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As we approach the Steve Sarkisian era, let’s take a look at how the last five head coaches have done in their season opener.
There’s less than two weeks until the start of the 2021 college football season. Continue reading “How the last five Texas football head coaches fared in their season opener”
On Tuesday, DaVon Hamilton discussed his excitement about playing for his former college coach, Urban Meyer, who he feels will push the Jags to greatness.
After having Monday off, the Jacksonville Jaguars returned to the practice field Tuesday, which marked Day 11 of training camp. It was another “Winners and Losers Day” for the team where they focused heavily on 1-on-1 battles where the winner would be announced over the public address system.
There also was a lot of anticipation for practice with trade rumors surrounding cornerback CJ Henderson, who has only been available for one training camp session up until Tuesday. He was able to take the field for his second practice, but the media was sure to ask Jags assistant head coach Charlie Strong about his future, as the first-year NFL assistant had a presser after Day 11’s session.
Also meeting with the media Tuesday was Jags safety Josh Jones and defensive tackle DaVon Hamilton, both of whom had a lot to offer about the team’s changes this offseason and the defense.
Below is a video of all three media conferences that took place after Day 11:
While CJ Henderson has only taken the practice field twice since camp started, Jags AHC, Charlie Strong, believes he has time to be ready for the regular season.
The Jacksonville Jaguars have been a trending topic the last two days, and surprisingly enough, it wasn’t because of Tim Tebow. Instead, it was due to teams believing they were open to trading 2020 ninth overall pick CJ Henderson, who is one of the youngest players and has a lot of upside.
This report, which came from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, came as many hurdles have gotten in the way of getting Henderson prepared for the 2021 season. After starting in eight games as a rookie, he was placed on injured reserve with a groin injury after Week 10’s game against the Green Bay Packers. He wasn’t able to return for the rest of the season and eventually had labrum surgery, which limited his offseason activities.
Then when he finally was able to return for training camp, he had to be placed on Reserve/COVID-19 missing the first eight actives before briefly returning for Day 9 and missing Day 10 for personal reasons. However, on Tuesday (the team had Monday off), Henderson returned to the practice field, and despite the trade rumors that have surfaced, assistant head coach Charlie Strong expressed how excited he was to see Henderson back.
“It is good [to see him back],” Strong said. “He’s a really good player and the thing about it is we know this; he can make us a lot better football team. Just to see him get around us and get out on the field and go to work was really exciting.”
Henderson is a player with a lot of potential, and with him, the Jags’ secondary could be a very respectable unit if he improves in his second year. And while the team could go into 2021 with Shaquill Griffin, Tyson Campbell, and Sidney Jones IV as their top-3 corners and succeed, having Henderson (if focused and committed) only gives the group a better chance.
If Henderson can avoid any setbacks from this point on, he has a chance to head into the regular season and be a valuable contributor — if not a starter. The team has yet to take the field for their preseason game, and for that reason, Strong said he’s confident that Henderson can be ready before the Jags’ Week 1 trip to Houston.
“I think that we still have enough time here because we’re a month still out from playing our first game,” said Strong when asked if the time Henderson missed will hurt him. “I know we have these preseason games, and they will always be good to get him back so he can get out there and run around. But just knowing that he can get back and that we can just teach him the defense and he can learn it, because we’re doing a lot on defense and that’ll be good for him to get back and just go through the whole learning process. Even if he can’t come out to practice, just being in the classroom really helps.”
If he’s going to be a part of the Jags’ roster, the next three weeks will be important for Henderson. However, if more issues pop up that prevent him from taking the field, or the team has a hard time motivating him, maybe a trade might be the best option for both parties.
“…it’s really been exciting just to see how much they’ve come to work each and every day and how much they’re buying into what we’re trying to get them to do,” Strong said.
New Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer isn’t the only one on the staff who will be coaching in the NFL in 2021 for the first time ever. Though he loaded his staff with a number of experienced professional assistants, he also brought in a familiar face.
Charlie Strong has a long history with Meyer. The two were assistants at Notre Dame together from 1996-98, and when Meyer received the head coaching job at Florida in 2005, he brought in Strong as his defensive coordinator, a position he held until 2009.
After head coaching stints at Louisville, Texas and South Florida, Strong will be working with Meyer again as the assistant head coach and inside linebackers coach for the Jaguars.
