Reasons for optimism next year

Sabre, I get that he was not a happy camper on the way out the door and sure we all wish things had ended differently. But Texas wandered in the desert for 35 years and he took us to the promised land. We were 4-7 my freshman year, of my 7 years in school as undergrad and law school we had three winning seasons and went to just two bowl games, hell one of my college years we should have lost to North Texas, aggy beat us 10 out of 11 years and Texas football was a running joke. I know what bad football looks like I saw it during my undergrad and law school years. Even with Mackovick starting the process of turning things around Texas was still a mess and Mack fixed it and got us that national championship.

I choose to remember all the good and for getting us that NC I will always be a Mack Brown fan and frankly saying he was selling snake oil is just false. He isn’t and wasn’t Saban but then again no one is. That doesn’t lessen what he brought us and where he stands in the pantheon of Texas legends.
 
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SabreHorn said:
FW,

Are you pleased with what he did to us in the final couple of weeks?
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While I will admit that I wasn’t in his camp, had we hired Saban we all know what almost certainly would have followed. I believe it to be common knowledge now that we didn’t (hire Saban) because of the fit Mack pitched when he became aware of what was about to go down. Additionally, there was evidence to suggest that he sabotaged some our recruiting efforts on his way out the door.

No doubt SabreHorn knows volumes more about this than I do.
 
FW,

I will give MB his due, which includes accomplishing the impossible, seemingly unifying the most fractionalized group in the history of college athletics. He did unify us, but I also remember multiple meetings, some in Bellmont about his underachieving. As one man with far more money than I will ever have said looking me straight in the eye, "We've given the son of a ***** everything he's asked for, and he has not delivered". That thought was pervasive in many of the "old timers".

He did bring in Dick Tomey as an advisor, which was his best coaching move, but that wasn't totally voluntary.

Did he win a National Championship? He got credit for it, but how many did he piss away? Without the smarts of Brian Robison & Selvyn Young going against the coaching staff, would we have beaten USC? I see no way anyone can argue "yes".

Great run of 10 win seasons, but how many conferences and/or national championships?

Am I pissed at his last action? HELL YES! He did some good things, a couple of great things, but what we have now can be laid directly at his feet.

He will go down as one of the greats in Texas coaching, which the surface certainly supports. I wish him well at UNC, a much tougher job than Austin.
 
Just glanced over what you wrote in page 1. I won’t comment on the Tom’s statement. Tom is an attorney, former Regent, and I believe his brother is still a regent.

After what Bill Powers did, I am sure there was a point in time when Saban’s lawyer was not anxious to communicate with anyone from The University of Texas, although Nick and Terry certainly bare no ill will toward many people associated with the school.
 
zuckercanyon said:
#2: This is Austin, man, don't we recycle? Oh, yeah, closed due to covid....
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Ha. You'd think that Austin recycles, but we actually send it off to to other cities - kinda like our recruits, but I digress...

I don't even pretend to know what next year holds for this team. There are some bright spots and some areas to improve. That's not unlike any other year. This year 'should' have been much better than it was. So far, Herman has done better than the last guy, but...when are we going to play for a Big XII title again? If TCU, Baylor, and Iowa State can manage it...well?
 
One last point on Mack, I think many of us who instinctively want to defend Mack and his tenure are folks who attended UT in the late 80’s and early 90’s when Texas football was just awful most of the time. I was six years old when DKR retired and for my classmates and me the Texas of the 1960’s and early 70’s was just something we heard about and all we got to see while we were on campus, 1990 aside, was failure and heartache and even 1990 kicked us in the gut at the end. We were the generation of the fractured end of the Akers era, the McWilliams years and the Mackovick period where a few big wins were offset by losses to Rice or TCU coupled with big name bowl losses. Then Mack came along and he got us the championship that we so desperately wanted. Our perspective of the Mack era comes from having lived through those down years and so we tend to be so much more grateful for what he did than much older fans and much younger fans who didn’t have our college experience with awful football.
 
