Satire: Strong Too Scared of Tigers to Plan for Notre Dame

One week into the 2015 season and things already aren’t looking good for Texas, especially the offense.

Last year was a rough one for Texas’s offense. At the end of 2014, the Longhorns ranked 105th in total yards (with only 5 yards more than Southern Miss) and averaged only 21.4 points per game. The disastrous year was capped off by an abysmal showing in the Texas Bowl against Arkansas where Texas only managed 59 yards of total offense.

Head coach Charlie Strong had promised to remedy their offensive woes by going up tempo this year, but so far nothing has changed. The offense might even be worse, currently ranking last in the FBS in total yards.

Strong explained the reason for the offensive failures after the game.

“Those tigers we’re trying to eat me!” said Strong acting out the scenario with hand puppets. “They surrounded my desk and kept growling and trying to eat my toes. It’s wasn’t a good week for productivity.”

Strong explained that earlier in the summer he had played host to two tiger cubs because, as he notes, “They are the Texas mascot, after all.” However, when the tigers began to come around more often, he said that his ability to focus on Notre Dame decreased dramatically.

Texas coach Charlie Strong just casually chills with tigers in his office #NoBigDeal http://t.co/wcsQgiVYdq pic.twitter.com/o1r7PApkPZ

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 2, 2015

“I tried to fend them off with steak, but I think I might have given myself a paper cut near the meat and they got the taste for human blood,” said Strong. Strong then demonstrated how this might have happened by pulling a small sirloin from his pocket and touching it with his left index finger.

Strong noted that he had actually been forced to sleep on top of his desk, built to look like a dumpster, two nights before the game for fear of injury if he tried to leave.

“Every now and then their [the tigers’] owner would show up and see how I was doing,” said Strong. “I didn’t want to bring shame to the great state of Texas, so I said I was fine. You have to lead by example, after all.”

Strong said that while he was unable to participate in the game planning, he had been sure that offensive coordinator Joe Wickline and assistant head coach for offense Shawn Watson would take care of things.

When asked why the team looked so unfocused on offense, Wickline explained that he and Watson are both involved in calling plays, so their problems stemmed mostly from poor execution by the players.

“I get the offense together and tell them what play I want them to run, then Shawn [Watson] gets the offense together and tells them what play he wants them to run, and then Charlie [Strong] gets the offense together and tells them what play he wants them to run,” said Wickline. “It’s a pretty straight-forward system, so I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me about it.”

Wickline did admit that game planning meetings that week had been a little briefer than usual.

“Instead of the usual 3 text messages we get each week from Charlie [Strong],” said Wickline, “we got just one and it mostly asked us about our opinions on which cuts of steak might be most appealing to large felines.”

Strong said that while the tigers interfered with preparing for Notre Dame, the tigers have been collected by their owner and will not visit the team again until the week before their game with Oklahoma State.

“Who would have thought bringing live tigers to an office would be a bad idea?” said Strong. “Gig ‘Em, Horns!”