The Texas Defensive Coordinator Hire: Not So Fast, My Friends?

This is so much fun, I almost hope we never hire anybody and next season never comes.
Almost.

The photo and the title of this entry reminds me, I am anxious to see what Mack looks like in that chair on College Gameday. Don’t take that as me saying I want him out, I just think that’s where he will wind up whenever he hangs it up and it will be interesting to watch.

I know Muschamp came in with a DB background and Akina didn’t leave…but, that consistency among those names really bothers me. Add to it the DL/ST job description and I think before this is all over with we may really only have Chambers and Mad Dog back from last year’s staff…considering they were deservedly on the way out, this only adds to my potential disappointment.

Ricky -
 
I think DB coach background is a more common overlap with DC than any other position grouping.
 
Not a lot of former DL Defensive Coordinators, right?

Ricky:

Don’t forget Mack. He’ll apparently be back too.

Glad you got something up. Glad you copped to being wrong.

All I care about at this point is whether Madden is coming back. Please tell me he isn’t.

Most of those candidates strike me similarly: not blown away but should be solid enough. Does Gray have college coaching experience?

Seems like the OC/OL/S&C axis is the more crucial. Any of these guys plus Chryst or Shaw (and their OL picks) and a good S&C guy would be OK.

I do like Walker. That wouldn’t be half bad. He is a good DC and a strong recruiter.

Homesick -
 
Thanks. And ditto.
 
To be clear, I’m not Jesus.
 
Also, I wrote about Teryl Austin with links to the site that reported him as a done deal (24/7) because I take attribution seriously. All of the other pay sites quickly echoed the Austin to DC report. When I noticed the reqs for the job hire, that was confirmation enough for me.
 
I’m not really invested in a particular outcome on this one.
 
The only thing I “broke” was the fact that Malzahn and Holgorsen were not candidates from the very beginning while most believed them to be strong contenders.
 
I’m not much of an insider. We just have insiders tells us stuff sometimes because our blog is read by a lot of UT enthusiasts. But I generally get bored with it quickly.
 
Anyway, thanks for indulging the aside.

Does Gray have college coaching experience?

Jerry was at SMU for a couple of years in the late 90’s

When it comes to getting things wrong about posted job descriptions and candidates, no one has anything on me. I had to relearn that when counting consecutive periods of time on your fingers, it’s the number of webbed gaps between that you want . The upside is I discovered I’m a year younger than I previously thought.

triplehorn, I laughed.

Walker has also gone for child name alliteration. Too bad all his kids don’t start with “Int” or “Pick” or “Sack”.

two daughters (Kesha and Kendra) and one son (Kevan).

Jerry Gray. have two sons, Jeremy and Jayden. Sweet.

Withers: have two children, Tia and Pierce. I think he’s eliminated.

Ok, I’m the stupid.

I just posted over on Jesus’ thread “Where’d my post go?”.

I am now posting like Greg Davis, with no obvious regard to down, distance, or even proper site alignment.

Sorry, Scip. I thought I was in the ’Cosm and not the Carnival.

Also, I think I may have succumbed to some of Mack’s disinformation. It’s pretty disorienting these days.

Pierce Withers sounds like one of Clipper Cooper’s rummies.

Maybe Austin was a way for Texas to let Will know poaching coaches can go both ways. Much of the talk about more Texas coaches following Will has died down. How’s that for conspiracy theories.

Seriously, wtf is the deal with all this alliteration child naming? It’s kind of disturbing.

Jerry –
I like your theory. It has some merit.

TG

Regarding Mad Dog, looks like Embree has cleared some space for him at CU:

http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_16876836

In the words of Paul McCartney—-Let it be, let it be, let it be, oh let it be….

“Regarding Mad Dog, looks like Embree has cleared some space for him at CU”

I’m just going to leave this one alone.

The wife.

Despite the fact that I don’t really know much about any of these guys (other than Gray), for some reason I like the idea of Walker better than any of the others that are rumored to be in play. I watched some of one of his NMSU pressers and he seemed pretty damn sharp. That said, his apparently direct denial of any involvement with us makes him seem unlikely.

Hobbs – “…his apparently direct denial of any involvement with us makes him seem unlikely.”

