Miami hires former Texas head coach Charlie Strong as linebackers coach, per sources
Mario Cristobal’s coaching staff is about to get a little more stacked.
The Miami Hurricanes are finalizing a deal to hire Charlie Strong as their new linebackers coach, multiple sources confirmed to the Miami Herald on Saturday. Strong spent last year as the assistant head coach and inside linebackers coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and was, at point, considered one of the best up-and-coming coaches in college football when the Texas Longhorns hired him in 2014.
ESPN first reported Strong’s hire.
Strong, 61, was also the coach of the Louisville Cardinals from 2010-2013 and the coach of the South Florida Bulls from 2017-2019.
Strong, who coached Texas from 2014-2016, will be the eighth new assistant coach hired by Cristobal since he took over in Coral Gables at the end of the 2021 regular season. The other new hires are offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, quarterbacks coach Frank Ponce, running backs coach Kevin Smith, offensive line coach Alex Mirabal, defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, defensive line coach Joe Salave’a and defensive backs coach Jahmile Addae. The Hurricanes have not made any official announcements about the statuses of tight ends coach Stephen Field and cornerbacks coach DeMarcus Van Dyke, but both continue to work for Miami. Van Dyke is moving to another responsibility, a source told the Herald, and won’t be one of the 10 on-field assistant coaches teams are limited to.
The Hurricanes have also not announced the hire of a special teams coordinator, although this is a position usually filled as an additional responsibility for an assistant coach.
Of all the high-profile additions, Strong might just have the most impressive resume of the bunch. He has been a position coach in college since 1986 and spent time with the Florida Gators, Ole Miss Rebels, Notre Dame Fighting Irish and South Carolina Gamecocks before Louisville hired him in 2009 after he was nominated for the Broyles Award in his final season as Florida’s defensive coordinator.
Strong is the third coach on Cristobal’s staff to be nominated to the Broyles Award, which is given annually to the nation’s top assistant coach. Steele was also a Broyles finalist in 2017 when he was the Auburn Tigers’ defensive coordinator and Gattis won the award last year as the Michigan Wolverines’ offensive coordinator.
While his stint with the Longhorns was the most prestigious stop in his career, his time with the Gators and Cardinals give him a major history of recruiting South Florida.
In Gainesville, he was a frequent recruiter of South Florida, landing former linebacker Jon Bostic out of Palm Beach Central.
In Kentucky, he got quarterback Teddy Bridgewater to flip from Miami to Louisville, plucking the elite prospect out of Northwestern after the Hurricanes fired former coach Randy Shannon.
Susan Miller Degnan contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 19, 2022 at 9:51 AM.
