AUSTIN, Texas – This is a love story about a head coach and a strength coach.

There might not be a relationship more critical to a program’s success than the bond between these two leaders. So when new Texas coach Tom Herman speaks passionately about Yancy McKnight, he means it.

“It’s match made in heaven, so to speak,” Herman said. “He’s my soulmate when it comes to coaches.”

Herman witnessed the power of this love at Ohio State, where he got his education in coaching. Urban Meyer hands the keys to the program over to strength coach Mickey Marotti at the start of the offseason, trusting him to be essentially the acting head coach from January through July.

Hiring Marotti was Meyer’s No. 1 priority when he accepted the Ohio State job. They’ve now worked together at four different schools. According to USA Today, Marotti has the longest contract of anybody on the Buckeyes’ staff -- he’s locked up through 2020 -- and he’s paid more than $500,000 a year. The way Meyer runs his program, Marotti is worth much more than that.

Herman found his Mickey when he got to Rice in 2007. McKnight says he and Herman hit it off immediately because they share the same priorities and the same mentality.

“It’s pretty simple,” McKnight said. “Blue-collar approach. Accountability. Discipline. The importance of a hard day’s work. Doing it for each other.”

What Herman figured out nearly 10 years ago was McKnight is the guy he needed by his side during his rapid rise through the coaching ranks.

“It’s amazing in this profession when you click with somebody from an ideological standpoint, and you sit and you talk philosophy and what makes teams great and how you build championships and how you maximize players’ potential,” Herman said. “Just immediately, when we first got to know each other, we were saying the same things and we believed in the same things.”

When Herman landed the offensive coordinator's job at Iowa State in January 2009, he put in a good word for McKnight with Paul Rhoades. McKnight was hired a few weeks later to run the Cyclones’ strength program. He stayed there for six years until he got a phone call from the new head coach at Houston.

“I don’t know who was more excited, my wife or me, about getting back down south. I don’t know if you guys have been to Ames in January, it’s pretty rough,” McKnight joked. “It was a quick decision, knowing the guy you’re gonna go work for, and obviously he’s a first-time head coach.”

Herman calls McKnight his “culture coach.” He’s with the players year-round, far more than any other coach on the staff. He knows how to train them for a high-tempo system, because he and Herman have done so at three other schools. He knows exactly what Herman wants out of his players, and he puts them through a hellacious offseason program to toughen them up.

“He had the perfect staff,” former Houston safety Trevon Stewart said. “One of the biggest parts of the program, and why it was the way it was, was Coach McKnight. That’s what a lot of people don’t know: Coach McKnight had a big part in it.”

At Texas, just like at Houston, Herman and McKnight will sort players into three groups based on their behavior. Gold guys are mature and handle their business. Green guys are transitioning in the right direction. The troublemakers who need extra help and longer study hall sessions? McKnight says they’ll be the “crimson” group, an obvious nod to rival Oklahoma.

McKnight likes how peer pressure creates ownership and develops leadership in the offseason. Texas players will be rigorously evaluated every day like that, starting with the early morning workouts.

“They set the tone,” former Houston fullback Luke Stice said. “Everybody’s out there. You’re in non-issued gear. Get on the line and be ready for whatever Coach McKnight throws at you.”

Still, McKnight recognizes he must start by earning the trust of Texas’ players. They have to understand and believe in his methods, and they have to come to work with a sense of urgency and purpose about getting better.

“That has to be the thought process,” McKnight said, “because the demand is going to be high.”

And there’s nobody Herman trusts more in his building to deliver results. If Herman is going to get the Longhorns back on the big stage in 2017, it all starts with his “soulmate.”