Death and Transformation

Why do you think Mack’s style of leadership worked so well for his first thirteen years and only now seems to be a problem?

On a different note, I see no reason to believe that you know anything at all about Will Muschamp’s leadership style.

I applaud your first write-up and you banning it from turning into a Simms/Applewhite debacle. Very interesting stuff. What’s so maddening about Mack is that he turns a blind eye to such glaring weaknesses in our program. It’s not like the “Greg Davis is a bad offensive coordinator” argument is a new one. Makes you wonder what we could have accomplished with more competent assistants. Then again, perhaps this type of loyalty also allowed for Mack’s success.

 just hope he’s willing to get out of his comfort zone or at least let others (read: Muschamp) show him the way. Otherwise, nothing will change.

Well, I don’t think Mack’s style of leadership worked consistently well for thirteen years. That’s kinda my point: transformative leadership doesn’t deliver sustained results. You need to water it with the blood of burned-out coordinators from time to time.

We’ve had three mini-transformations: back to relevance, elder Vince, and elder Colt. In between, we struggled to meet expectations. Then we made some coaching changes, brought up new team leaders, etc. We’re struggling more now than ever, and the changes need to be more extreme. But I think it’s the same problems that led to 2002 and 2007: uninspired recruiting, player development, and/or playcalling.

And no, I don’t have any material evidence about Muschamp’s leadership style. That’s why I used the word “hunch”. So call it wishful thinking, if you like. But I’m pretty sure you don’t shoot eye-lazers through people the way he does without knowing something about being a hardass.

Sorry, I should direct my comments. The above was to jpsantini.

Thanks Cricketslayer. And I share your discomfort. I have no clue what’s going to happen this offseason, I just hope it’s something to get excited about..

Slow Clap

Bravo sir.

Excellent and insightful first article.

I think Mack has an incredible ego – which actually is an incredibly useful tool for a D1 head coach. The issue I have is I sometimes wonder if Mack’s need to be right (i.e his ego) is greater than his desire to win football games. I do not think this flaw is exclusive to Mack Brown, and indeed think it is a trait very common amongst even the greatest coaches of all time; but it is maddening none the less.

I also wonder if Mack understands his own management style. I’m beginning to think that Mack thinks he’s a hard-ass. As you’ve demonstrated Mack is a guy that has gotten responses by providing inspiration not fear. For fear he has always counted on the infusion of hungry, talented assistant coaches. Unfortunately I’m not sure that method is going to be sufficient to turn this thing around this time.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment: How would history have changed had Vince Young committed to Florida State?

“Well, I don’t think Mack’s style of leadership worked consistently well for thirteen years. That’s kinda my point: transformative leadership doesn’t deliver sustained results.” — Dagga Roosta

So which “transactional leader” over the past 10-13 years has delivered the kind of sustained results that you believe Mack’s leadership style hasn’t?

“We’ve had three mini-transformations: back to relevance, elder Vince, and elder Colt. In between, we struggled to meet expectations.”

I like to say that Mack has had five different teams at Texas and that from an objective viewpoint all except this last, whose grade is incomplete, have been wildly successful.

The Applewhite team, composed of Mackovic’s leftovers and Brown’s early recruits, staunched the bleeding. It served noticed that Texas was back after its 13 years in the wilderness.

The next team (Simms’) was hugely successful. The only reason it is viewed as disappointing by most Texas fans is because it had the misfortune to be in the same conference division as probably the best college football program going at that time — OU. (Well, that and the B12 championship game fiasco in ’01.)

After that came the greatness of the VY bunch which, arguably, was the best college football team in the country for three consecutive years. Almost certainly the only thing that prevented back-to-back MNCs was the absence of VY himself from the ’06 team.

Then came the surprising success of the 3-star, 2A HS all-stater Colt McCoy team. No one saw that success coming. It was as completely unexpected as this year’s failure has been.

So out of the five teams that Mack’s had in Austin, I’d say he has been successful beyond anyone’s REASONABLE expectations with four of them. The success of the fifth, at least in this guy’s opinion, is yet to be determined.

I emphasize “reasonable” above because I don’t think a large segment of the Texas fanbase’s expectations (especially among the younger fans) is reasonable any longer. Much of them seem to expect what I infer your expectations to be: An experienced VY or an experienced Colt at the helm EVERY YEAR . . . and that simply is never going to happen. Not here, not in Norman nor Tuscaloosa nor Columbus nor anywhere else.

To have an “elder” experienced QB to run your team it is necessary always to play a “younger” inexperienced one first. This usually leads to some inconsistent play and to a season (or two) that may be below the level of success enjoyed in the past, but it is a necessary, virtually unavoidable part of the process.

Of course, the process should never result in a 4-6 kind of a rebuilding year at a place like Texas. Obviously more is wrong with this team than just the typical rebuilding year at a traditional power. However, given the tremendous success that this program has enjoyed under Brown for 13 years, I think he’s owed the benefit of the doubt in regard to his judgment about how to right the ship.

