game, and the coach said it was difficult to get his players to focus.
- Texas running back D’Onta Foreman said Strong’s future will impact his decision to turn pro: “I feel like it (the decision) will be as soon as possible. Just talk to my family. We’re going to sit down and try to make a decision as soon as possible … The pros are me loving those guys in the locker room, me wanting to be here next to those guys and trying to get this thing moving in the right direction for next season. The cons will be coach Strong not being here, and just looking over this season.”
- Longhorn offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert said the reason his offense struggled during the past three games is because they did not execute.
- Gilbert would not say freshman quarterback Shane Buechele wore down at the end of this season. Instead, he said they just were not able to execute during the past three games.
- Here is Gilbert’s explanation for the team’s red-zone struggles on Friday: “Just didn’t execute the stuff we had. We felt like we had some good stuff. Just weren’t able to execute it, and finish it out, and finish those drives with touchdowns. Obviously, that affected us today.”
- Gilbert does believe the outside noise surrounding Strong’s future affected the players.
- When asked about his first season, Gilbert said he does not regret leaving Tulsa to coach at Texas. He said it has been a great experience. In addition, Gilbert said he had an idea what the spotlight at Texas would look like, and thanked Strong for giving him the opportunity.
- Here is Gilbert’s response when asked if he was concerned about finishing 5-7 again after the team had the identical record in 2015: “The thing about coaching nowadays, every year is a new team, and every year is seemingly a risk year. I knew this situation. Like I just said, just the opportunity to be here and face up to the challenge. We knew we had a challenge ahead of us. We knew some of those things were possible. For our offensive staff, and our entire staff, to continue to stick it out and stay together and battle, go to battle every Saturday and continue to try to do the things we want to do, which was wins. We just fell short in a few of those.”
- Gilbert said he would like to be here a year from now He said there is a bright future with all of the young players they have.
- Texas linebacker Malik Jefferson said Strong encouraged his players to have fun against TCU. However, he said everybody knew in the back of their head what was going on.
PLAYER NOTES
(provided by UT)
• D’Onta Foreman rushed 31 times for 165 yards. It was his school-record 13th straight game with at least 100 yards rushing, the longest active streak in the FBS.
• Foreman rushed for over 100 yards in all 11 games he has played this season, tying Earl Campbell’s record for most 100-yard games in a season. He rushed for more than 150 yards in seven games this season.
• His 2,028 rushing yards this season make him just the second Longhorn (along with Ricky Williams) to surpass 2,000 yards in a single season.
• With his 165 yards today, Foreman passed Ricky Williams’ previous-best 1,893 yards as a junior.
• Foreman has 2,782 career rushing yards, the 9th-most in school history.
• Shane Buechele finished his true freshman season with 2,958 total passing yards, the 7th-most yards in a season by a quarterback in school history.
• This was Buechele’s 12th start of the season, the second-most all-time among freshman behind Colt McCoy’s 13 in 2006.
• Ray Guy Award finalist Michael Dickson punted 8 times for a total of 385 yards in the game. He had three punts over 50 yards, including a 74-yard punt that was downed at the 3-yard line. The 74-yarder is tied for 6th-longest in school history. Dickson had three punts downed inside the 20, including one at the three.
• Malcolm Roach finished his freshman season with 8 TFL. He is tied for 8th all-time among freshmen at Texas in that category.
TEAM NOTES
(provided by UT)
• Texas finishes the regular season 5-7 overall and 3-6 in the Big 12.
• The Longhorns are now 62-24-1 all-time against TCU with a record of 32-14-1 in Austin.
• Gerald Wilbon made his first career start in Friday’s game. He is the seventh true freshman to start a game for Texas this season, tied for
most in the nation. UT’s true freshmen have made a combined 31 starts this season.
• Wilbon’s start marked the 22nd player this season for UT to make his first career start.
• 11 freshmen and sophomores started Friday for Texas. Those two classes have combined for 215 career starts and 142 this season (most nationally).
