Texas Is The Best Coaching Job In The Country

The description and writeup are why 5-7 is inexcusable; why 1 conference championship in 10 years is inexcusable; why 1 NC in 35+ years is inexcusable; why recruiting happy-go-lucky kids from Lake Travis so you can be at home for Sally’s dinner is inexcusable; why recruiting Chris Whaley is inexcusable, and on and on and on. As I travel the country and people find out I am a Texas Ex, the question I get repeatedly is “with all its resources, why doesn’t Texas win more championships—pick the sport.” I have no good answer.

Come on, Ransom…it’s TWO conference championships in the last six years…yeesh!

Ha ha ha ha!

The issue when making these lists is always avoiding falling into the trap of judging a program based on their current head coach and recent success. Generally when you see a list of the best head coaching jobs Alabama is overrated because they’ve got a great head coach right now and they’re punching above their weight. So I give Staples credit for ranking Bama as low as he did. But then he goes and blows it by ranking Oregon and Auburn too high and USC too low.

If I was planning on being in college for the long haul I would certainly wait out USC’s 2 or 3 more years of sanctions rather than take the Oregon job because the recruiting is so much better in Hell-A.

Auburn doesn’t have the recruiting base to be a top 10 job. They’re number two in a state that doesn’t have the recruits to support two top programs. They do well in western Georgia but historically they aren’t close to being the top choice of the average GA blue-chipper. Zero doubt to me that I take the ND and FSU jobs over Auburn unless the boosters are buying me a Cam Newton every year.

Overall it seems there was a bit too much emphasis on money and not enough on recruiting base.

I hate to say I agree with Ransom on this, but I do. Every reason given in that article to agree tells me that the primary concern in Bellmont has been making money and not winning championships.

ransom it’s mostly because oklahoma has better coaching.

someone had to jump on the grenade.

Two sides to this. Was the Texas job considered so good before 1998? Good, yes, but not the nation’s best. Brown has done a lot to make it the best job.

That there are two Oklahoma teams on that list, both of whom rely heavily on Texas for players, is shameful IMO. I would much rather see two more Texas schools on that list.

Everything ransom says is true, but TTR is absolutely correct that today’s DKR Memorial Stadium is the house that Mack Brown built. For all his faults, real and perceieved, Mack Brown is God’s Gift to the University of Texas at Austin.

I wish for more, but I am old enough to know there are no entitlements and nothing good comes easy in this life.

Everything ransom says is true, but TTR is absolutely correct that today’s DKR Memorial Stadium is the house that Mack Brown built. For all his faults, real and perceived, Mack Brown is God’s Gift to the University of Texas at Austin.

I wish for more, but I am old enough to know there are no entitlements and nothing good comes easy in this life.

Maybe I have on Maroon colored glasses but I don’t see why the Okie lite job is in the top 20. We should be somewhere in the 15 – 20 range but didn’t make the list.

I agree that Mack has contributed largely to making the sports department second to none. But Davey is correct: deep in the bowels of Belmont the MBA’s have come to understand that as long as the on-the-field product is pretty good, the money will flow. Money > Championships. The incremental difference in number of championships versus the resulting increased revenue is small. As a businessman, I appreciate the logic. As a fan, it drives me crazy.

Ransom—— Yeah let’s just quit and become die hard TCU fans so we can talk about how much we do with so little. UT is in a tough spot for 3rd party judgement, primarily due to all it’s resources. It’s like having the 1st pick in the NFL draft… every year. If you get a hall of famer with Troy Aikman, people acknowledge that “we didn’t blow it.” And if you get Jamarcus Russell… then you’re screwed. I agree we should be better than what we are, but other fans talking about what they could do if they had what we had is just plain stupid. That’s like saying, if I was 7’4’’ I’d be a star in the NBA. Duh.

You can rationalize either way. Bottom line is ou is getting more out of their program in terms of championships. And resource-wise, they can’t compare.

Please tell me who said what they could do with the resources at Mack’s finger tips. I simply stated that it looking at Mack’s tenure you would think there might have been a few more Conference Championships.

If I am not mistaken the prime reason Johnny Mac was fired was money, the need to sell those luxury boxes and not as much on the field performance. The two are directly related, but had the checks been coming in do we think a change would have been made at that time?

Mack endured at the hands of Stoopes two beatings as bad as the UCLA game and yet Dodds never waivered. Why was that? Mack endured a bowl melt down against Wazzu, got embarrassed at home by Arkansas, and exactly which of the three losses at home this year were acceptable with the resources at Mack’s disposal?

I agree that the Texas program is in better shape now than when Mack came to Texas, but it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. Some has been some bad luck, but a great deal has been self-inflicted and when you get paid the way Mack and his staff get paid you are going to draw an appropriate level of scrutiny.

I would say our immense resource advantage is really only a factor over the past 5 years. The 80s and the 90s were lost decades due to rampant cheating by our rivals and our inability to get the best coaches possible.