I would guess that next year, even with no changes to the coaching staff, Texas will be back to a 1 or 2 loss season and a BCS bowl. If the season turns out to be somewhat less than that, well, I’m OK with that, too. Another 5-6 loss year, though, and I’ll agree with your assessment that major changes need to be made and need to be made pronto.

Damn you Dagga. I’m a naval aviator and UTalum who’s never commented, but seeing these movie military quotes twice within a week, I feel I’m being goaded.
Dagga is spot on: The military goes out of its way to make sure that Commanding/Executive Officer teams reflect this dichotomy (transformational guy with admin skills paired with transactional leader who kicks ass).
Every 18 months in my job you expect a transition from one of these to the other and it works. It generally balances morale and professionalism.
I have deep admiration for Coach Brown. I watched both Rose Bowl appearances while on deployment. He’s managed the program extraordinarily, but I have to think it’s time for some transactional work. He doesn’t need to go, but we need some carrots and sticks.
Greg Davis – dead. Lazy upperclassmen – dead. Weak S/C program – dead.

FMA – curtsey

I totally agree that Mack’s ego gotta be big. Transformational leaders in particular need big egos, or at least very high self-regard. Part of the job requirement is to parade yourself around, basically saying, “look at how great and humble I am, I’m the perfect role model!” Not easy to do if you’ve got crippling self-esteem issues.

But FWIW, I think it’s a different kind of big ego than Bob Stoops. He’s no authoritarian. Mack needs to act right. Stoops needs to be right.

And while I see your last point, I’ve started to wonder the opposite – whether Mack’s decided that it’s just generally a bad idea to be a hard-ass. His comments about being too hard on the kids after the Rice game (?!?) point in that direction.

But there’s no need for Mack to set up a false dichotomy between inspiring leadership and hard-ass leadership. It’s hard to be both at the same time, sure. But some circumstances call for one approach, and different circumstances the other. Other coaches with lots of longevity in one place – Bowden and Paterno, in particular – know better when to be the glad-hander and when to bust out the whuppin’ stick.

jpsantini – I, for one, appreciate your appreciation of Mack Brown. I think he’s insanely good at what he does well. I don’t want to see him retire. I think it’ll be easier to recover from this year with him than without him. I just think he should delegate hardass responsibilities. It’s not his forte.

And I don’t want to denigrate his accomplishments either. The ten-win streak was pretty awesome stuff. What I’m saying is that problems have arisen, from time to time. We’ve had to send various Reeses and MacDuffs on their merry way before. But this time, the problem points mostly to his busom buddy. And I don’t know if he’s enough of a hard-ass to do the right thing. So he should give Muschamp the decision, plus veto power on the replacement. That should keep Boom on the 40 and put Mack in a position to go out on a high note.

Salt Pillar – I’d bust out the chant from “Stripes” but I think I have carpal tunnel or something…but yeah, the study of leadership in particular is very military-centric, I think. West Point has a Center for Leadership Studies for this type of thing – where a lot of the big books on the subject have been written. Of course I learned this stuff in a class taught by a three-star Army general (ret.) who helped found said Center…so my view may be a tad warped. But it’s good to know that others have seen what I’m talking about in action, and can vouch for it.

“Management is hard because it’s obnoxiously driven by a chaos of context”

That’s why executive management at large corporations just LOVE the books and slogans and corporate rah-rah and flavor-of-the-month bullshit sellers who produce them. It makes them feel like “real managers” when they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. The dirt level employees have well developed bullshit detectors. They play along, then laugh at the stupidity of the managers behind their backs.

Managers who can actually manage effectively are not in long supply and are appreciated by their employees while they have them as managers.

Not sure exactly how this would apply vis-a-vis the Longhorn football team, but there do seem to be management issues.

LurkerintheDark is spot on. UT & Mack are soft, always has been. Are the players afraid of him?
Were they afraid of Royal, Bryant, Saban, Meyer,Blaik, Lombardi, Stoops?….you better godamn believe it,,,we are not running a Sunday School. Bill Tilden said in “Match Play & Spin of the Ball”…“Always change a losing game.” Enuff said.

They regularly consult with UT faculty who teach leadership and management classes.

What could go wrong?

Enjoyed this post, Dagga. Would you accept, as a brief summary, “Most of the staff has become complacent after success?”

Excellent insight, Dagga.

Great first post, sir. I’m with Parlin here, effectively, you are saying that it is easier to climb the mountain than to stay there (particularly for someone of a Mack Brown-type leader). If I understand you correctly, it seems like Mack NEEDS down years in order to be an effective coach – yes, I know that is counter-intuitive when talking about someone we have all considered so consistent over the last decade.

