Charlie Strong reportedly is back in Tampa, hired this week by the Buccaneers to be their defensive line coach. The Bucs haven’t yet confirmed the report by Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network, but if it happens it’s a good move because the man definitely can coach.
However, supporters of USF football can be forgiven if their feelings about Charlie are not so charitable. He was the head coach of the Bulls from 2017-19, and by the end of his tenure the team had run into the ditch.
The #Bucs are set to hire Charlie Strong as their new defensive line coach, sources say.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 5, 2025
The former #Louisville and #Texas head coach spent last season with #Bama as an analyst. Now, back in the NFL for the first time since 2021 with the #Jaguars. pic.twitter.com/BMPelYomm1
It seemed like a home-run hire when Strong took over after Willie Taggart left for Oregon. Strong was a prominent member of the Urban Meyer coaching tree and was successful for four seasons at Louisville as the head man.
He was 37-15 with the Cardinals, including a 33-23 win over the Florida Gators in the 2012 Sugar Bowl. Texas hired him in 2014, and that’s when the warning flags started flapping. He had three straight losing seasons, a first for a Longhorns coach
He even lost to a one-win Kansas team.
But USF ignored that and quickly hired him.
The first year it looked like a great move. The Bulls were 10-2 and started the next season 7-0, but then it collapsed in a steaming heap. USF lost its final six games that season, followed by a 4-8 record the next year.
His record over his last year and a half: 4-14. Many of the losses weren't close.
Adios, Charlie.
Jeff Scott, who followed Charlie, gets much blame for his disastrous tenure, but the program was already imploding before he arrived.
So, how did this happen?
Charlie came to USF heralded as a great recruiter, but after Taggart’s key players were gone the Bulls simply weren’t competitive. Local high school coaches grumped that neither Strong nor his staff paid much attention to them.
The current coach, Alex Golesh, has made recruiting locally and throughout Florida a top priority, and it shows.
I also suspect that USF made promises to Charlie that weren’t kept.
He seemed to expect that the school was committed to building an on-campus stadium.
“We are in the middle of a study right now looking at the various options on campus. We understand that is a very important part of where this program needs to go and we are going to continue to aggressively check into it and try to get one done,” said then-Athletic Director Mark Harlan said.
That was in 2017.
A year later, Harlan went to Utah and talk of the stadium died until the current USF administration committed to building it. The stadium is scheduled to open in 2027 – a decade after Strong implied it was on the way.
Like I said, though, Strong will help the Buccaneers. The man can coach. Assuming he sticks around for a few years, I wonder what he’ll think when he sees the new stadium rising on the USF campus.
He may wonder what might have been. It’s understandable if USF fans feel the same way.