On an episode of the “Another Dooley Noted Podcast” with Pat Dooley, Strong discussed the adjustment he’s had to make coaching at the professional level.
“When you think about the differences between just the college athletes and the professional athletes, it’s all about can you create value for them,” Strong said, according to quotes transcribed by Saturday Down South. “The thing about a professional athlete, he just wants to extend his career because it’s a living for them and if you can help them extend their career, they’re more than willing to listen, Pat. We’ve had no resistance from any of the players, and it’s really been exciting just to see how much they’ve come to work each and every day and how much they’re buying into what we’re trying to get them to do.”
Joining a team coming off a 1-15 finish (the worst in franchise history), it’s clear that the new staff needed to bring a jolt to the locker room. According to Strong, the coaches are already seeing that buy-in from the players.
“Coming in as a completely new staff and then coming in with Urban, I just think that the players are really buying in and trying to do everything you ask them to do,” he said. “When you have a plan in place, which he does have a plan in place, then the players are more willing to listen. And then these guys are professionals, so they understand that our success is going to be how we go play is going to be more for them. And so they’re going to try to do everything you ask them to do. Like I said, it’s all about creating value. How do I create value for myself?”
The track record of first-time NFL coaches isn’t great, but this staff enters with one of the best situations one could ask for. The team has a rookie potential star quarterback in Trevor Lawrence and lots of cap space. The Jags are undoubtedly a team set up to succeed in the future, and it seems the staff likes the early returns it’s seeing.
Once upon a time Charlie Strong was working alongside McCray and Tebow when they were collegiate players and now he’s doing so in the NFL.
Alongside Urban Meyer, Charlie Strong and the Florida Gators’ staff was able to build one of collegiate football’s best teams over a decade ago and the legacy that was built at the time is still strong. Now, both Meyer and Strong have found themselves working together again on the NFL level with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and two of the key players from their Gators run are once again being coached by the duo.
One of those players is pass rusher Lerenetee McCray, who was a part of Florida’s defense from 2008-12. With eight years of NFL experience to his name as a special teamer and edge rusher, Strong said he feels the former Gator is a valuable asset to the team, especially with him understanding the current staff almost better than anyone.
“We always felt like when we recruited him at Florida that he had some talent, very talented then, a guy who’s big and athletic, a guy who can run,” Strong said. “But then, just being in the league the number of years that he’s been in there has been really very impressive. You look at the things that he’s done when he was at Denver being on the special teams.
“When we first got the job here, he comes walking in my office and I just forgot that he was here and was just kind of shocked. But just seeing him work here the last few weeks, he’s been very good. I think Lerentee [McCray]’s one of those guys who’s going to give you everything he’s got, and he understands what we’re looking for because he had played for us before.”
Earlier in the week, Meyer shared some interesting insight on McCray, stating that he’s been working out at the SAM linebacker position with a few others like Leon Jacobs and K’Lavon Chaisson. That means he’s a part of a group where he’s the most experienced player by a long shot, which could bode well for him during final cuts as the Jags young team needs experience and locker room leaders.
After the Jags’ last minicamp practice, Strong was also asked about another player he knew from his time with the Gators in Tim Tebow. And while his focus has been to coach the interior linebackers as a positional assistant, Strong said that Tebow is handling himself well by his eyes.
“When you look at Teebs [Tim Tebow] and you look at just the following, you know whenever you say Tim Tebow, you know that you’re going to have just truly a mass following him, from the media to even just fans out there who want to know how he’s doing,” Strong said. “I think he’s done a very good job of just handling himself and just embracing it.
“What you wonder a lot of times when you get a player like that who’s been away from it is how is he going to be accepted in the locker room, and I think the players have done an unbelievable job at just taking him in. But he’s handled himself the right way too and he wasn’t one of those guys who tried to push himself on them. He just let everything happen and he’s done a very good job at that.”
This is certainly good to hear from a coach who knows Tebow personally and further makes the case that things probably aren’t as chaotic at the Jags facility as some have been led to believe. That’s a good thing that should allow Strong, Meyer, Tebow, and McCray to focus on bettering the Jags as the team looks to rebound from a one-win 2020 campaign.
Members of the Jags’ organization have once again made a cameo in for AEW.