When your only instinct when you see trouble is to transform, suddenly the shift to a more pro-set offense makes sense in context. If that is the case, then he should absolutely have stepped down after last season, because it is not fair to the players, particularly the seniors, to artificially force some sort of transformation in order to maintain your edge (which, looking at his body language this year, has been a failure).

Great stuff!

I still have to believe that the guys we will have on campus next year should be able to deliver a much better season than this one. You can knock the talent to some degree, but there are teams doing much more with substantially lesser talent than we have. I think the problem is more development, attitude, and leadership than talent. Busts do happen, mostly to one or two guys in a recruiting class, but when a bunch of guys look like busts or underachievers I think we should be questioning the coaching not players.

Insightful angle regarding a potential root cause of the program’s free fall this season. Would appreciate your reconciling this statement, “It seems pretty clear at this point that transactional leadership does not come easily to Mack” with his start from scratch effort after the ‘07 aTm loss and the come-to-jesus transactional bowl prep boot camp heading into the Holiday Bowl. That may be his lone example of reaching into the other management style pocket, so to speak, but a clear cut one to be sure. And, in my humble opinion, paved the way for the ’08 and ’09 outlier campaigns (which no one saw coming). Maybe the problem is Mack’s capitulation to Bellmont, not to mention all the other distractions. Maybe he needs to be the football coach first and let all the other BS take a back seat. Maybe the Bellmonter’s should stay the hell out of the way and let Mack do what he does best. Lot of maybes left to be sorted out.

@jpsantini: “Successful beyond anyone’s REASONABLE expectations” is 2 conference championships in 13 years with the highest paid coaching staff in the country at the richest school in the country pulling in higher ranked recruiting classes than all but one or two schools in the country out of one of the top 3 talent-producing states in the country?" I beg to differ.

“Just like Thomas Friedman.”

Or Peter North.

Thanks for the fine post, DR.

Point seems to be that one leadership style or the other (transformational and transactional) isn’t enough by itself. Each needs balance with the other. Was particularly intrigued with Salt Pillar’s (great handle, BTW) input from a military perspective.

I share your guess that Muschamp is likely more transactional. I have always been intrigued by his yin combined with Mack’s yang. My hope here is they can keep the egos out of the way of working together to bring the program back.

No doubt that this is an old staff that needs new blood, particularly on offense and in S&C

Dagga – strong debut. Well done.

You’ve hit on an interesting point about these contrasting leadership styles. I believe that both approaches are necessary to successful leadership, but the challenge is to convince the competing parties that they compliment each other and that their best interests are in working together. Egos often get in the way of an effective collaboration of this type – if it can be resolved, a visionary “CEO” with an effective nuts & bolts “COO” type as the enforcer can make for a highly effective leadership team.

great article. look forward to more like it.

here’s another hunch for your sack of hunches-

Jason Garrett : Wade Phillips :: Major Applewhite : Greg Davis?

So Dagga, are you saying that you are the One Legged Tarzan of the Barking Carnivalistas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFoagC5yGY0&feature=related

I was waiting for someone to say it, bot no one has (yet… as I write this).

All the management – sorry, Management – mumbo-jumbo aside, you’re talking about classic Good Cop/Bad Cop games here.

Those games don’t work when the Good Cop consistently excuses his Chief Deputy for spilling coffee on everybody and wiping it up with the doughnuts, leaving everything and everybody in sight covered with sticky, crumby crap and neither coffee nor doughnuts in hand… and follows that up by making the Bad Cop stand in the corner with his underpants on backwards.

Dagga,

What is your insight on how different key players react to different leadership styles? I wonder if Vince Young’s success in Austin (transformational coach) and lack thereof in Tennessee (transactional coach) can be traced to the differing styles of coaching and his willingness or ability to respond to them?

Point seems to be that one leadership style or the other (transformational and transactional) isn’t enough by itself. Each needs balance with the other.

In psycho-babble terms, they need to maintain the tension between the opposites.

Good stuff, sir. Sounds like you’re in-line with the winds of change thinking over at Recruitocosm.

Given the management styles, though, you have to wonder how long WM is willing to sit idly by without being the head honcho. You would think a “transformative” leader is more willing to sit back and learn, whereas a “transactional” leader is all well and good with being the right hand man, but once he realizes it’s time to step up to bat, he wants that opportunity.

Dagga, good piece. it seems that Macki puts a lot of emphasis on player leadership, and perhaps this year that was lacking. Just liken last year in basketball. How important is this, and do you think this is something coaches should rely upon?

I mean even in the weight room in year past, it sounded like there was team leadership (Orakpo comes to mind). Maybe the senior class this year is just full of sheep.

