The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Q&A with Assistant Head Coach for Offense/QB Coach Shawn Watson
01.30.2014 | Football
Watson has spent a number of seasons as an offensive coordinator in the Big 12.
A long-time successful offensive coach in the Big 12 and Big Ten, Shawn Watson is in his first season as assistant head coach for offense and quarterbacks coach at Texas.
Watson spent the last three seasons as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Louisville and brings 29 years of collegiate coaching experience to Austin.
Watson was previously the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Nebraska from 2007-10. Prior to his time as OC with the Huskers, he was the tight ends coach there in 2006 and spent seven seasons (1999-2005) at Colorado as either the quarterbacks coach or QB coach/offensive coordinator.
He also served as quarterbacks coach at Northwestern (1997-98) and was the head coach at Southern Illinois, his alma mater, for three seasons (1994-96).
Here is a Q&A with Watson:
What excited you about the opportunity to come to Texas?
In my opinion, Texas is one of the greatest football programs in the country. It has a long tradition of excellence as a university and as an athletic program and, undoubtedly, in football. The opportunity to continue to work with Charlie was hard to pass up with our friendship. We were able to accomplish a lot of really cool things at Louisville and we have great chemistry together. Just being with him, I love what he stands for. It's about the kids and about them being better men and, along with that, you develop champions.
You can Charlie Strong have known each other for some time, what is his coaching philosophy?
He wants to turn these young men into great men. That's why we've known each other for 30 years and that's why I love working with him. We have the same mission in football and the same mission in coaching. He has a clear expectation of what he wants and I have seen first-hand how it parlays into success on the field. He's going to run a demanding program, a real straight-forward program. They'll be no shades of gray. He'll be demanding and the neat part of the process is watching the team find its way there. It's exciting to me, especially the past two years being with him at Louisville. We took a bunch of young kids and raised them into a really good football team and they become better men and we become better coaches. It's a team and he does a great job.
You were in the midst of an impressive growth process at Louisville, how tough was it to say goodbye?
It's tough leaving behind those kids that you've spent so much time with. Basically the core of our football team was juniors and they're still back there and they're going into their senior year. When you leave a group like that and all you've been through in the process of developing the last two years, it's tough. The people of Louisville are awesome. The athletic director Tom Jurich is an unbelievable guy and an unbelievable leader. The people that supported our program, the head trainer, Kyle Johnston, the people in the office, everybody had bought in. But Charlie set that atmosphere up throughout the whole building. It was the team, the team, the team.
Are you excited about rejoining the Big 12?
I love the Big 12. I really enjoyed my time here. I think it's an awesome league. You look at it from top to bottom, there's just so much balance. You've got to show up every week. The teams aren't going to make it easy for you. TCU joining the league was a natural great move. You already have a team like Baylor and you see how that program has surged. You still have Kansas State, which is always tough under Bill Snyder. You still have Oklahoma State, obviously doing a great job. If you love to compete, you want to be in this league and you want to be at a place like Texas because you have a chance to pull some great recruits.