When Urban Meyer joined the Jacksonville Jaguars, fans knew it was only a matter of time before he made a cameo on All Elite Wrestling. He did just that Sunday for the wrestling league’s pay-per-view entitled “Double or Nothing” in the show’s Stadium Stampede matchup between The Inner Circle (led by Chris Jericho) and The Pinnacle (led by MJF).
In a nutshell, the goal for such a match is to utilize the whole venue (or most of it) and fall count anywhere. The means the fight could go anywhere in TIAA Bank Field (pools, field, kitchen, Daily’s Place, coaches offices, etc.) and could be ended there, too.
Somehow, the circumstance led to MJF and Jericho getting caught up in a 1-on-1 situation that ended up in Meyer’s office as he and Charlie Strong were going over some things. While Jericho gained the upper hand, Strong and Meyer gave him some help (giving him some handy weapons) and eventually witnesses the wrestling legend toss his rival out of the office’s back door.
This happened in Urban Meyer’s office tonight. pic.twitter.com/xxlvri5sPg
— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) May 31, 2021
Jericho proceeded through the office and told both coaches to have a great season. Watching it all in astonishment, Meyer’s response was simply ‘Holy s—.’
Afterward, Jericho spoke on the experience and said he thoroughly enjoyed the scene and that Meyer and strong did a great job.
“He was super awesome,” Jericho said Sunday. “And the best part was when we said, ‘do you mind saying holy s–t?’ And I thought he’d say no, he was like ‘yeah I’ll say it.’ I was like that’s great. … Like a great action move there’s a little levity. The Urban Meyer scene was great. We played it straight so it’s not ha-ha slap-stick comedy, and he was one of the highlights for sure. It was a lot of fun.”
It’s been a crazy start to the season for Meyer in his first months in the NFL and the Jags have certainly had their share of moments in the headlines. Then again, it just wouldn’t feel right for fans to witness a regular offseason and they are clearly used to it at this point.
While he didn’t completely confirm what the team plans to do with the first pick, Strong offered some candor about the quarterback position.
Whenever a franchise selects first overall and don’t have a proven quarterback, it almost always chooses to address that position with the pick. This is the exact situation Jacksonville finds itself in, and it’s an open secret that the team plans to address the position with its first pick.
In an interview with reporter Anthony Amey, Jaguars assistant head coach and inside linebackers coach Charlie Strong said that the current coaching staff knows what it’s doing when it comes to developing a quarterback. Before working for the Lions, offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell held the same position in Seattle where he helped develop Russell Wilson and led the unit to two Super Bowl appearances (including a win in Super Bowl XLVIII).
Meanwhile, passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Brian Schottenheimer succeeded Bevell in Seattle, where he worked for the last three years. Before that, he was the offensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams and the New York Jets as well as a stint at the college level with the Georgia Bulldogs.
Strong said the duo, with the leadership of head coach Urban Meyer, whose track record as an offensive coach at Ohio State, Florida, and prior jobs speaks for itself, knows what it’s doing when it comes to developing a quarterback.
“With Bevell being the offensive coordinator and then (coach Schottenheimer) being the quarterback coach, they have a track record of getting the quarterback ready,” he said. “And Urban’s an offensive guy, he’s driven, that’s his deal is offensive. So I think when they make that selection, which it’s been a lot poured into it so the groundwork has already been laid, so when they make that selection, everyone will be prepared to go.”
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CN-TBGUB90N/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
In addition to basically stating that the team will take a quarterback with the first overall pick, Strong seemed to heavily imply who that quarterback will be. Though no one affiliated with the Jaguars has officially come out and said it, the predominant belief has been that they will take Clemson passer, Trevor Lawrence.
While Strong didn’t confirm this, he also seemed to concede that the team’s decision is already widely known.
“When you talk about the quarterback, whomever it may be — and everybody knows who it’s going to be, it’s no secret…”
The NFL draft is less than a week away, and soon the coaches won’t have to speak about Lawrence in such coded language. But for the time being, it seems Strong, who is very familiar with Meyer as the two worked together at Florida from 2005 until 2009, is confident in this coaching staff’s ability to prepare a quarterback.
Malcom Brown said that when he found out he was coming to Jacksonville, he was “running around the house.”
For many players, getting traded is (understandably) a frustrating and stressful experience. But for new Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle Malcom Brown, who the team acquired from New Orleans in exchange for a seventh-round pick, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
This week, Brown told the media he knew his time with the New Orleans Saints, who had to clear nearly $100 million in cap space this offseason, was running short. When he found out he was coming to an up-and-coming team like Jacksonville with an exciting new regime, he was thrilled.
