Charlie Strong Costs Texas a Win Against Oklahoma State

The Texas Longhorns have made significant improvements from their season-opening blowout loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. But the team still leaves a lot to be desired following a 30-27 loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Saturday and head coach Charlie Strong will have a lot of questions to answer after he essentially cost his team the game.

Late in the fourth quarter, Texas was holding onto a slim 27-24 lead over the Cowboys. The Longhorn defense had risen up and had completely thrown off the rhythm of the OSU offense. But after their offense failed to get a single first down deep in their own territory and punted to give the Cowboys excellent field position with just about four minutes to play, things started to fall apart, especially on the sideline.

With Oklahoma State’s offense struggling to move the football, Texas helped them out with a pass interference penalty followed immediately by a defensive holding penalty which appeared to be a bad call by the officials. This free yardage would be frustrating enough but Strong lost his mind protesting the defensive holding penalty and got into the face of the side judge, earning himself an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and giving Oklahoma State another free 15 yards.

That was all the Cowboys would need (or be able to get) and they tied the game with 1:33 to play on a 41-yard field goal from Ben Grogan. Texas tried to get something started on offense to move into a position to win the game with a last-second field goal but went three and out and were forced to punt the ball back to OSU. Texas’ punter, seemingly following the lead of his head coach by losing his focus, botched the snap and punted the ball negative-6 yards, giving the Pokes the ball at the Texas 18.

Oklahoma State was able to run down the clock and escape Austin with a 30-27 win after a clutch kick from Grogan, dropping Texas to just 1-3 on the year. While there are still several areas where the Longhorns need to improve, this meltdown falls squarely on the shoulders of Strong whose lack of composure in crunch time directly led to another disappointing loss for UT.

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