Strong says he’ll be more involved in the defensive room

Following a 50-43 loss to California Sept. 17, Texas coach Charlie Strong vows to get more involved in the defensive planning. Strong made the comments during his weekly Monday press conference Sept. 19.

Not only is he planning on being more involved, Strong said every coach will get evaluated in the next two weeks. The Longhorns’ next game is at Oklahoma State Oct. 1 at 11 a.m.

Typically, he said, he makes suggestions to the staff, not demands.

The good news is the defensive problems are correctable, the coach said, so they will get fixed.

“We can be better than what we are,” Strong said.

To him, it’s about clearly telling the players what they need to do and making sure they understand it, then go do it.

There’s a belief Strong will remove Vance Bedford as the defensive coordinator and give that duty to linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary. Coach B.J., as he’s called by many players, is one of the top recruiters on the staff and helped reel in a lot of the talent.

“Not only me, but there’s other guys sitting there with capabilities of taking over that meeting room,” Strong said.

A lack of turnovers and missed tackles are on the list of things that must get fixed, he said, and the defensive front must put more pressure on the quarterback by making him use his feet to help out the secondary.

The other issue is finding ways to help linebacker Malik Jefferson have a bigger impact on games. Right now offenses know where he is and are making it difficult for him to make impactful plays.

For their part, some of the defensive players say they don’t know how Strong can be more involved.

Safety Dylan Haines said he’s played for Bedford for three years and the defensive coordinator “is doing a great job.”

Strong acknowledged the offense is scoring enough points, and if he had one observation it’s running for more yards during games. Therefore, he added, it’s about getting the defense to play at a higher level to decrease the amount of points scored by the opposition.

Before he was a head coach, Strong was a defensive coordinator at Florida where his units gave up no more than 14 points per game during their national championship years. So if anyone can fix defensive woes, it’s this coach. His time in Austin depends on it.

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