CAMPUSRUSH

Speculation about Charlie Strong's future at Texas has intensified with his team's woes, but Strong won't blame his predecessor. "I never will ever say it was Mack Brown's fault," Strong told reporters Monday. "It wasn't his fault. It is on me."
But numerous coaches who have faced Texas this season and are familiar with the Longhorns aren't as diplomatic about Strong's 1–4 start entering Saturday's game against No. 10 Oklahoma in Dallas. They point the finger at Brown and his former staff for the lack of talented upperclassmen and an attitude of entitlement that's resulted in public clashes with younger players recruited by Strong.
"In two years, Charlie could not have f----- that place up," a coach tells The Inside Read. "It was already f---- up before."
The latter was clear by the time Brown's 16-year tenure at Texas had puttered to mediocrity when he left at the end of the 2013 season. The Longhorns were never the same after their loss to Alabama in the 2009 national championship game and declined with every additional year Brown was allowed to stay.
"Mack knew the s--- going on, he just didn't want to own up to it," another coach says. "He knows what he left."
And that's a Texas-sized mess for Strong, at least in the eyes of coaches. In cleaning it up with his disciplined, blue-collar approach, he dismissed nearly a dozen players in his first season in Austin.
That's why many coaches still can't believe Strong was able to will the Longhorns to a 6–7 record last season that included a loss to Arkansas in the Texas Bowl. "(University of Texas) kids have always been entitled," another coach says. "They've been given everything. They're usually four- and five-star recruits that don't feel like they have to work. They just thought they could show up."
That's been changing under Strong, although the scoreboard hasn't reflected it this season. Texas has played one of the nation's toughest schedules (the opponents in the Longhorns' first five games have a combined 21-4 record). Although Strong abruptly made wide receivers coach Jay Norvell his offensive play-caller after the season-opening loss at Notre Dame, opposing coaches insist Strong's schemes on both sides of the football are sound.
"They're just not nearly as talented as they used to be," a coach says.
It's apparent the Longhorns' most talented players are mainly those Strong signed in his first two recruiting classes. Offensively, coaches rattle off freshman wide receiver John Burt, sophomore running back D'Onta Foreman as well as freshmen offensive linemen Connor Williams and Patrick Vahe as the best at their respective positions for the Longhorns. Defensively, it's freshman linebacker Malik Jefferson along with freshmen cornerbacks Kris Boyd, Davante Davis and Holton Hill.
The best quarterback on the roster is redshirt freshman quarterback Jerrod Heard, but coaches attribute his immense struggles the last two games to opponents' crowding the box defensively to restrict his dual-threat ability. With enough video of Heard finally in action, the opposition has discovered he can't complete the intermediate passes needed to exploit those defensive schemes.
"That's no secret," one of the coaches says.
Neither is the void of talent among the upperclassmen. It's so bad that the Longhorns' have become a punch line among NFL scouts, who joke they now make the trip to Austin for Sixth Street instead of The Forty Acres.
Senior cornerback Duke Thomas is considered Strong's best senior because of how hard he plays but is unlikely to make an NFL roster. It's widely believed Texas won't have a player selected in the NFL draft for the second time in three years after its 76-year streak was snapped in 2014.
"None of the older guys are going to the NFL, so you can tell most of them really don't care," one of the coaches says.
To make matters worse, there appears to be a lack of leadership among the players, a role usually filled by upperclassmen. "(Texas) doesn't have any dogs," one of the coaches says. "They don't have anyone that will stand up and say, 'F--- this bull----, let's go kick these f------' a--."
The rift between Texas's underclassmen and upperclassmen is so evident that coaches could sense the animosity well before it spilled over publicly in recent weeks. They see confidence in the Longhorns' younger players, but not the older ones.
"The upperclassmen are killing everything," one of the coaches says. "The freshmen just want to play. They're balling their a---- off."
It's all created a toxic environment for Strong in his uphill battle to make the Longhorns the best Big 12 team in Texas. Texas's proud faithful don't fully comprehend the Grand Canyon-sized gap Strong must make up to be able to compete with Baylor and TCU, according to coaches.
One coach who reviewed Texas's embarrassing 50-7 loss to TCU last Saturday still can't comprehend how Brown didn't offer scholarships to Horned Frogs star quarterback Trevone Boykin and wide receiver Josh Doctson.

"They're the difference-makers," the coach says. "Why doesn't Texas have those two guys?"
The coach then started laughing. He already knew the answer and wasn't as polite as Strong about it.
"Mack," the coach says. "Brown."