Mack has been consistent in his ability to deliver wins, but again he has rarely maximized things on the field due to poor coaching choices. Davis was Stoops before Stoops was when it came to choking in big games and our defenses weren’t coached up until the second half of Mack’s tenure. Stoops has done a better job in hiring assistants and that makes a big difference when the talent is relatively similar.

I also think we have suffered by the way the conference has been built. Tech and Aggy only care about beating us and they seem to beat us at inopportune moments and yet never really challenge OU when it might actually help us out. We were the main rival of everyone in our division expect OSU. OU had only us and OSU. Its an intangible, but I think if we swapped places with OU in that regard we would have some more hardware on the shelf.

Some here seem to be implying that you can’t have both a top money-making program and a top-performing team on the field. That’s utter bullshit! All that’s been needed for both is to have top-notch, hungry and motivated assistant coaches, which MB doggedly refused to accept until he had to at gun point.

I hate OU and I can’t forgive MB for allowing OU to get all those championships at UT’s expense. And no, I don’t want to go back to the Mackovic years, and the fool who suggests that if we lose MB we’d have to go back to Mackovic is insane.

J.R.69 said: June 7th, 2011 at 5:34 am

That there are two Oklahoma teams on that list, both of whom rely heavily on Texas for players, is shameful IMO.

Demarco Murray, Ryan Broyles, Kenny Stills, Donald Stephenson, Roy Finch, Brennan Clay, Gabe Ikard, Tyler Evans, Trey Millard, Frank Alexander, Stacy McGee, Ronnell “The Hammer” Lewis, Gabe Lynn, Aaron Colvin, Javon Harris, and I all wholeheartedly agree with you.

You forgot me, Landry!

“The incremental difference in number of championships versus the resulting increased revenue is small. As a businessman, I appreciate the logic. As a fan, it drives me crazy.”

Ransom I know your schtick, but its pretty retarded for anyone to suggest that we aren’t trying to win championships based on cost-benefit analysis. Like a lot of things, the real story can’t really be boiled down to a simple “we aren’t doing enough” or “Mack has only won two B12 championships.”

Mack was in building mode from 1998-2002 or so. We played in the B12 championship game in 1999 and 2001. Chris Simms laid an egg in 2001, Major almost saved it. Then we had a QB carousel from 2002 until VY took over in 2004 (still won 10 or more games each year) – you can fault the staff for not playing VY earlier because we might have avoided 0-12, our only loss in 2004. But nobody is perfect and completely trusting such an unconventional soph is understandably difficult. 2005!! In 2006 we had lost players to graduation and draft, and had a frosh Colt. Still won 10 games in 2006 and 2007 (damn you KSU). Crabtree happened in 2008, an otherwise dominant season. We absolutely came to play against Alabama in 2009. We had been doing all of this with a buffoon as an OC. Complacency and everything else hit in 2010. But looking around other programs, its hard to find a longer sustained period of domination than UT 2001-2009. Nebraska and FSU did it in the 90’s. USC, Florida, Ohio St., Alabama, have all been up and down.

Bottom line is that Brown is not perfect but nobody is, and we can nitpick keeping GD around, questionable/lazy scholarship offers, not keeping players accountable, etc. But we also can’t ignore the major accomplishments of the last decade and the fact that most of the time the team came to play and hit on all cylinders, that we have been a couple bounces away from more MNC’s and B12 championships, and you can tell how badly the team and staff wanted it (until last year). All that while running a very clean program and genuinely attempting to groom players not only as players but as men. Not to get cheesy but I do appreciate that very much, especially looking at Tressel, Carroll, Chizik, Chip Kelly, the Chinless wonder, etc.

That turned into a rant, sorry. It would not be any fun if it was a foregone conclusion every year. The twists, turns, pain, struggle, etc, will make the next NC that much sweeter. Yes its appropriate to identify how we can improve all facets of the program, but don’t suggest that we are just trying to be good enough because that is the height of stupidity. With the staff changes and early recruiting results, it looks like Mack wants it now more than ever and has learned some lessons. I’m not a sunshine pumper, and I would call for Mack’s head if there was no improvement. But he has consistently reinvented himself since he got here and is still doing so. With character. And with arguably the best on the field results of the last decade.

Oh yeah 5, 8, 2, 1, 4, 7, 6, 3

First – that’s a great article, and thanks to Sailor for the link, writeup and chaps photo. Not necessarily in that order.

Second – most of what I was going to say about Mack’s performance vs potential was stated very eloquently by Texastough above, so I’ll tip my cap to him and not go over the same ground again.

Third – if you’re determined to ignore all the awesome in this article and focus on shooting at Belmont, let’s try this. I think we can all agree that revenue certainly doesn’t have a NEGATIVE impact on the team’s performance, and that we haven’t lost a single game, touchdown or snap due to luxury boxes, TV deals or Taco Bell gongs (unless they motivated Marco Martin to devour four gorditas in the second quarter of each game). Since we can also probably agree that Belmont’s job is not to draw up plays, supervise workouts or any other ‘hands on’ elements that contribute directly to winning football, their only real ‘contribution’ to elevating our level of play/results beyond where they have been coming in would be to make a change in the coaching staff who does have that hands-on responsibility.

