Benedict Cumberbatch Announced as New D-Line Coach

After a disappointing inaugural season, Texas Longhorn football Head Coach Charlie Strong continued the shakeup of his coaching staff today with the hire of Benedict Cumberbatch as defensive line coach.

"They say I am to wear uncomfortable short pants and teach large men to kill 'quarter-backs,' so that's lovely," said the new actor-coach.

Texas' struggles this past season were not the fault of its defense, widely regarded as an improvement over those produced by former defensive coordinator Leeroy Jenkins. Officials differed on reasons for the hire, but recognized it was the biggest hire of an actor-coach since Mack Brown.

"Because he's in everything," said UT Athletic Director Steve Patterson, "Sherlock, Star Trek, Dr. Strange, my ex-wife, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, not to mention his recent turn as Queen Maab in 'Requiem for John Major,' so we figured we might as well get it over with."

Sources closer to the program, however, revealed that Cumberbatch wasn't just brought in to coach the Longhorns' defensive line, but also to replace Rumph's recruiting acumen.  The college football world was shocked recently to discover that anticipating the decisions of teenagers requires delving into the minds of teenagers.  Due to the lanky Brit's recent role breaking the codes of the Third Reich, widely recognized as only slightly less evil than teenagers, but known to compensate through Largeagglitinativeneologisms, kidnapping Greek letters, and the clever use of diacritical marks, Cumberbatch was considered a natural for the position, uniting if only symbolically the man who invented the computer with the species that ruined the internet.  Coach Cumberbatch's first job will be translating his players' tweeted responses to the hire, currently being collected by SETI.

Texas mega-booster Red McCombs criticized the hire in a post that was later deleted from his GeoCities page, saying that the actor was unsuited to being a position coach, and should instead have been brought on as head coach or coordinator.

When Coach Cumberbatch was introduced today at a press conference in Ibiza, he produced a mockup of his teenage de-deranger apparatus, consisting of a six-sided die marked with teen cultural signifiers like "TITS," "PIZZA," "SULK," and demonstrated Hi2 m4573ry 0f 733N493 Ph0n0l09Y.  Head Coach Charlie Strong said he was confident the new hire would have no difficulty rendering emoji strings like "basketball, cow, ennui, interrobang" into recognizable human speech.

The success of Texas' celebrity hire stood in stark contrast to Oklahoma University's falling out with the musician Jack White, reportedly over guacamole.  Mr. White's demand for the removal of all bananas was also cited as a sticking point, long a sore spot ever since Barry Switzer's 1973 repeal of Memorial Stadium's ban on footlong hot dogs.  Oklahoma University is expected to follow the rift with Jack White with overtures to Jack Black, Barry White, Frank Black, the other Frank Black, Count Blacula, and that guy from "The Man from Atlantis." Toby Keith also made himself available to reporters in Norman, but fortunately we're located in Austin and San Francisco.