I'll summarize:
A. Herman has done better on the field than any other coach around here in the past 10 years, in wins, bowls, recruiting, etc. This year, while starting out as if it were going to be another Charlie Strong year, has recovered to be another Tom Herman year. A "Tom Herman year" at least so far is not winning the conference and not in the national discussion. However, despite all the criticism, we have just about never played a bad game under Herman. (Have we ever been blown out?) Despite my concerns earlier this year, he did not lose the team. They try hard every game to the end. All the teams started the year with very little coaching in place; UT over the season has improved relative to the rest of the country, meaning that as UT and other teams have had more coaching input, UT has improved more than others. That makes a decent argument that the 2020 issue could account for at least one of our losses.
There are a lot of easy-to-see problems in games--dumb penalties, lack of special teams preparations, etc., but I'm not sure anyone other than the top top teams are avoiding that.
B. Herman is not very likable. His self-importance and ego set people against him. Even his smile is a snarl. He is condescending. He does not seem like a guy I would want to go canoeing with. (I would love to go canoeing or camping with Donald Trump, or Barack Obama or Rush Limbaugh or Bill Clinton, just to give examples, but Herman would be down there with Hillary Clinton or Rick Perry.)
When you are unlikable, you don't have much insurance against bad performance. People don't care about you personally, so there isn't a lot of grace waiting for you (since you don't give any).
C. Herman made a huge strategic error to open up a second front (let's just say it was like opening up a land war with Russia in the winter) by trying to use his "platform" to influence social change among the fans and regarding the school traditions. I did and do feel personally affronted by the implications that I am racist--which I am not. I do feel aggravated beyond recovery that Herman would spearhead the destruction of the Eyes of Texas tradition. Especially because the factual bases for these political crusades are questionable (if not pure fantasy)--but that's off into politics. Most of the posters here would tend to align with me politically, and would therefore just be against what Herman is trying to accomplish, but the more important point is that as a FOOTBALL COACH, it demonstrates "no common sense," as SabreHorn said, to take your little freshwater bass boat out into the deep ocean water of politics for no good reason whatsoever. It should, and likely will, be the end of his job here, despite what I said in A above about decent coaching.
