Mack Wins First Quarter NC 7 - Clemson 0, and then . . .

He is not Knute Rockne. He is not DKR. I have never claimed he was DKR. He is, however one of the best coaches all time and one of the three best of the 1990s and 2000s. He was an elite coach in that era.

I do not really beat up on Freddy Akers since everyone started cheating around him. Briles was cheating at Baylor among other things. It is not Mack's fault Briles was not brought down until after the fact. I mean, you act like a dude with nor morals did not take "win at all costs" at Baylor and turn them into a top 15 team. It is not like we were weaker than a normal, not cheating, bad Baylor.

Gary Patterson is another elite coach and Mack Brown was 2-1 against him. We were not weaker than TCU when Mack left given that Mack Brown beat TCU 30-7 in Fort Worth in 2013. Why are you giving Mack Brown credit for Charlie Strong tanking us? Mack beat TCU in 2007 by 21, lost to them by 7 in 2012 and beat them by 23 in 2013. He was never blown out by them the way Charlie was every time. That is on Charlie.

Mike Gundy is a hell of a coach who had his best run 2010-2013 including a #3 finish. Gundy's only 2 wins against OU came form 2010-2014, so I have to tip my cap to the man for doing a hell of a coaching job. Tom Herman has struggled with him too. Mack Brown totally messed up with the coach-in-waiting with Muschamp, changing the offense, Diaz, etc. That was not fun. We declined at a time when Okie State and Baylor were on the upswing. Bob Stoops "let" cheating Baylor and Gundy surpass him for a little while too. Even DKR had bad seasons and lost 4 games a year between national titles for three seasons from 1965-1967. I do not see anyone saying "DKR was great, but he let Texas A&M, Texas Tech, SMU and Arkansas surpass him from 1965-1967, so he sucked."

I want Texas to win a national title every year as much as the next guy, and I hate to tell you this, but coaches who pull off what Saban has pulled off this decade are few and far between. That's highly irregular. I hope to see Texas do that one day too, but is unlikely anyone at any schools does it again. However, to be mad at being the winningest power 5 team over a decade or claim the coach was not that good is absurd.

Also, Texas recruiting rankings from 247:
2000: #6 2003 finish: #11
2001: #11 2004 finish: #4
2002: #1 2005 finish: #1
2003: #8 2006 finish #13
2004: #9 2007 finish #10
2005: #13 2008 finish #3
2006: #6 2009 finish #2
2007: #3 2010 finish unranked
2008: #8 2011 finish unranked
2009: #6 2012 finish #18
2010: #2 2013 finish unranked
2011: #4
2012: #2
2013: #17

I do not care about recruiting rankings. They are mostly meaningless. Colt McCoy was a 3 star and played like a 5 star and Malik Jefferson was a 5 star and played like a 2 star.

Mack Brown actually only had 2 top 5 recruiting classes from 2000-2009 according to 247, yet had 4 top five finishes from 2003-2009. Actually, other than 2002, it seems like when he started getting the 247 top 5 recruiting classes, we got worse. The moral here is: do not put so much stock into recruiting rankings. Also, no, Mack Brown did not have the #1 recruiting class every year. That is revisionist history. I have to agree with those that said there was a recruiting letdown in the end because he seems to have been chasing who the "experts" thought would be good instead of who was actually good.
 
@Htown77 your stats are impressive and most don’t deny Mack’s legendary status. Marv Levy was great, too. Mack’s lack of conference titles compared to the big rival is a hard pill to swallow for many of us. It doesn’t mean most reasonable people don’t look back on 1998-2013 with mostly great memories.
 
You love Mack, that is clear. Mack always said if you could finish in the top 15 of recruiting every year, you had a shot at the national championship. You're right HTown, Mack through his first 12 years won like no one else (practically). His last four tarnished his first 12 IMO (when it comes to opinions I sometimes lack humility). He's 2-3 right now, true to history, maybe he'll go 7-5 or 8-4. Definitely an improvement.
 
I guess, zucker, that it seems like you usually focus on the last 4 years without taking it all in. But I agree with you on the last 4 years. He wasn't hungry
 
Honestly biggest issue we had was at QB. Gilbert wasn't ready to play in front of the bright lights and there was no plan B. Ash couldn't stay healthy and they bet big on Swoops who by the time he was a Sr. in HS everyone knew he wasn't the answer. We had some nice players in that last 4 year stretch. Gray, 2 Browns, Jeffcoat, Hicks to name a few. What we lacked was a QB. Case was never supposed to play, but at least he beat Aggy when it mattered.
 