Like Salt Pillar, I myself am a Naval Aviator..and have seen some of the problems that can come along with the mix of leadership. While the “new blood” every 18 months can be a good thing, it can also cause problems when there are big issues that have to be handled (and differences of opinion about them) when change of command is on the horizon. Some senior officers (like Greg Davis in this case) know that they are out the door when the current Commanding Officer leaves, and does not really care to work well with the folks that have to be around once the current head man leaves. His retirement is vested (like any department head), and he can pretty much do what he wants because he has the top cover of his long time friend and co-worker. Guys like this always stay in their comfort zone, are very risk averse, and are not hungry to reach new levels of success.

The worst officers in the Navy are the ones that know that they are never going to become Commanding Officers at any point, and are just hitting the clock on the way in and out every day. Lots of these guys were very good officers/operators at one one point, but they can see the rocker and and they stop putting any original effort into their work. It’s easy to say “let’s just do what we did last year” and roll with it. Sometimes it works for a while, but that technique will get you THRASHED in any kind of dynamic situation.

What I’m hearing is that the transformational leadership style that Mack embraces tends to lead to complacency…to a sense that things can be put on auto-pilot and they’ll continue to run just fine. And they will…for a while…and then, just like a plane on auto-pilot, it will run out of gas and crash. We’re looking at a complacent program living on it’s laurels

jpsantini – 2 Conference Championships in 13 years isn’t really “tremendous success”.

jpsantini: Are you the same “santini” who used to post on the old Austin 360 site? If so, I’m amazed I could agree with you so completely in your assessment in 1997 of John Mackovic and the future of the UT football program, and disagree with you so completely in your assessment in 2010 of Mack Brown and the future of the UT football program.

While I largely agree with your analysis of Mack’s history at UT, I think you are really missing the boat in analyzing this complete programmatic meltdown this season as just another off-year that every good program goes through. The utter and complete failure by this coaching staff in every aspect of its job – including recruiting on the offensive side of the ball, the first time we could say that about Mack – is stark and undeniable. There is simply no way to write this off to just another “off year” caused largely by the “inconsistency” of a young quarterback.

The reality is as follows:

• - There is simply no difference-making talent on the offensive side of the ball. There is really very little excellent talent on the offensive side of the ball. Only Mike Davis appears to be someone who might eventually gin up even a minor, short-term career in the NFL. Mason Walter? Perhaps, with a real strength and conditioning coach. But he doesn’t have that here.

• - There is no real, difference-making talent on the defensive side of the ball, either. There are plenty of talented kids, like the Achos, Keenan Robinson and AJ Williams, but only Kenny Vacarro has shown flashes of being a true playmaker.

• - Bottom line, we have had a virtual complete failture in the recruiting of true difference-making kids for several years running, and the good kids we do get are simply not being developed by their coaches.

• - This recruiting and development failure is largely why our special teams suck so goddam hard we can hardly stand to watch them. We can’t cover a kickoff with any reliability at all, causing Mack to resort to bullshit tactics like pooch kicks ,and we can’t even execute those. We have zero decent return guys – we are stuck with either putting kids back there who muff every third punt, or putting a kid back there who is ordered just to call a fair catch.

• - We also have no one on campus who has shown a knack for blocking kicks, so we don’t really even try to do that anymore. The result of all of this is that we get zero big plays from our special teams, so they suck as bad or even worse than our talent-bereft offense.

These are not things that Mack is going to correct in a single off-season. Hell, he and his staff have demonstrated virtually zero ability to correct any one of these problems, much less all of them. The thought that this melted down program is going to somehow just bounce right back to a 1 or 2 loss season in 2011 is bizarrely improbable, and I’m having a hard time believing that the guy who 13 years ago had such laser-focused clarity on the cancer that was John Mackovic now so completely fails to see the impotent shell that Mack Brown has become.

Oh well, things change.

Hook ’em!!!

Lurker wrote – “That’s why executive management at large corporations just LOVE the books and slogans and corporate rah-rah and flavor-of-the-month bullshit sellers who produce them. It makes them feel like "real managers" when they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. The dirt level employees have well developed bullshit detectors. They play along, then laugh at the stupidity of the managers behind their backs.”

And boy, is that ever true. I’ve worked with some interesting people who enjoyed fairly high levels of success, and not a one of them was a book-and-slogan person. Instead they were common-sense driven people who didn’t BS their employees and who understood that a person’s job satisfaction depends not on “attaboys”, or even largely on money, but rather on the abiding sense that they’re GETTING SOMETHING ACCOMPLISHED.

“They feel hyper-aware that most of the head figures around the department are creeping into retirement age, and they’re trying to coach up a young generation of assistants how to be effective leaders.”

This must be the explanation for the Jock Rock. Someone thinks that playing music released in 1987 will keep the program from looking stodgy to the kids.

Very impressive, DR (hmmmm, are you Darrell Royal trying to help the horns one more time?)

Your model works very well for the entire Brown era. Brown has chopped heads and either personally (2007) or vicariously (new assistants) wielded the stick at the proper moment.

