Brown let the program become too toxic, and he let the players do whatever they wanted. They had no regard for the rules or for who was in charge. They became too privileged, and it began to hurt the program. Toward the end of Brown’s 16-year career at Texas, they needed a leader and a new voice, someone who could clean the program up and make it respectable again.
The Longhorns have started the season 1-2 with their lone win against North Texas, but they followed that up with a 41-7 loss to BYU and a 20-17 loss to UCLA, a ranked team, this weekend. Their schedule currently has four more teams currently ranked in the top 25, including top-10 teams Baylor and Oklahoma. Strong has already made steps in the right direction to change the program. The dismissals and suspensions show Strong is not afraid to show the team who the leader is.
Strong has also taken away things that he thought the players should earn back. For example, under Brown, the players would ride buses to practice so they did not have to walk through the Texas heat. Now that Strong is there, he makes the players walk to practice until they earn that privilege back. Strong has also made other changes like taking away the team’s smoothie and snack bars.
When Strong was hired, he laid out five core values during his first meeting with the team. Those values were honesty, treating women with respect, and no drugs, stealing or guns. He said he wasn’t “in the business of kicking young men out,” but he wants them to be successful and make the right choices in life. It may not happen this season, but Charlie Strong will make Texas a proud program again.
