After a tumble from preseason, consensus top-ranked team to out of the 12-team College Football Playoff, Texas has begun an offseason of some change.
Sources tell FootballScoop that Texas has parted ways with running backs coach Chad Austin on the heels of the team’s 9-3 regular season and in advance of the Longhorns’s compelling postseason bowl matchup against Michigan.
Austin’s stay in Austin, Texas, is a surprisingly short one. He arrived at Texas in February of this year after an extended stint at West Virginia University.
He had held additional Power Conference assistant coach’s spots at both Kentucky and North Carolina.
But the Longhorns were inconsistent, at best, and ineffective at their worst with their ground attack this season. Texas finished the year with a 129.7 yards-per-game average on the ground, a figure that left the Horns ranked 101st nationally in rushing offense.
Last year’s Texas squad, which lost a number of key contributors from its College Football Playoffs semifinalist squad, averaged almost exactly 30 more yards per game.
Texas finished the season as the CFP Top 25’s No. 13 team — three spots out of an at-large berth and the second-highest rated three-loss team.
Ultimately, Texas was left out of the tournament due to a midseason loss to a dreadful Florida team that finished the season 4-8 and also fired head coach Billy Napier before November.Â