So as not to beat around the bush on this issue, let’s have it – had you been running the show, when in the timeline do you fire Mack for underperformance, who did you hire to replace him and how do you think we did subsequently?

I’ll go – after the Washington State Holiday Bowl fiasco I was convinced that we just did not have the offensive brainpower to consistently win conference titles/BCS bowls. I’ve been more outright livid on a few occasions, but watching us have no answer for repeated double A-gap blitzes but to have the QB backpedal faster or throw a WR screen quicker tore it for me. Had I been the AD, I would have done everything in my power to call Mack’s bluff on GD, and had I been able to marshal the requisite Regent and Big Cigar support and Mack hadn’t backed down, I’d have asked him to go. This would likely have resulted in a deeply divided program from a support/big donor perspective similar to what we saw after the Mike Campbelll/Fred Akers succession situation. It’s very possible we would have lost VY and a number of other talented guys to transfer, with no guarantees that whoever came in could even match our prior level of success in what was NOW a much less attractive job due to likely turmoil, infighting, loss of players and a tremendous amount of negative recruiting ammo for our rivals.

In short, it would almost certainly have been a pretty fucking bad move.

What would yours have been?

Re:

“……it looks like Mack wants it now more than ever and has learned some lessons…”

Yeah, he’s a quick learner, isn’t he? Took him 6 years for Reese, about that for MacWhorter and 13 years for Davis to learn that they suck ass as coaches. Well, maybe not “learned” so much as reacted to the gun pointed to his head.

And pardon me for being such a bitter old fart.

Nothing like picking old wounds to pass the off-season!

I’m not a sunshine pumper

Sorry, but yes, you are.

Mack was in building mode from 1998-2002 or so. We played in the B12 championship game in 1999 and 2001. Chris Simms laid an egg in 2001

Are you fucking kidding?

1. Mack inherited a team that was 1 yrs removed from a 10-win, conference title season.
2. OU was in a worse position than UT AND Mack had a year’s head start on Stoops, who won a MNC in his second season.
3. During the Mack vs. Stoops era, OU has played in twice as many B12 title games & has only 1 loss.
4. Yes, Simms laid an egg in the ‘01 B12 title game. But who was the guy who kept in him the game until he’d dug a huge hole that the team couldn’t dig itself out of?

But he has consistently reinvented himself since he got here and is still doing so.

By keeping around dead weight until a gun has been put to his head?

I still see Mad Dog & Chambers on the payroll.

Look, I acknowledge Mack has done a lot for the program. But it isn’t any stretch of the imagination to say that he’s underperformed. Have other UT HCs underperformed also? Sure, but that’s a red herring.

The brain trust in Bellmont can’t get it in there heads that you can win championships AND rake in a lot of dough. They say titles matter, yet keep on giving big pay raises to coaches who underperform.

ETA: It should read, “…their heads…”

I’m pretty puzzled by his inclusions of Arizona and Arizona State. Tepid fan support, minimal history, poor recruiting demographics. Like De Gaulle said of Brazil – It has potential. And always will.
 
I’d put A&M and UCLA ahead of both. Hell, maybe even Cal, Wisconsin, Washington….
 
Auburn and Tennessee are the same job. Auburn has a better recruiting situation; Tennessee is a more attractive sell.
 
I’d also move OU down in the #7-#8 range.

I’d put LSU ahead of Georgia. I think we have no idea what kind of real job Penn State is — for an obvious reason.

I am truly puzzled by Auburn being in his Top Ten.

As usual, it “is all about the money”.

Glad we are #1, and success is nice, and life is good.

As tOSU has shown (and probably at many more schools), $ can corrupt and blind.

Alums, coaches, kids, administrators, staff, politicians, …

If it’s a matter of money, the question, what is the price of poker? And, what is the price to play every year? That’s what they want to do… and, by and large, have done.

Having a nine-figure revenue stream doesn’t mean that others making do with less can’t contend for or win the championship. Set the bar wherever you like as to how many others there are, but there are probably double figures of schools that think like Texas thinks and can follow through.

Nobis,

I agree that running the risk of fracturing the backing of the program is something that almost none of us have a true understanding and as a result can’t speak to intelligently (which hasn’t stopped me for one in the past).

You assume that VY would have transferred if GD had been let go, but is that a gut feeling or something that you have insite? Obviously losing VY would have been disasterous to the program. Unfortunately what might have happened is something we will never know as it is possible Mack could have at that time hired a younger offensive co-ordinator who was able to keep VY in Austin and the result for 2004 and 2005 would have been the same.

It is an answer we will never know, but by not acting on removing the problem in 2003 the problem linger for 7 more years and started a maligancy in the program that split the team this past year. The most disconcerting is that had Mack not been forced changes would not have been made at the root of the problem which would have continued the decay in the talent on the offensive side of the ball.

Also fun to play what if and what Mack has done for the University is without question, but with the perks comes responsibility.