You love Mack, that is clear.
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Actually, I could care less about Mack, Charlie or Herman the people. What I love are WINNERS. I do not like LOSERS. I never listen to press conferences from coaches, whether it is Mack, Charlie or Tom. I really do not care what they have to say. It is irrelevant as I can see what it happening on the field with my own two eyes. I find it odd that so many people get into press conferences. People also get into recruiting too, and I really do not care about it other than, like you said Mack said, as long as you have a top 15 class you'll probably be alright. I cannot get into it since a good number of the players will be duds, some will never see the field due to off the field stuff, some will transfer and the some of the ones you do not pay attention to will be stars. However, the great thing about college football is that is provides a variety things for a variety fans with different interests to follow from stats (me), the games themselves, the schemes/chess matches, the personalities (press conferences and off the field), recruiting, etc. I think on the whole it is great there are so many different things people can get attached to with college football and follow. Anyway, the point of this rant is, I am not a personality fan.

Mackovic may be the only exception, however he also had terrible losses. He was a big enough prick that I would probably hold him to a higher standard than the average coach.

I admit, I am not harsh on McWilliams or Vance Bedford because they are both great longhorns. I greatly wish they would have done better.

For Mack the individual, I am rather neutral but I LOVED winning. When I was a kid in the 90s, we mostly lost to A&M and dealt with a lot of up and downs. Brown stabilized the program, made it great again and won us our only national title since 1970. He put A&M, Baylor and Tech in their places. He took down almighty Nebraska. From 2000-2009, we had fewer disappointing Saturdays than anyone in the country other than Boise State. He won bowl games meaning we usually spend 9 months coming off of a win instead of being like OU often coming off of blowouts to USC and West Virginia or an embarrassing loss to Boise. I guess I just care about the bowl wins over big teams/coaches leading to a higher ranking and 9 months of enjoying that win more than winning a conference we were not part of until 1996 and may not be part of in the near future. I am also biased because I attended the 70-3 Texas win over Colorado and pretty much never cared about the Big XII title again. I enjoyed the game, but felt it was a waste of time. However, that is my personal bias. In the end, other than 2010, Mack did not lose as bad as everyone makes out. He played for a Big XII title his last year with Case at QB off of pure coaching. I think he got a raw deal, being the second best coach in school history and getting replaced by the worst coach in school history. In my ideal world, we would have kept Mack Brown from 2014-2016, then hired Herman in 2017. Herman would have inherited a better program, we would not have had losing seasons, and I guarantee we would not have lost to Kansas (or the even worse 0-23 to 3-9 Iowa State in 2015). That did not happen so it is what it is.

Then we hired a BIG FAT LOSER named Strong. I was in a wait and see until he hired Shawn Watson (and made Watson one of the highest paid coordinators in the country). Then I knew we were screwed. I actually have no problems with Strong the person. However, he gave us the worst three year stretch in Texas football history. No one had ever seen a stretch that bad and we got to live it! So no, I do not care for him, Powers or Patterson for what they did to UT football.

I do want to see Mack Brown finish on the high note at North Carolina that we wrongly he denied. If Texas had gone out and gotten some great coach, I would not feel this way. However, we ungratefully totally screwed over one of only two coaches to win us a national title TO HIRE THE WORST COACH IN TEXAS HISTORY. That is dog**** and we deserved everything we got with Charlie.

I really do not care for Tom Herman the person, to be quite honest. He kind of seems like a jerk. However, if he wins, he is great to me. If he wins us a national title, I will defend him the same as Mack Brown. Like I said above, I hope his game management/clock management improves, but am hopeful it will because he is young. In his defense, there seems be a poor game management disease spreading across college football. It seems like everyone manages the clock like Les Miles now.

Anyway, we all have our own biases. I remember Vince screwing up against Texas Tech in 2003, against Washington State in 2003 and against Missouri in 2004 and being saved by Chance Mock in the Tech and Missouri games. I also remember that prior to 2005, Vince would often put us in a hole with poor play (interceptions, etc), then be the big hero when he got us out of the hole he created. I do not buy the whole "let Vince be Vince" nonsense, because letting Vince be Vince cost us or almost cost us games in 2003 and 2004. In truth, Vince Young and the team as a whole were coached up and improved every year from 2003 to 2005. That said, I do not hold these nitpicks against Vince and remember him as the great QB he was. Even if he did initially mess up, he did indeed get us out of the hole nearly every time and ultimately won a national title. I remember the good stuff, and do not spend my time being silly and bashing him.

