Spotlight: Charlie Strong’s roller-coaster ride at Texas takes another plunge

This season has been one long roller-coaster ride for Texas Coach Charlie Strong.

Up: a thrilling opening win over Notre Dame. Down: consecutive losses to California, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma. Up: consecutive wins over Baylor and Texas Tech. Pause: a tough loss to nationally ranked West Virginia.

And then, what was likely the final dive.

Before Saturday, Texas had not lost to Kansas since 1938.

Before Saturday, Kansas had lost 19 consecutive Big 12 Conference games.

Two Matthew Wyman kicks knocked Strong all the way out of Texas.

The Kansas kicker made a 36-yard field goal with seven seconds left to tie the score, 21-21, and send the game to overtime. Then he knocked in another field goal in overtime, from 25 yards, to give the Jayhawks the upset victory.

Asked what the loss meant regarding his future, Strong was visibly upset and could only stammer his answer: “I just … No, I don’t.”

As for some of the Longhorns faithful, well, their sentiment was summoned up by one Internet summary that began: “Dear Texas president Greg Fenves, this is what rock-bottom looks like... You may now pull the plug.”

Even before the loss, there were reports that Texas boosters were pressuring the university to make a play for Houston Coach Tom Herman.

Herman was hot property when the Cougars opened the season with an upset of then-No. 3 Oklahoma, but had cooled off a bit after midseason losses to Navy and Southern Methodist.

He got another jolt when Houston routed No. 5 Louisville, 36-10, on Thursday. Herman’s Cougars have won their last four games against top-10 teams.

Easy street

You could call it Week 12 of the college football season.

You could call it the week Harvard played Yale, UCLA played USC and Florida finally played Louisiana State.

Or, around the Southeastern Conference, you could call it Patsy Week — when several of the league’s teams faced opponents that were, or should have been, completely overmatched.

Those opponents included Texas San Antonio, Louisiana Lafayette, Austin Peay, Chattanooga, Alabama A&M and Western Carolina.

Without Hurricane Matthew, which forced Florida and Louisiana State to cancel their scheduled games and play each other in a makeup, Presbyterian and South Alabama could have been added to the list.

The results were predictable, sort of.

There wasn’t an upset, though there were several competitive games: No. 25 Texas A&M defeated Texas San Antonio, 23-10; Georgia downed Louisiana Lafayette, 35-21; and South Carolina took down Western Carolina, 44-31.

Shoot, even Chattanooga held an early field-goal lead over top-ranked Alabama before the Crimson Tide restored order and cruised to a 31-3 win.

There were only two actual routs: Kentucky over Austin Peay, 49-13, and No. 15 Auburn over Alabama A&M, 55-0.

Gators bite

Leonard Fournette was there for Louisiana State before the Tigers’ game against Florida. He even unexpectedly showed up during the game, despite a nagging injury. But he didn’t get the call with the game on the line, one yard from the end zone and a likely victory with three seconds left on the clock.

That carry went to Derrius Guice, who has been the team’s featured back when Fournette has been nursing injuries.

Guice was stuffed at the line, fumbled, and Florida escaped with a 16-10 win that delivered serious damage to Ed Orgeron’s hopes of sticking as Louisiana State’s coach.

Fournette wasn’t expected to play, but changed his mind after things got chippy between the teams before the game. Players and coaches from both sides shouted, postured and, in a couple of cases, pushed and shoved.

Video showed Fournette twice shoving Florida assistant Torrian Gray as the secondary coach walked toward a group of Louisiana State players and coaches.

A short time later, back in the locker room, Fournette surprised Orgeron with a request to suit up.

“He came to me right before the game and said, ‘Coach, I want to play. I want to support my team,’ ‘’ Orgeron said.

Fournette had 40 yards in 12 carries.

“You can see he wasn’t full speed,” Orgeron said.

Florida’s Jim McElwain became the first SEC coach to take his team to the conference championship game in each of his first two years on the job.

Big fall

The smart people at Harvard probably thought this fall couldn’t get worse.

They thought wrong.

The men’s soccer season already had been canceled after an article in the university newspaper revealed that for years the players had been rating members of the school’s women’s soccer team on their looks and other nonathletic or academic qualities. The men’s cross-country team is under investigation after similar allegations.

But the Crimson still had football, and all they needed to clinch a share of their fourth consecutive Ivy League championship was a victory over Yale — 2-7 Yale — in the 133rd edition of The Game.

Harvard entered the game with a 7-2 record and nine consecutive victories in their series against Yale.

Final: Yale 21, Harvard 14.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Coach Tim Murphy said. “It’s heartbreaking for our seniors because they had a chance to win an Ivy League championship. It’s heartbreaking for our seniors because at the end of the day, this game’s about pride — pride in our team, pride in our program, and certainly pride in our school.”

Pulling rank

If you know your San Diego State football history, the Aztecs’ 34-33 upset loss to Wyoming couldn’t have been all that much of a surprise.

Given respect, they just can’t win.

Riding a six-game winning streak, San Diego State returned to the Associated Press top 25 this week — the kiss of death. Since 1977, the Aztecs are winless as members of the top 25.

Earlier this year, they broke in just in time to lose to South Alabama.

Against Wyoming, they scored on a 23-yard pass from Christian Chapman to Quest Truxton as time ran out, but lost when a two-point conversion pass was broken up.

San Diego State has lost its last four games as a ranked team.

Aztecs running back Donnel Pumphrey was held to 76 yards in 17 carries, but still moved past Tony Dorsett into third place on the NCAA major-college career rushing list. Pumphrey has 6.127 yards, trailing former Wisconsin star Ron Dayne (6.397) and Texas’ Ricky Williams (6,279).

Extra points

Notre Dame’s loss to Virginia Tech means the Fighting Irish will finish a season without consecutive victories for the first time since 1960. … Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey would appear to be completely healthy again. In his last four games, he has 787 yards in 103 carries — an average of 7.64 yards per carry — and scored nine touchdowns. … Stanford’s win over California is the Cardinal’s seventh in a row over the Golden Bears, tied for the longest winning streak in the series.

Los Angeles Times wire services contributed to this report.

mike.hiserman@latimes.com

Twitter: @MikeHiserman