Coaching News and Rumors

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EMJ426 said:
Pretty much figured this would be the route he would take after this season. Great coach, just past his prime. Wish him the best.
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You are the only person I have ever heard refer to him as a "great coach". Great snake oil salesman? Absolutely. Good coach? Nope.

Great recruiter? More like a phenomenal recruiter.

After what he did to us, he must have been a champion "hide n seek" player as a kid.

If UNC wants him gone, I suggest they eliminate his "recruiting budget".
 
SabreHorn said:
After what he did to us,
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Saber, honest question: exactly what did "he do to us"? I agree that after Colt's injury against Bama he & his staff were no shows/busy licking their wounds while the program fell on its face? Is that what you are talking about or is there something more sinister that I'm missing?
 
1sahorn said:
Saber, honest question: exactly what did "he do to us"? I agree that after Colt's injury against Bama he & his staff were no shows/busy licking their wounds while the program fell on its face? Is that what you are talking about or is there something more sinister that I'm missing?
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It was his behavior when the inevitable was about to happen.

I don't know the nitty gritty details, but I have enough connections to know that he could have exited far more gracefully than he did (and I am being as nice and as circumspect as I can possibly be - Sabre may want to spill more of the dirt, but I don't think it is worth picking at old wounds.)
 
SaberHorn knows much more than I do, but I think I know enough.

Mack had agreed mid-season to graciously leave the program if he didn’t achieve certain goals, which he did not. (it may have been that he had to win the conference. I don’t remember.) He chose to renege on his commitment at the 11th hour, creating a crisis.

My understanding is that Texas had Saban lined up. Essentially signed, sealed and delivered. Mack supposedly told his BDM buddies, in essence, that Saban ‘is not going to win with my players.’ Saban got wind, backed out, and signed an extension at Alabama.

While I am sure there are more details, I am convinced – based on many data points, and from people who know – that Mack functionally sabotaged the program upon his exit.

SH, mostly correct?
 
dukesteer said:
SaberHorn knows much more than I do, but I think I know enough.

Mack had agreed mid-season to graciously leave the program if he didn’t achieve certain goals, which he did not. (it may have been that he had to win the conference. I don’t remember.) He chose to renege on his commitment at the 11th hour, creating a crisis.

My understanding is that Texas had Saban lined up. Essentially signed, sealed and delivered. Mack supposedly told his BDM buddies, in essence, that Saban ‘is not going to win with my players.’ Saban got wind, backed out, and signed an extension at Alabama.

While I am sure there are more details, I am convinced – based on many data points, and from people who know – that Mack functionally sabotaged the program upon his exit.

SH, mostly correct?
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Thanks for the insight. I was not aware.
 
dukesteer said:
SaberHorn knows much more than I do, but I think I know enough.

Mack had agreed mid-season to graciously leave the program if he didn’t achieve certain goals, which he did not. (it may have been that he had to win the conference. I don’t remember.) He chose to renege on his commitment at the 11th hour, creating a crisis.

My understanding is that Texas had Saban lined up. Essentially signed, sealed and delivered. Mack supposedly told his BDM buddies, in essence, that Saban ‘is not going to win with my players.’ Saban got wind, backed out, and signed an extension at Alabama.

While I am sure there are more details, I am convinced – based on many data points, and from people who know – that Mack functionally sabotaged the program upon his exit.

SH, mostly correct?
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All of that (and maybe more) is probably true and I’m not excusing his behavior if that’s the case. But that doesn’t change what he did the previous 15 years. The guy won a championship here which no one else has done except DKR. Mack should have had a second and maybe a third but the cards didn’t fall our way. Mack allowed me to watch us win a championship with my dad in his living room. That’s something no other coach has been able to do in my lifetime and I was born in ‘70. My dad has since passed and that night is a memory that I will never forget and will always cherish so Mack will always be a special coach to me.
 
Much of Mack's success was based on his ability to recruit and sign Vince and Colt. Without those two players, his legacy is a completely different narrative. That said, he and Greg Davis did their best to ruin Vince by trying to make him fit into their mold. In his own words Mack admitted that they had to finally let "Vince be Vince."
 
God bless Mack for 2005. As a coach, he admitted to finally leaving VY alone. Great coaching. LOL. No one can blame him for Colt's injury vs Bama. Just a bad break. And I'll go to my grave knowing we got the shaft in 2008. I think we would have defeated Florida. But everything after 2009 was a debacle. And he was the guy in charge.
 
rick mueller said:
Much of Mack's success was based on his ability to recruit and sign Vince and Colt. Without those two players, his legacy is a completely different narrative. That said, he and Greg Davis did their best to ruin Vince by trying to make him fit into their mold. In his own words Mack admitted that they had to finally let "Vince be Vince."
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Don't leave out Simms.
VY has said it was Simm's recruitment that brought him here.
 
Duke,

That's a good "clean" version, but Billie Powers enabled it to happen and in essence threw gasoline on the fire.

Only people that won on that deal was a certain RE agent & a loan guarantor; of course, I got the worst butt chewing of my life and then a very gracious apology while my buddies laughed their asses off as us.
 
The best thing Mack Brown did was reunite an impossibly divided fan base. Every school has a division of some kind or another, but NO school ever had as many factions as we did, and it wasn't even close. Mack did the impossible by reuniting all those into one cohesive group.

I will carry to my grave two quotes given to me face to face by men I had huge respect for:

"Mack is the most hard-headed son of a ***** you'll ever meet"

"Fans and administrators should never be allowed to dictate who the HC's assistants are" - This was a result of my statement before the offer was made "don't let him bring Greg Davis". Also, the man that said that prevented Fred from hiring the best coach I've ever known.
 
das3603 said:
All of that (and maybe more) is probably true and I’m not excusing his behavior if that’s the case. But that doesn’t change what he did the previous 15 years. The guy won a championship here which no one else has done except DKR. Mack should have had a second and maybe a third but the cards didn’t fall our way. Mack allowed me to watch us win a championship with my dad in his living room. That’s something no other coach has been able to do in my lifetime and I was born in ‘70. My dad has since passed and that night is a memory that I will never forget and will always cherish so Mack will always be a special coach to me.
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Mack had an unbelievable amount of goodwill built in Austin because of that title and his decade + of excellence. He could have retired and lived like Coach Royal (or done whatever he wanted).

I have the same fond memories as you, and I am not nearly as bitter about missing out on Saban as others, but Mack's choices at the end put a very severe dent in his legacy. He'll probably live out his golden years in NC/Tennessee instead of Central Texas, and I'm pretty sure all parties are OK with that.
 
Two things can be true as the same time, and they probably are:

Mack did a great job of uniting the fan base, and recruiting transcendent players that took us to two NC games, and won one of them.

It is also true that after we lost to Alabama at the NC in 2010, he made a series of very poor decisions — including the decision to change what had been a very successful offensive scheme, and he got lazy on the recruiting trail.

As others have said, had he graciously exited, he would be held in very high esteem and welcomed with open arms. Because he chose not to do that (his ego), many harbor ill feelings toward him.
 
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