What I do not understand is bashing our winners like Mack Brown. I mean, what does that make every other non-DKR coach we had? S***? Personally, I think Bible, Akers and others were pretty good themselves. The "used car salesmen" lines are things aggy would say to try to undermine us while Mack Brown was regularly kicking their ***. Why are UT fans repeating aggy things?
 
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And it’s not being a winner that’s the problem, it’s becoming a wilting Lilly after the bama loss. And they fired Akers for the first losing season in 30 years. Morons.
 
Michael Green said:
Typical Mack Brown. Great recruiter...horrible game day coach. Without VY he would have never won a championship.

I know you will say “nonsense”...look at all the top recruiting classes he had, and how many Big 12 championships did he get?
He really sucked at the end.
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Since the inception of this great outlet there have been hundreds of ignorant posts.
This rant of genius might take them all.
 
nashhorn said:
Wondered about that myself, over and over again.
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He said he heard a whistle and thought it had been ruled dead. Probably a tech fan, but damn, terrible time for something like that to happen. Still they could have just kicked an easy FG and won.

But that game was way more than Gideon. Ship dropped a TD pass. Colt threw a pic 6. There's a lot of blame to go around in that game. Also Rak was hurt on that last series. Gotta think he gets to Graham once when we needed it. Also the one thing you can control is the clock. And we were snapping the ball with 15 seconds when we could have scored with under 30 seconds. I've always put the blame on Mack and Davis for that game. Players make mistakes. The clock you control. One of the few things as a coach you really control. We blew it. Still pisses me off to this day as the 08 team was much better than the 09 team. Losing Quan on the other side was huge.
 
Hmmm, had not heard yet whistle claim. That sucks. And true the other things you said. Was a game remembered with misery.
 
I want Texas to win a national title every year as much as the next guy, and I hate to tell you this, but coaches who pull off what Saban has pulled off this decade are few and far between. That's highly irregular.
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Worth noting that Saban still only has one undefeated team ever. Same as Mack, but Mack didn't need Matt Leinart injured to do it.

In my ideal world, we would have kept Mack Brown from 2014-2016, then hired Herman in 2017. Herman would have inherited a better program, we would not have had losing seasons
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Not so sure. I had predicted we were going to take a step back in 2014 even had Mack stayed. We were mediocre all year outside of a bizarre A+ performance against Oklahoma, the whole "played for a big 12 title" deal was a scheduling artifact plus a consquence of the awful call that went in our favor that let us beat Iowa State. We didn't even put a competitive team on the field against the best competition on our schedule and ended the year as badly as we started it even though we started it with Diaz.

Case was never supposed to play, but at least he beat Aggy when it mattered.
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Case has eternal scoreboard on Texas A&M and Oklahoma. So does Mack, unless possibly he ends up playing them while at North Carolina.
 
Htown77 said:
I think he got a raw deal
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Htown, I have to take issue with this statement and I am hoping that others with more detail will chime in.

> At the beginning of the 2013 season MB agreed that he would retire if he didn’t win the conference. Because of a close loss to Baylor late that year he chose to renege on the promise. I hear that some folks were so annoyed with him that they walked out of the banquet when it became obvious that he would refuse to retire.

> Reliable sources claim that Texas had a deal in principle with Saban to come to Texas. (I was not in favor of his becoming our next HC, by the way.) When MB reneged on his commitment, the Saban deal collapsed.

> After he was relieved of his duties, some believe (apparently backed with specific examples) that Brown was, in essence, encouraging incoming recruits to rethink their commitment.

> His decision after the 2009 season to scrap the zone read in favor of an Alabama style power running game — when most were copying Texas and going to the zone read, was a fatal mistake that started a decade of mediocrity.

I love what MB did for the program in general but to contend that he got a raw deal seems to belie the facts.
 
Duke, nice post! HTown, agreeing to disagree on some things, but Mack did a lot for Texas. We all want our cake and eat it too, so we wanted him when he got us back on top and then we wanted him to bow out gracefully when he started to falter...… Mack indeed took us to the promised land, it just would've been cool if he could've seen what was happening to Texas.... I think he thought he deserved the Joe Paterno treatment, regardless of record, Mack is Texas and he'll coach until he's 85, etc....
 
> At the beginning of the 2013 season MB agreed that he would retire if he didn’t win the conference. Because of a close loss to Baylor late that year he chose to renege on the promise. I hear that some folks were so annoyed with him that they walked out of the banquet when it became obvious that he would refuse to retire.
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I do not know if this is true or not. I have never heard this before. I find it hard to believe. I deal with facts and not rumors.