“…I was ecstatic,” Brown said last week. “I heard what coaches were here and what direction they were going in and like I said, I was happy. I already knew the situation I was in over in New Orleans, I already knew they had to get under cap space, I already knew it was over. So, I mean, just doing that, keeping that mind. I just wanted to attack the offseason, wherever I’m going to be, I’ll be the best version of me. Like I said, when the trade happened, I was on the phone, I was happy, I was running around the house. It doesn’t matter where the program was last year, it’s about what we do next year.”
Considering all it took to bring Brown into the building was a seventh-round pick, the trade was a bit of a steal. He’s still got a lot left in the tank at just 27, and he’s been a consistent starter throughout his career, both with the New England Patriots and Saints. He’s started 80 of the 89 games he’s appeared in since being the final pick of the first round back in 2013.
Brown is coming off a season in which he started all 13 games he played. He missed some time in November with injuries, and that resulted in a career-low in tackles with 27, though he did manage a sack on the year.
Now, he joins a Jaguars defensive front that desperately needed help on the interior last season. He will be a major part of the rotation in 2021, if not a starter.
Though the excitement surrounding coach Urban Meyer and probable incoming quarterback Trevor Lawrence certainly had an affect on Brown, there’s another layer that makes this marriage all the more exciting for him.
Brown’s college head coach, Charlie Strong, was hired this offseason as the Jaguars assistant head coach and inside linebacker coach. Strong was the defensive coordinator at Florida when the school hired Meyer in 2005, and he chose to retain the experienced assistant, who remained on staff until he took the Louisville head coaching job in 2009. Brown said a reunion with Strong was one of the things that excited him most about coming to Jacksonville.
“I know how (Strong) coaches and what he’s about,” Brown said. “It’s just this energy level that he brings. It just brought back flashbacks of college and how we were, and I got very excited once I heard that and just to see him again.”
It’s not often a successful player is this optimistic about being traded, but it goes to show both the reputation Meyer has in the football world and the belief that players in the league have in this young roster.
Charlie Strong, who served as Meyer’s defensive coordinator at Florida, was his first assistant hire with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
On Thursday, the Jacksonville Jaguars announced the full staff for new head coach Urban Meyer. The list featured a few head-scratchers, but many of the hires also made a lot of sense, including the hire of Charlie Strong assistant head coach and inside linebackers coach.
Strong spent the last season as a defensive assistant at Alabama following head coaching stints at South Florida (2017-19), Texas (2014-16) and Louisville (2010-13). Before that, Strong served as the longtime defensive coordinator for the Gators from 2003-09. He had previously coached as an assistant in Gainesville at various times during the 1980s and ’90s, as well.
Initially hired by coach Ron Zook, Strong served as the interim when Zook was fired in 2004. Meyer, who was hired as the replacement, elected to keep strong on his staff as defensive coordinator. The two had previously worked together at Notre Dame, where they were both assistants from 1996-98. The decision to retain him paid dividends, as Strong’s defenses were vital during Florida’s national championship runs in 2006 and 2008.
That’s why it shouldn’t be a surprise that upon accepting the Jags job, Strong was the first call Meyer made, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“He was my first hire,” Meyer said. “He’s going to be the No. 2. That means the assistant head coach, and he’ll be in front of the team. He’ll be my right-hand man as he’s been many, many times over my time at Florida. I always tell people that the chance of us winning those two national championships without Charlie Strong would not have happened.”
Strong said the two talked about the possibility of reuniting last summer, though he was more enthusiastic than Meyer at the time.
“We were just sitting around talking and I said, ‘We’ve got one more run in us, now. We’ve got to make one more run,’” Strong said. “He’s like, ‘Don’t ask me to do that.’ And I said, ‘I know you want to do it, because it’s still in you.’”
The Jaguars will hope Meyer and Strong can resurrect some of their mid-2000s magic in Duval led by presumed first-overall pick Trevor Lawrence.
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Former Texas head coach Charlie Strong will serve as the Jacksonville Jaguars inside linebackers coach.
Former Texas Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong has officially been hired by Urban Meyer and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Continue reading “Former Longhorns head coach officially joins Urban Meyer’s staff in Jacksonville”
