How Charlie Strong flipped Texas on its head and made a two-QB system work

AUSTIN, Texas – Charlie Strong was in the air, hoisted there by his players, pumping his right fist over and over, lost in a euphoric moment.

Then he was on the ground, running across the field, hugging, shaking hands, flashing his luminescent smile.

Then he was stopping and high-fiving a man in a wheelchair wearing a burnt orange shirt. That would be Texas governor Greg Abbott.

At times the past two years Strong had to feel like the loneliest man in the Lone Star State, but not tonight. From the top down, everyone was with the third-year coach of the Longhorns. When the scoreboard says unranked Texas 50, No. 10 Notre Dame 47, the winning coach has a lot of friends.

Jubilant noise surrounded him. Students chanted his name. Everyone was sweaty and loving it, bathing in the September steam and soaking in the thrill of an epic night of football. On another part of campus, the clock tower glowed orange in traditional salute to a Texas victory – but this was no ordinary victory.

This was Texas transformed.

This was Texas football as it had never been under Strong, playing at a breathless pace and lighting the scoreboard and filling the stat sheet. This was Texas football with two complementary answers at quarterback, where for years there had been none. This was Texas football, so adept at finding ways to lose big games in recent years, now finding ways to win an utterly wild affair that teetered back and forth across four frantic hours.

“It was a night for us to just make it right,” Strong said. “At least for one game, one game.”

Adding that caveat is important. Glorious as it was, there must be follow-up to legitimately make this game the start of something big.

Because Strong was here before, literally. His players hoisted him aloft after upsetting Oklahoma last season – a nice win that augured nothing. Texas already had lost four games and was on its way to 5-7.

This time, there is hope. Rampant hope.

The hope starts where hope was lost in the first two years of the Strong Era: on offense. Two offensive coordinators have come and gone, with a putrid passing game and 14 losses to show for it. Now there is new coordinator Sterlin Gilbert, from the Baylor lineage of fast-break, high-efficiency football.

Now there is tempo. Texas squeezed off 86 plays Sunday night, which is 18th most in the nation after one week of play. Last year the plodding Longhorns were tied for 121st in total plays. And those 86 plays Sunday produced 517 yards and half a hundred points, numbers not often seen since the Horns were contending for national titles from 2005-09.

“We’ll take that as a start,” Gilbert said, the understatement of the night.

Now there is a passer. He is true freshman Shane Buechele, son of former big-league baseball player and current Texas Rangers bench coach Steve Buechele. Shane was long presumed to be the winner of Strong’s super-secret quarterback duty but said he was not informed until Sunday.

Strong did tell Buechele’s mom, Nancy, Saturday night, and she started crying. Shane kept it together a bit better, although he did tell Strong he expected to be a little nervous at first.

“Well, you’re going to turn around and hand the ball off anyway,” Strong told him, and was true to his word – for two plays. After that, Buechele was pretty much cut loose, and he responded brilliantly. Throwing picturesque deep balls, Buechele scorched Notre Dame for 280 passing yards and two touchdowns, and also ran for 33 yards and another score.

“You see him in the [football facility], he’s always around,” Strong said of Buechele. “You just knew that he could handle it, like this stage wouldn’t be too big.”

But now there is a perfect sidekick for Buechele in senior Tyrone Swoopes. He lost the starting derby because he’s never been a high-level passer, but he didn’t lose a role with the Longhorns. The 6-foor-4, 249-pounder dubbed the “18-wheeler” is now the designated semi to blast through defenses in the power running game.

Swoopes splattered Fighting Irish defenders for 53 rushing yards and three touchdowns, playing the role Tim Tebow once played at Florida when Strong was an assistant there. Strong said he told Swoopes before the game, “You’re going to have the opportunity to go win the game for us.” And then he did, barging in from six yards out in double OT to set off the celebration.

The stark contrast to Texas’ skillful handling of two QBs was Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly’s butchering of that same position. For a guy who acts like he knows everything about offensive football, he cost his team Sunday night by playing the wrong quarterback for several series.

Like Strong, Kelly kept his starter a secret coming in. Would it be Malik Zaire, who started last year’s opener against Texas but broke his leg in the second game? Or would it be his replacement, DeShone Kizer, who played extremely well the rest of the year?

Kelly went with Kizer, and the result was a 78-yard touchdown drive to start the game. And then Kelly got cute.

He inserted Zaire for the next series, a momentum-snuffing three-and-out. Then Zaire got two more series in the first half. All three resulted in punts.

At halftime, it was abundantly clear that Kizer was the guy – he’d led two scoring drives that culminated in him throwing touchdown passes. Zaire had done nothing of note. The score was 21-14, Texas.

The next time Kizer took the field, the score was 31-14, Texas. Because Kelly inexplicably gave Zaire one more series to start the third quarter and it ended in a three-and-out.

Kizer got the final eight possessions of the game, and Notre Dame scored 34 points the rest of the way. The natural question is how many points the Irish gave away by messing around with Zaire for four fruitless possessions. The smartest guy in the room looked like the dumbest guy in Darrell K. Royal Stadium on Sunday night.

Kelly was asked afterward whether Kizer was his quarterback moving forward.

“We haven’t made that decision,” he said.

Guess he needs to watch the film of Kizer’s 282 total yards and six total touchdowns to be extra sure it was better than Zaire’s 23 total yards and zero touchdowns.

While Kelly faces second-guessing, Charlie Strong has all the answers. That hasn’t happened since he was a hero at Louisville – before he stepped up to the prestigious but perilous position at Texas.

“We needed tonight to get this program back in the spotlight,” Strong said. “This is a big win for us to get the program headed back. I know one game does not make a season. We have many more to go. But this is a great start for us.”