> Reliable sources claim that Texas had a deal in principle with Saban to come to Texas. (I was not in favor of his becoming our next HC, by the way.) When MB reneged on his commitment, the Saban deal collapsed.
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I have never seen any reliable evidence Saban was coming here. I 100% do not believe he would leave Alabama. I find it silly people get mad over something they hope might have happened but was never going to happen. Also, sorry, but if Saban REALLY wanted to come here, he could have still come here after Mack was fired.

Also, if you think Bill Powers was going to hire anyone but Charlie Strong, I have some ocean front property to sell you in Arizona.

> After he was relieved of his duties, some believe (apparently backed with specific examples) that Brown was, in essence, encouraging incoming recruits to rethink their commitment.
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Actually, this rumor came from the fact he told incoming recruits he would help them out if they wanted to go elsewhere... which is perfectly fine and the right thing to do. I have noticed that a lot of fans at a lot of schools do not seem to comprehend that most recruits commit to a head or assistant coach and not to a school. Yes, some Sam Ehlingers exist and will go to a school no matter what. However, most players commit to a coach. It is why a lot of recruits bail during coaching changes. It was 100% the right thing for Mack to offer any recruits help if they no longer wanted to come to Texas because the head or assistant coach they committed to would no longer be there.

> His decision after the 2009 season to scrap the zone read in favor of an Alabama style power running game — when most were copying Texas and going to the zone read, was a fatal mistake that started a decade of mediocrity.
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That, the head-coach-in-waiting designation of Muschamp turning him into a cancer (we were better off with Muschamp going elsewhere after 09), recruiting misses and Manny Diaz were all mistakes that were 100% him. Most coaches make mistakes. DKR had a bad 3 year run. I felt Mack deserved more time to fix it with our Big 12 record improving every year. It certainly would have been better than just firing him with no one lined up and hiring Charlie.

However, for the rest of your post, you were not there and you are forming opinions based on rumors that may or may not be true. I think that is really silly. As for the last one, what Mack did was not even wrong and it was spun that way.

My honest opinion is that Bill Powers really wanted Mack Brown fired to make a legacy hire. The media was invested in Charlie Strong succeeding for the same reasons and a smear campaign against Mack to try to build up Charlie like none other was made. I hope everyone can see the nonsense about the program being in shambles, needing to clean house and needing a culture change when Charlie took over was, indeed, utter nonsense. If you do not believe me, check out the South Florida thread. Apparently Charlie also claimed South Florida, coming off a 10 win season, needed a culture change and to clean house when he took over there too. Anyway, sorry Duke, but you bought the smear campaign of unproven and likely untrue rumors. I mean the source for a lot of this is Chip Brown for crying out loud.
 
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We were mediocre all year outside of a bizarre A+ performance against Oklahoma, the whole "played for a big 12 title" deal was a scheduling artifact plus a consquence of the awful call that went in our favor that let us beat Iowa State. We didn't even put a competitive team on the field against the best competition on our schedule and ended the year as badly as we started it even though we started it with Diaz.
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@Statalyzer The 2012 offense was actually starting to get pretty good with Ash. The defense was derailed with Diaz, but Ash getting hurt derailed the offense. The difference in the OU game and the Okie State and Baylor games was Case McCoy. He was never supposed to be a starter and when he had a bad game, the offense was toast. I went to the Alamo Bowl and do not even take it into consideration because it has to be the only game I ever saw Mack Brown have no game plan and clearly not give a poop. For that game, we should have let Applewhite or Robinson coach, although we probably lose regardless. Anyway, my point is, you cannot discount the Ash injury or switching defensive coordinators that season. I think that team wins 10-11 games if Robinson takes over at the end of 2012 and Ash does not get hurt.

2014 actually would have returned a lot of players. Again, to the detriment of Strong as well, Ash got hurt. Also, you have to remember that Strong kicked off a lot of players for no actual reason. I will never know how good Swoopes was given he was put in a pro style offense by a terrible coach named Shawn Watson (who has a long history of not developing QBs with Bridgewater as an extreme exception). I actually think Swoopes would have been considered a good QB under Herman's system. I will also note, there was talent on the 2014 team as we played UCLA and OU close and beat WVU despite the terrible, terrible coaching.

I freely admit this is all speculation and unprovable opinion.
 
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Htown77 said:
Anyway, sorry Duke, but you bought the smear campaign of unproven and likely untrue rumors. I mean the source for a lot of this is Chip Brown for crying out loud.
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This has nothing to do with Chip Brown. Your accusation of a smear campaign is disappointing, as is your fierce and almost blind defense of MB. I know people who have first hand knowledge of the banquet observation, and there are more than a few well connected individuals with knowledge of the Saban negotiations.

