Gator Country

Finally, a good man has the head job: Louisville has hired Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong./Gator Country file photo by Tim Casey

Charlie Strong, who fashioned top defenses for Urban Meyer that helped the Florida Gators to national champions in 2006 and 2008, finally has a program to call his own.

The University of Louisville, which fired Steve Kragthorpe after he went 15-21 in three seasons, signed the 49-year-old Strong to a five-year contract that will pay him a base salary of $1.6 million a year.

Upon hearing that Strong had signed his contract to become the Louisville coach, Meyer released this statement: “Charlie Strong is more than just an excellent football coach. He is great father and a great husband and a tremendous mentor to young people. Charlie’s commitmentto education and molding young players into men played a key role in our success at Florida and I know he will continue to show the samelevel of commitment in running his own program at Louisville.”

Before Strong ever coaches a game for the Cardinals, Strong said he had some unfinished business to do for his good friend Meyer. He plans to be on the Louisiana Superdome sidelines on Jan. 1, performing his duties as defensive coordinator when the No. 5 Gators (12-1) take on Louisville’s Big East rival, league champion and No. 4 Cincinnati (12-0) in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

“I’ve been there,” Strong said. “I still feel like I owe it to them.”

Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich, who targeted Strong from the start of his search, is OK with that. After all, he had to wait until Saturday evening to contact Strong as the Gators closed their regular season with a 32-13 loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game at Atlanta.

While he waited, Jurich said he talked with friends and fellow coaches of Strong to make sure he was making the right choice.

“I said to [Florida coach] Urban Meyer, I said ‘Urban, I’m on the hook here, you’ve got to tell me something negative,’” Jurich said. “He couldn’t do it.”

Because as most everyone knows, there aren’t any. Strong has shown loyalty, a love for his players and an ability to get the best out of them that began in 1983 as a graduate assistant at Florida. It would be the first of four separate stints at Florida during his 26-year coaching career that also had stops at Texas A&M, Southern Illinois, Mississippi, Notre Dame and South Carolina, where he was defensive coordinator under Lou Holtz.

Strong coached outside linebackers for Galen Hall in 1988-89, coached defensive ends and defensive tackles and was assistant head coach to Steve Spurrier from 1991-94 and returned under Ron Zook in 2003 as defensive coordinator. When Zook was fired after the 2004 season and his old Notre Dame friend Meyer hired but coaching Utah in the Fiesta Bowl, Strong was named interim coach of the Gators for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl against Miami. The Hurricanes prevailed 27-10, but Meyer named his old friend assistant head coach and moved him up to associate head coach in 2008.

Strong’s name came up in several openings over the years but he never got the call until Jurich made it last Saturday evening.

Wednesday, Strong admitted he wondered if he was ever going to have his own team.

“When we were offered this job, my wife [Victoria] and I looked at each other,” Strong said fighting back tears, “because you just never thought it was going to happen.”

Jurich and Louisville are counting on Strong’s fiery personality and coaching skills to reawaken the fan base which had been turned off by the Cardinals’ struggles under Kragthorpe, who inherited a hot program from Bobby Petrino when the current head coach at Arkansas moved into the professional ranks with the Atlanta Falcons. The Cardinals in 2006 won the Big East championship and finished the season ranked No. 6.

Last month, just over 23,000 fans showed up for the team’s season finale against Rutgers at Cardinal Stadium, which is being expanded to 55,000 for next season’s opener against Kentucky.

“Even when I was a defensive coordinator, I thought ‘If I do my job, it may not happen for me ... but it could pave the way for someone else,’” added Strong, who became the 11th African-American head coach among the 120 Football Bowl Subdivision schools and fourth hired in the last month.

That in itself is reason to celebrate.

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