DALLAS -- A day removed from his biggest win at Texas, the kind of win he so desperately needed, Charlie Strong was the same guy he's always been.
"It's been coming. We knew we had a better team than we had shown, a lot better team," Strong told ESPN.com on Sunday, a day after silencing critics -- at least for the time being -- with a 24-17 upset win over Oklahoma in a Red River Showdown beatdown that was a lot more one-sided than the final score indicated.
"One of the things I'm proudest of is that nobody panicked. Now, we definitely had guys who were angry, and you saw that edge. That's what we'd been missing, and we went out and played that way, played with that edge. The thing we have to do now is keep it because I'm telling you that confidence was never a problem."
One of the knocks on Strong has been that he only wants to coach football and recruit, which doesn't sound like the best fit for the bright lights of Texas.
But even if he were living in a bunker last week, he couldn't have escaped the howling. That's what happens on the Forty Acres when you lose 50-7 to TCU, plummet to 1-4 (Texas' worst five-game start since 1956) and have a handful of players sniping at each other on Twitter. Strong had already shuffled his staff earlier in season, demoting Shawn Watson after the blowout 38-3 loss to Notre Dame and handing over the offensive play-calling duties to receivers coach Jay Norvell. And then off the field, athletic director Steve Patterson was fired a little more than a week later.
It wasn't a pretty sight. Texas' famed burnt orange looked a lot closer to burnt toast.
"All we needed was a spark," Texas freshman linebacker Malik Jefferson said. "Coach Strong never quit believing in us, and we never quit believing in him. We had some bad losses, and all of our pride was hurt. But this team wasn't coming apart."
Jefferson, the five-star recruit who was the crown jewel of last year's recruiting class, is part of the young foundation that Longhorns fans hope can turn the program around. As ugly as it's been, the team's youth gives it reason for optimism.
Counted in that group is redshirt freshman quarterback Jerrod Heard, who had a pointed message for Strong the morning of the game.
"Coach, I got you," Heard told Strong. "Last week [against TCU], I didn't do anything. I stunk it up, but I won't today. Today, I got you."
Heard delivered on that promise by setting the tone early with several big runs and finished with 115 rushing yards on 21 carries. The Longhorns have played at least 17 freshmen in every game this season and as many as 22. Go back and look at who made most of the pivotal plays against the Sooners. It was primarily first- and second-year players. In addition to Heard, sophomore D'Onta Foreman had the 81-yard run late in the third quarter, setting up the touchdown to put Texas ahead 24-10.
On defense, true freshmen accounted for 38 percent of Texas' tackles against Oklahoma. Holton Hill (8), Davante Davis (6) and Jefferson (6) were all top 5 in tackles. Jefferson had two of the Longhorns' six sacks. Sophomore tackle Poona Ford had 1.5 sacks. Two true freshmen also started in the offensive line - left tackle Connor Williams and right guard Patrick Vahe.
Led by that young talent, the Longhorns didn't just beat the Sooners. They beat them up physically, rushing for a season-high 313 yards and gaining 165 yards after contact, the most Oklahoma has allowed in a game in the last five seasons. Throw in the six sacks Texas collected on defense, and it was a mismatch in the line of scrimmage.
"I knew there was a lot of life left in this team, a lot of fight left," Strong said. "We just had to channel it the right way."
Strong admittedly has a tight inner circle. But as he's navigated these tough times, he's reached out to his former boss, Lou Holtz, as well as former Texas coach Mack Brown for advice.
"Coaching transitions are hard because what you're basically doing is coming in and adopting that family," said Brown, who's now working as an ESPN analyst. "When you come in, everybody there is not yours. And sometimes, step families work, and sometimes they don't. What you have to do is re-recruit all those guys, especially the older ones who were recruited to different offenses and different defenses. There's a huge lack of trust at the beginning because everybody's starting over. Sometimes, it works very easily and very well. Sometimes, it's very difficult."
Brown's transition at Texas was a smooth one. He won nine games each of his first three seasons. But as he reminded Strong last week, he was 2-20 his first two seasons at North Carolina before getting that program going.
"Like Charlie, we had to play some young guys at North Carolina and make sure the older guys bought in," Brown said. "Sometimes you have to bottom out, sort of like they did at TCU, before everybody says, 'OK, let's forget this and get back together.'"
It's the same thing Strong had been telling his coaches all week, even as speculation began to mount that his job could be in jeopardy after just two seasons.
"Don't listen to it, none of it," Strong defiantly told his coaches. "We're here for a reason. I know there are some people who probably don't want us here, but you can't let that bother you. Just keep going. We all fought too hard to get here."
Strong knows what it means to keep fighting and to keep believing. That's precisely what he did all those years he was passed over for head coaching jobs, usually by less qualified coaches. His answer was to just kept grinding.
"You just have to be mentally tough and ride it," Strong said. "People are going to say things. For so long, I didn't get a job. And then you have a job, and everyone says he doesn't deserve the job that he has. I'm equipped for whatever they want to say about me. It's part of it."
Judging by the raw emotion his players displayed after the game, which included dousing Strong with Gatorade and then hoisting him above their heads for a little body-surfing, they were ready to fight for their coach and fight for each other.
"You hear all this stuff about how I'd supposedly lost the locker room and the players weren't listening anymore," Strong said. "Yeah, we had some guys tweeting some things they shouldn't have, but you've got to understand that this matters to them. They're hurting and were challenging each other. And with social media, that's how a lot of these kids express themselves now. But there was never a divided locker room."
The Longhorns now have a week off before the second half of their season begins against Kansas State at home on Oct. 24. All four of Texas' losses have come to teams ranked in the AP Top 25 poll, and the combined record of those four teams is 22-2. The combined record of Texas' remaining six opponents is 17-14, meaning a late-season surge toward becoming bowl eligible isn't all that farfetched.
Strong, who also started 2-4 during his second season at Louisville in 2011, knows all that matters is where Texas goes from here. As soothing as the Oklahoma win was, it won't mean nearly as much if the Longhorns don't build on it.
"That was a special moment, a very special moment, and we're going to have a lot more of them," Strong said. "I know we're going to get it turned and am excited to see how far we can take it."