Through the years I have agreed with most of your posts and observations...

Obviously there is nothing I can write to affect your vehement defense of MB, so let’s just agree to disagree and move on.
 
This has nothing to do with Chip Brown. Your accusation of a smear campaign is disappointing, as is your fierce and almost blind defense of MB. I know people who have first hand knowledge of the banquet observation, and there are more than a few well connected individuals with knowledge of the Saban negotiations.

Through the years I have agreed with most of your posts and observations...

Obviously there is nothing I can write to affect your vehement defense of MB, so let’s just agree to disagree and move on.
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Duke, let's say Mack did make that promise. I will say it is unreasonable to make such a promise since no head coach can promise to win a football game. It is cool when Joe Namath guarantees a super bowl win or Case guarantees a win over OU, but in truth, no player or coach can make such a promise. They cannot control injuries, the entire team showing up that day, freak plays, the other team having their best game of their careers, the refs, the weather, etc. In Mack's case, even if he had fixed the defense earlier when he should have, Ash getting hurt probably would have derailed a title anyway. I will also note, it was not unreasonable for him to think their were mitigating circumstances. However, it is absolutely unreasonable to hold a coach to any guaranteed win. As said above, it is a promise no one can truly make (and they should not make it), therefore it is not reasonable to hold anyone to it. This also seems like something Powers would set up to get rid of Mack anyway. The other problem is, I know the lying, scheming, corrupt people that run our university far too well.

Also, that A&M player guaranteed a win over Clemson. Should he have been fired from A&M? No (and if anything, he sounds like a perfect aggy!)

Unfortunately, I have some first hand sources who were extremely close to Powers, Patterson and Fenves (I am not a fan of the entire group of scumbags). Powers was always going to make a legacy hire. I am not doubting what your sources have told you. I know Sabrehorn has claimed there was negotiations with Saban as well. What I am simply saying is, even if Saban negotiations were happening, Saban was just using them for leverage with Alabama and Powers was going to make a legacy hire anyway. Unless you are Nick Saban, you cannot say you know with 100% certainty he really intended to come here. Now allegedly, Powers told Mack he was coming back, then sent Patterson to fire him. I can see that schemer letting some alumni, etc negotiate with Saban while intending to make a legacy hire the entire time. If Saban was really coming here (and I doubt it), the one that screwed it up was Powers, not Brown.

I am not questioning you or your sources, I am just asking you to critically think about the above. I'll also note with Powers, see Shaka Smart.

One side note, Mack Brown did switch back to the spread in 2013 but Ash got hurt. Applewhite would have been fine at OC. As U of H, as OC and HC, offense was never the issue. I cannot really complain about Beck at the moment, but I wish we Herman could get Appelwhite back over Beck.
 
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Michael Green said:
Since you are obviously so much more intelligent than me...Tell me Einstein, what was posted that wasn’t true?
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He didn’t recruit this North Carolina team that has been atrocious the last few years.
So he loses to the #1 team by 1 going for 2 and that justifies you saying he’s a horrible game day coach. He’s just a good recruiter.
I admit my post was harsh, and agree with many of the above replies.
 
He also lost to Appalachian State, the power house that once hosed Meatchicken…..and what does THAT get him? Greatest coach in history?
 
He also lost to Appalachian State, the power house that once hosed Meatchicken…..and what does THAT get him? Greatest coach in history?
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He has beaten 2-2 Miami and 2-3 South Carolina and lost to 5-0 Clemson, 5-0 Wake Forest and 4-0 Appalachian State. So the combined record of the teams he has lost to is 14-0 and teams he has beaten are 4-5.

Tom Herman lost to a 4-8 Maryland team and a 6-7 Texas Tech team his first year and a 5-7 Maryland team his second year. Yes, when a coach takes over mess, there will be growing pains, whether it is Mack Brown taking over a team that lost 9 games the previous two years or Herman taking over the Strong disaster.

Appalachian State took Penn State to overtime last year and has won 9-11 games the previous four seasons. The Mountaineers have been punching way above their weight for quite some time and are probably better than a lot of ACC teams at the moment (which I admit is more of a black mark against the current state of the ACC). UNC should have probably beaten them, but it is not really a terrible loss either or one to hang your hat on, especially with UNC having suffered a lot of injuries to a roster that was not much to begin with. It will be interesting to see what happens with Appalachian State takes on South Carolina later this year. The important thing for UNC is to take care of business the next few weeks against not so great Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech teams which are probably both worse than Appalachian State.
 
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