Now, as manager, he faces the hardest jobs of chopping heads and getting tough of his time at Texas. Earlier, he led us out of high valleys. Now he finds us in the abyss. Mack comes across as confused, weary and defensive in this dark moment of decision probably because he still has the tactical struggles of the remaining games to deal with.

In a few weeks, he must turn his mind to strategy. Is he up to it? Despite the simplistic assumptions some make about what is going on in Mack (he’ll never fire Greg, he’s a bullshitter at heart, his ego is too fragile to make changes that condemn past decisions), I don’t know what he will do given a free hand. I appreciate that DR does not pretend to know for sure, either.

He will have to leave some long time comrades behind on the road. I wonder if his biggest choice is whether he should stay there with them and not slow the column or find in himself the energy and will to take the hard uphill steps. For him this is a possible turning point in his life as well as the program.

Mack has made tough decisions before. Now come the toughest. Good luck to him and us.

JUICE said : “This must be the explanation for the Jock Rock. Someone thinks that playing music released in 1987 will keep the program from looking stodgy to the kids.”

Heeyyy there, hold on just a galldarn minute. Some of that music is from the early to mid-nineties. These kids were already born then.

"Managers who can actually manage effectively are not in long supply and are appreciated by their employees while they have them as managers.

Not sure exactly how this would apply vis-a-vis the Longhorn football team, but there do seem to be management issues."

The problem is that when you manage by the book, it works fine when things are within the parameters of the book. But no book has insight to an absolute crisis, which is where Mack is right now (at least compared to where he expects to be).

As the OP notes, he’s still thinking transformationally in a transactional situation, because that’s what he does.

“Studying leadership and management is most useful for understanding what goes wrong in academic case studies. It’s not so effective as a guide to action.”

I got out of the Navy a quarter century ago about the time some egghead in the Pentagon decided that the nature of war and technology had changed so much that it was time to do away with the leadership style of William Frederick Halsey, Jr. (better known as "Bull" he was famous/infamous for many things, including quotes such as "I never trust a fighting man who doesn’t smoke or drink"), and replace it with the leadership and management styles taught at the best business schools. After all, Naval Officers were going to be top managers going forward. The result, unfortunately, was a generation of Naval Officers long on political correctness and management skills, and incompetent as warfighters. The conflicts of the last years have, by shear necessity, corrected this.

Will this season or another one like it force similar changes on the 40 Acres?

Great stuff Dagga.

I definitely think a Mack Brown as visionary and Will as COO and heir apparent could kick total ass.

In most programs, you can at least count on the S&C guy as the hammer. I just dont see that with our resident fatass S&C guy. He is a dinosaur and has been exposed many times before.

I think in any event the talent cupboard is a little bare and results next year wont be great. How we get there will be everything.

Just a harder more progressive edge on S&C would do wonders up front. You cant always control talent, but you damn sure can control effort.

Eyes writes:

These are not things that Mack is going to correct in a single off-season. Hell, he and his staff have demonstrated virtually zero ability to correct any one of these problems, much less all of them.

We had terrible special teams early in Mack’s career and they became a strong point for years until now. He made that change.

We had a sieve of a defense when he came here. He made changes there.

We had no running game after Ricky left. He made changes there. (Even if you argue it took exceptional QBs, the fact remains that we had a running game for awhile with the Vince and early Colt teams.)

It’s unfair and untrue to suggest Mack has been afraid to make changes over the course of his career to improve team weaknesses. This season’s challenges are different because of magnitude and, perhaps, Mack’s time in his personal career.

Quote problem. Eyes only writes the first paragraph. The other ones are mine.

RV: What I am suggesting – and was admittedly not clear about – is that this staff has made ZERO progress at correcting any of our myriad problems as the season has progressed. If anything, we have gotten worse in almost every area week after week. That is reality.

I think most of that is attributable to the sad reality that the talent level of this team just pales in comparison to what we got used to from 2000 through 2008. The talent level of last year’s team was already showing the signs of a rapid digression, but Colt and Shipley just willed us to wins in several games we’d have lost big without them. Colt and Ship are now long gone, and what remains is basiclally a shell of the program Mack built in the early to mid-years of this decade.

The last few recruiting classes were wildly overrated. That should be obvious to everyone paying attention by now.

Hook ’em!!!

The offensive coaching will be overhauled. That’s a done deal. Also, the talent in the pipeline is impressive. The program is in great shape financially. We have great relationships with the high school coaches. The take that Mack Brown can take those assets and weave together a winner is at least a solid one, present hysteria aside. We can’t afford another down year, though. We’re going to need to make strong progress in 2012.

But I don’t know how you can look at the last two classes and see any kind of a talent shortfall.

At wide receiver, we’ve got Davis, White, and Shipley, and throw in a handful of others who look the part. On the offensive line, we have the first two credible classes back to back that we’ve seen in almost five years. At tail back, we’re getting the most highly rated running back we’ve taken since Benson, and the best fullback we’ve taken under Brown, period. There are plenty of difference makers in the pipeline. We also have plenty of young quarterbacks that can develop in the right system.