Not so sure. Mack seems to have finally learned the first two rules of information management in the internet age: (1) if you want to leak nothing, leak everything, from your real candidates to your grocery bill and Chinese take-out menus; and (2) tell everyone you interview that their denial of involvement is a litmus test of future dependability (and of course it helps them too, in case they don’t get the job).

Does that mean Walker is “it”? Hell if I know …

Scipio, since Holgerson was hired by WV, can you spill the vetting issues he had with us? I seem to recall that prevented him from getting the Pitt job too.

BE:

You may be exactly right, but I was struck by the directness of Walker’s denial to the Las Cruces paper, including this quote:

"I’m a head coach," he said. "I’m not going to walk away from a head coaching job."

If he was just playing the denial game, I would have expected him to merely say he hadn’t been contacted, hadn’t spoken to Brown, etc. Regardless, many times in the past, we’ve all seen staunch denials from candidates who are ultimately hired.

This whole damn thing is giving me a headache.

"I’m not going to walk away from a head coaching job." ~ Mack Brown when referring to his $32,400,000 to be earned through the 2016 season.

Hey Scipio — can you send me your email? I have a question about your site I’d like to run past you and I couldn’t find any contact info for the Barkers running the program (after an exhaustive 3 minute search…). Thx

caseylex@hotmail.com

Deloss, Mack, and Longhorn Nation:

I will save you a ton of time and agony and give you the solution.

Cut Mack’s salary back to $3 million. The $2 million raise during the Great Recession was questionable in the first place and a huge slap to your assistants, ticket buyers, and UT academia. And in the last place, you didn’t come close to earning that $2 mill this year. This will free up an additional $2 mill to dish out to our OC and DC hires, on top of what the Regents approve.

Hire Mike Leach as OC and pay him $1.5 mill. Put in the contract that if we lose 4 games or more, his 2012 salary is cut accordingly on a sliding scale, Also put in there if we win 10 games or more, he’s bonused. Same for conf cship, same for NC.

Hire Bama or LSU DC and pay him $1 million. Put in same incentives as Leach gets.

Hire LSU strength coach.

Promote Major under Leach and pay him $700,000.

Deloss and Mack, you will win 10-12 games, probably beat OU, and have a great shot at a BCS bowl NEXT YEAR.

Force Mack to cough up that $2 mill and give it to get it to get the assistants he needs to make a big, quick turnaround. Otherwise, Mack’s legacy will get worse.

Hire Mike Leach as OC and pay him $1.5 mill. Put in the contract that if we lose 4 games or more, his 2012 salary is cut accordingly on a sliding scale, Also put in there if we win 10 games or more, he’s bonused. Same for conf cship, same for NC.

You are offering incentives to coaches based in part on areas they do not control. You might even say that they don’t control their own sides of the ball, since Mack is the head coach.

Out of the 4 names listed, Withers would be the best choice, hands down.

Didn’t Walker get in a fight w/ one of his assistants this year or last?

Joetx —
 
That’s Mike Locksley. WHAT – ALL BLACK COACHES LOOK ALIKE TO YOU?!?!?!

@ Scip – NO, I COULDN’T REMEMBER IF IT WAS THE HC AT UNM OR NMSU WHO GOT INTO A FIGHT W/ HIS ASSISTANT!

Joetx, do you always SCREAM at people? Are you my ex-husband?

Sheesh.

Hook ’em!

@ java – It was a joke in response to Scip.

Sheesh.

If we are going after a Black coach, the the answer is simple: Either Randy Shannon or any young Black coach recomended by Mike Tomlin and Dick LeBeau

Also, Mike Leach is the best OC out there, by far. Imagine Mike Leach with a good Defense. Foolish pride and lack of thinking outside the box will prevent us from hiring him.

Leach wants to be a HC. It looks like he’s going to get the Maryland job. Even if he didn’t, he’d be a one year hire at most, as he would jump at any decent HC job dangled in front of him next year.

That would be a wasted year for our offensive players, as they would have to turn around and learn an entirely new system the next year.

Also, he’s suing the company that’s backing our TV network. That’s kind of a big deal.

Justin Wilcox of Tennessee (and Boise) getting a lot of buzz on other sites. Rumor is he will bring Cal DL coach and ace recruiter Tosh Lupoi with him.