Miami coach Mario Cristobal continues to add proven names to his staff, as former Texas, Louisville and South Florida head coach Charlie Strong is finalizing a deal to coach the Hurricanes’ linebackers, sources told ESPN on Friday.
Strong was in the NFL this past season as inside linebackers coach and assistant to head coach Urban Meyer with the Jacksonville Jaguars, but Meyer was fired 13 games into the season.
This will be Strong’s first on-field assistant coaching job in college football since 2009 when he was Florida‘s defensive coordinator. Strong was a finalist that season for the Broyles Award as the top assistant coach in college football. The Gators won a pair of national championships with Strong as defensive coordinator.
Strong, 61, joins offensive coordinator Josh Gattis and defensive coordinator Kevin Steele as key assistant coaching hires made this month by Cristobal. Gattis was the winner of the Broyles Award in 2021 while serving as Michigan’s offensive coordinator. Steele was out of football last season, but has previous defensive coordinator stops at Alabama, Auburn, Clemson and LSU. He was a finalist for the Broyles Award in 2017 while at Auburn.
Cristobal, Gattis, Steele and Strong have all coached under Nick Saban at some point during their careers. Strong was a defensive analyst under Saban on Alabama’s 2020 national championship team.
Strong has extensive recruiting ties in the state of Florida, particularly the South Florida area. While the head coach at Louisville, he had 38 players from the state of Florida at one point, and 28 were from South Florida, including quarterback Teddy Bridgewater from Miami Northwestern High School. Bridgewater went on to be a first-round pick in the 2014 NFL draft.