On defense, the story is even stronger. We have the bookend defensive ends of the future, and a nucleus of tackles that came in this year. We have the best linebacker we’ve recruited since DJ Johnson, and you can throw in two more in next year’s class to mix in with the impressive haul we got last year. The secondary is getting a similar infusion at both safety and corner over the next two years.

The high numbers we took in the 2010 and 2011 classes somewhat mitigate the problem of recruiting well in 2012. If the program takes a step forward in 2011, we’ll be well poised to make a strong run in 2012. The program is in good shape.

Where the transformational leadership style lost its ability to maintain was when Texas did not lose any coaches on the offensive side to promotions at other programs. If Greg Davis had parlayed his Broyles award into a HC gig somewhere else like Gene Chizik; Mack could have brought in new blood on the offensive side to reinvigorate the energy levels the way Will Muschamp has done on the defensive side.

If what Mack says is true, that he convinced Davis to stay after he had many offers for HC positions then he may have unwittingly brought this on himself.

Salt Pillar
Bullet Tooth Tony
Thank you for your service to our country today…

And thank you Jackie Ging and all the vets here for service past…

Hook’em!!!!!

interesting viewpoint

Thanks for the clarification, Eyes. I agree about the course of the season as you describe it. However, the issue here is more strategic than a single season. I think we’re talking about the direction of the program. Mack has made necessary lesser adjustments in the past. Now can he make the major ones or step aside? Or, gulp, stick with the status quo based on (insistently) perceived past performance?

It already sounds like change is coming, so the gulp option is hopefully off the table.

Eyes – I respectfully disagree about the talent deficit. Certainly we are young at some positions and at QB in particular. Unfortunately, this offense is critically dependent on outstanding QB play, which makes it dysfunctional overall when the QB isn’t able to carry it along. The system design does not allow other players to step up and fill a leadership or capabilities gap.

I do believe that there is enough talent to field a credible offense, but that talent is utilized in an exceedingly poor scheme that fails to capitalize on its strengths.

Based on what’s just been posted on the Recruitocosm site, help is on the way.

Great article, Dagga !

I tip my hat to The Dude.

To Salt Pillar and Bullet Tooth Tony, you sound like warfighters not bean counters. Good for you. I flew Whales. Last time I checked there was still one rusting behind the Museum of Naval Aviation in Pendacola. Nice one on display on the Lady Lex in Corpus too.

Levander: I fully agree that there is enough talent to field a respectable offense – IF we had a real OC. Instead, we have Greg Davis, led by the nose by Mack Brown. So we have respectable talent trying to execute a mindless offensive scheme, and the result is what we see today.

I’m sorry – I thought it was just a give that Mack/Greg MUST have overwhelming talent to field a respectable offense. That’s been the entire philosophy of the program for 13 years now.

Hook ’em!!!

Hey y’all, thanks for the comments.

I’ll go back through comments and see if I can address a couple of questions over the course of the day. But for now I’d like to clarify something that would go a long way toward addressing some of those questions. I mentioned it early on in the piece but didn’t loop back to it like I should’ve.

So here goes: the whole transformational/transactional approach is very limited. It shouldn’t be taken as an end-all be-all assessment. Sure, I guess I kinda use it that way, but the “conclusion” should be the beginning point for discussion, not the end point. Near as I can tell, the best use for leadership analysis is to give unimaginative people a clue as to why some solutions don’t work, and to spark conversation between people in leadership positions so they can get a common understanding of problems. That’s why I figured it’d be a worthy blog topic – it gets people talking. But if you rely upon it to actually diagnose and attempt to cure problems, all sorts of things could catch you off-guard.

For example: I betcha it wouldn’t be hard for someone inside the program to make the argument that this year’’s results are all about a fateful mismatch in player personnel, due mostly to attrition at a few key spots and the attitudes of a handful of uncoachable non-performing players at one or two positions. Now let’s take a leap of faith and assume that this is actually the case. Would my leadership analysis change? No, it wouldn’t, not one whit. But the problem would be actually best solved by changing out the players, or maybe one or two position coaches who aren’t getting through to them, and top-level management could be left alone.

So that’s the danger. Leadership analysis is the proverbial hammer looking for a nail. It may give you insight into some key relationships but it’ll also suggest a cure that may miss the real problem entirely.

Also, and I think a few of you have put a finger on this: business jargon is almost always shorthand for something really simple that you already knew – something so simple, in fact, that everyday language doesn’t assign much importance to it. Despite the reams and reams of academic books and essays that have been written about leadership studies, we really are just talking Good Cop-Bad Cop here. So you don’t need to treat me like I’m an expert on this stuff. I’m not. I just know some words. Your guess is really, honestly just as good as mine.

With the respect to the question of talent, my opinion is that we’re not as horrible as reputed. Defensively, Muschamp’s gotten his guys the last two years, so we should see a surge there. Especially if he stops relying on Gideon so much, which is the single most inexplicable thing he’s done in his tenure here.

Offensively, I see problems and chickens coming home to roost. Eyes is right about the lack of playmakers or the refusal to get them on the field. Mack seems almost to be more comfortable with guys who don’t get the job done than with people who do. It’s astounding.

But I most certainly don’t attribute this collapse to a lack of talent. Even if recruiting has not been as good as advertised, we should still have plenty of talent to beat at least 75% of the teams on our schedule.

The problem is clearly some sort of cancer in the coaching staff. Rifts, divisions, lack of trust, undermining, abdications of duty, whatever has created a poisonous or defeatist environment that has sunk down and affected the players on the team. I think, somehow, that this must be coming in some way from the offensive line group, which has been inexplicably terrible for a couple of years now.

One of the biggest confirmations of this for me has been Colt’s emergence in the NFL. I really thought he would fail, that his cautiousness, his emphasis on completion percentage over YPC, his happy feet, were all things that he couldn’t get rid of. Clearly, much of that was coached into him, and to his great credit he has shrugged them off in the NFL. Maybe Mangini’s hazing of him was a sort of exorcism, to get rid of the hesitancy, arrogance and conservatism he had absorbed after 4 years of Davis coaching.

Who knows? But I think we have the talent to win. We just now have to find the coaching acumen to make it happen. And the Will to win.

Eyes – agreed.

I think we’re describing the same turd from different angles.

“jpsantini said:

So which "transactional leader" over the past 10-13 years has delivered the kind of sustained results that you believe Mack’s leadership style hasn’t?
…
The next team (Simms’) was hugely successful. The only reason it is viewed as disappointing by most Texas fans is because it had the misfortune to be in the same conference division as probably the best college football program going at that time — OU. (Well, that and the B12 championship game fiasco in ’01.)"

I applaud jpsantini for such an incisive answer to his own rhetorical question. Or, 6 maybe 7 conference championships for the chinless transactional leader north of the border vs. 2 for our transformational figurehead in one fewer years would be another way to state the obvious.

Naval warrior Bullet Tooth hit the nail on the head. I firmly believe that Greg is “hitting the clock” on his way in and out of the door each day. Case in point from yesterday’s presser:

On if going for it on fourth down is a mentality they want to keep: Each game we go in with an attitude depending on who we play and what they do. We thought Oklahoma State was a team that was explosive on offense, so we went in with that attitude when we crossed midfield. In fact on the first field goal, it was a situation when we had second-and-eight, so we called a draw to get a manageable third down. Coach told me when we got there that we would go for it, and that is what we were thinking all week. Well they blitzed the draw, which threw us into a quick out to the receiver. So that put us in third-and-eight. We took a shot to James [Kirkendoll] in man-to-man in the end zone, so we had to kick the field goal. But it does play a part knowing you will have four downs in certain areas of the field. And usually we start discussing that on Wednesday.

Something jump off the page to you? It should be the 2nd and 8 call explanation. Why call a play to get a “manageable” 3rd down? Why not call a play to get an effing first down? So if they knew they would have to match explosives, then why not call a damn explosive play? Why even kick a field goal when they already knew they would have to take advantage of each and every field position / scoring opportunity when and if they got it early?

That scenario is definitely not playing to win. Greg is playing not to lose. Kinda like punching a clock.

Carrington Byndom needs to load some Daggering tracks on Mack Brown’s iPod during the offseason.

The new coaches need to go with a ridiculously young lineup next year, take their lumps and get ready for 2012.

QB needs to be an open competition obviously

TXStampede – agreed. I can see why a team with a healthy running game might often play 2nd and eight for a manageable 3rd down. But even then, that’s a conservative game plan – something you’d expect from Sweatervest. But if you don’t have a good running game, or Shipley in the slot? That’s just dumb. Especially when the other team knows that if Texas calls a draw or any other inside running play, the D just has to show blitz and the QB won’t adjust to punish them over the top. We’ll just push it to the side.

So the OC thinks an “aggressive game plan” is three downs of small change and then going for it on fourth down. Sigh. I won’t go so far as to say GD is mailing it in – I don’t know how the man thinks – but that’s very timid game planning. Mostly I think he has no confidence in his players and is almost totally unwilling to put aggressive plays in their hands. Playing not to lose.

Nice opening post, DR.

It made me feel even better about yesterday’s “rumors” —

http://recruitocosm.fantake.com/2010/11/14/coaching-changes-whispers-behind-the-scenes/

Speaking of Greggor’s game plan… I would love it if someone took the time to determine the frequency at which we run the ball on 2nd and short. It would be best if we compared this rate against a few offenses we admire (Oregon, Auburn, OSU, etc) and a few we consider extremely conservative (tOSU?). Additional analysis could include average yards gained on 2nd and short.

Collect data from 1st halves only and it should be free of garbage-time data-fudging. Sorry for the triple post! Keep up the good work, DR.

Several insightful posts on this thread. Peel away out the academic and management theorizing, much of which has proven of marginal value when one views the result of “management” in business, government and military the past 20 years, and the situation we have is simply described.

We have complacency resulting from the 2005 NC. As indicated above, most of the staff busted their humps beginning in 1998, achieved the ultimate goal and went on cruise control, especially in respect of recruiting in 2006 and 2007. This complacency carried over to the players, particularly the coattailers (see below).

We have coddling. Mack’s “family atmosphere” is designed to assure the recruits and their parents that the players will be cared for just like or better than at home. This spills over to conditioning (our S&C coach is short of mediocre), practices and games. There is probably no coach in the country who is so protective of the feelings of self-esteem and worth of his players. Fuck that. The players are 18 to 23 or 24 years old and if they can’t take some ass chewing, discipline and accountability, they shouldn’t be playing college football. Plenty of others of their ages on a daily basis handle stresses far worse than a semi-manical coach screaming in their faces or confining their blue chip butts to the pines. Worse, the coddling extends to the staff who are among the highest paid in the country. Where is the accountability for the chronic failures, including repeated mental mistakes by the players. In any working unit, if the workers, here the players, observe tolerance of repeated failures by the supervisors, here the coaches, the players will develop the attitude, “if the boss doesn’t have to perform, why should I?”

We have coattailers. These are the players who watched ambitious, self-motivated players like Vince Young, Dave Thomas, Kasey Studdard, Brian Robison, Orakpo, Huff, Cosby, McCoy, Shipley and others take Texas to the pinnacle, but, unlike the foregoing players, were not compelled to pay the price for excellence and were content, as are a good portion of the human race, to “let someone else do it.” It is a coaching failure to not recognize and address this.

I think there is sufficient talent on the roster and incoming (assuming no decommitments) for this team to be turned around by next season. Not necessarily a one or two loss team, but a competitive 2 to 4 loss team. Come the postseason, if the coaches lay down the law, “you will condition, you will practice and you will perform at all times or you will be benched” and this is accompanied by energetic and competent coaching, the players will response and improve. If there are no changes, particularly the soft, complacent and marginally competent (at best) OC and offensive assistants, this team will sink with the first water over the gunwale coming in the form of transfers of some of the young talent, followed by decommitments, two things the program cannot suffer at this turning point.

So… If Mack Brown as head coach is a transformational ‘Good Cop’ leader , and Will Muschamp as DC is a transactional ‘Bad Cop’ leader, how does Greg Davis as OC fit in this management paradigm?

I contend that he is no leader at all, but positions himself more as an advisor/ consultant/ mentor. Problem is in actuality he doesn’t have the innate understanding (read: kiloWatts) of the game for that role.

Christ, you know it’s a shitty season if we are getting all Myers-Briggs on the coaching staff. We truly have nothing left to talk about.

Hey, at least he didn’t do the “I’m ok, you’re ok” shit I learned in one management class at UT. It could always be worse.

Hook ’em!!!

One thing is for certain, Mack’s model of transformational leadership can work, and it has for a good period of time. One thing is for certain though, transformational leadership (as an exclusive leadership style) only works at the very top of the orginazation and you MUST have transactional guys below you in the chain of command.

The you can call the transactional guys whatever you want, “Carrot and Stick” or “Bad Cop”, or whatever…but one way to make sure that a transactional leader fails is to take their stick away. Another way for top leadership to castrate a tractional leader is to show that the kind of accountability that they are professing to apply to the subordinate does not exist for the leader themselves. This is where the crisis management train goes off the tracks, and where Texas’ “perfect storm of failure” has spooled up.

Mack, for all of his strengths of charisma and leadership, does not have the ability to identify root cause of failure and grab one of his transactional leader’s sticks and beat them to death with it. In order to effectively manage a crisis, you first have to understand that you are in one and it took Iowa State+Baylor+K-State to do that for Mack. As much as we wanted Mack to rip the clipboard from Davis’ cold stale fingers and hand it to Major or (fuck it, call the plays himself) it simply IS NOT in his DNA to do something like that. Love him for his loyalty or hate him for his stubborn nature, it’s just the way he is.

Some people have said that Mack’s time is up at Texas and that his leadership style won’t work anymore. That is nonsense. Mack’s style and leadership ability has not changed, and his ability to recruit top players is still viable and TEXAS’ ability to attract top talent in the coaching ranks will never change. The assistants MUST be given a sturdy stick and a bag full of carrots, and Mack has swing an axe in the direction of a few friends’ necks.

If the week after Thanksgiving brings nothing but a bunch of mental masturbation, rationalization, and statistics used as a placebo for actually accountibility, then we are fucked in the years to come.

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