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FWHORN said:
Bijan and Roschon will make for a stud backfield;
Troy Omeire will be back and with Joshua Moore, Jake Smith, Jordan Whittington et al there are some pretty stout weapons to throw to;....
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Go back to zone read, now with the added RPO variation, with Card running the zone. Simplify the blocking scheme (zone?), give them something they can handle
 
FWHORN said:
One last point on Mack, I think many of us who instinctively want to defend Mack and his tenure are folks who attended UT in the late 80’s and early 90’s when Texas football was just awful most of the time. I was six years old when DKR retired and for my classmates and me the Texas of the 1960”s and early 70’s was just something we heard about and all we got to see while we were on campus, 1990 aside, was failure and heartache and even 1990 kicked us in the gut at the end. We were the generation of the fractured end of the Akers era, the McWilliams years and the Mackovick period where a few big wins were offset by losses to Rice or TCU coupled with big name bowl losses. Then Mack came along and he got us the championship that we so desperately wanted. Our perspective of the Mack era comes from having lived through those down years and so we tend to be so much more grateful for what he did than much older fans and much younger fans who didn’t have our college experience with awful football.
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I had the same college experience as you but couldn’t stomach watching the teams avoid risk in the first half and have to play catch up in the second half. I also hated Simms playing over Applewhite. The CU CCG was the whole s****erie in microcosm.

Also hated that Mack didn’t know how to actually coach technique just blind adherence to strategy.
 
Joe Fan said:
Go back to zone read, now with the added RPO variation, with Card running the zone. Simplify the blocking scheme (zone?), give them something they can handle
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We will need Tyler Johnson and Karic to show up and Jones to improve, but it is possible, even likely, Card can run some packages Sam could not
 
SabreHorn said:
To be a good tackler takes discipline, form, desire, and commitment, NOT commitment that I wants to be on ESPN highlight reel for blowing someone up, That is a result of lack of coaching and lack of respect for the coaches.

That falls at the feet of the head coach, who is not, has not, and will not ever do his job because he is too smart and too important to teach.
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Mack Brown Addresses Tackling as an Issue in America
 
I appreciate those of you who love Mack for bringing Texas out of the dark ages of the Macs. The issue I have is the blindness about how he also took us back into the dark ages. And as Sabre has alluded to, he took a torch to the building on his way out.
As you accurately pointed out, DKR had his down seasons too. But he brought us back out of it. And when he had had enough, he left. He didn't sit on his lazy *** collecting $5 million per year blaming his assistants for the demise. It's called pride and integrity. DKR had it. Mack? Your opinion is yours and mine is mine.
 
Dont worry, guys....
Its NSD...we just signed a bunch of 3* guys today and I saw Tom giving everyone the bird.
 
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nashhorn said:
Exactly, and where we are today I cannot blame on Mack. We’ve had 8 years to get things back, instead we have this mess.
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I think maybe the issue is that some folks are appearing to revise history with the feeling that Mack should not have been run off.

In my opinion, Mack was resting on his laurels and wanted to be beloved like DKR. He forgot the amount of money he was being paid. He BS'd his way thru press conferences and was a parade marshall during a knife fight.
 
Here's one....

If Tom stays....
He relishes the underdog role. In fact, I'd say he strikes me as somebody who is a natural rebel, loves to prove people wrong, likes to fly in the face of perception and doubt and be proved right (because he is always right).
Well...you cannot be a bigger underdog than he will be if he stays. He and this team will certainly be going into next season with very different perceptions and expectations than in recent years past. If UT could somehow go from a program that as a given "should" be up with the elites to one fighting and clawing to be a program that could be up there....then maybe...just maybe that underdog role will be better suited for TH and his type of teams.

To validate this underdog status, here is a list of things with current better odds than TH being successful if he stays:

A Herman apology and attrition
"The Eyes of Texas are Upon You" being added in large lettering as part of South end zone project
Ewers backing out of OhioSt. commitment and signing with UT
Meyer changing mind & coming to Austin
Jerry Jones admitting mistake & announcing Jimmy Johnson head coach
Cowboys in playoffs
Northwestern beating Ohio State
Dion being named next head coach
Hornfans apology & vote of confidence for TH
Coastal Carolina getting into playoffs
Alabama announcing they cannot play the NC due to covid testing results
Longhorns named replacement for CFP Championship after the announcement
Biden/Trump press conference to establish partnership to cooperatively run country
A white Christmas in Guatemala
Seeing Rudolph land on your roof pulling a fat man with presents
A talking snowman
Donkeys flying
Sasquatch capture
Hell freezing over
 
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It doesn’t really matter who suits up if they spend half the year farting around,

seems to be our m.o.

first half of season offense plays well
So the defense farts around and loses us a game or two.

then the D pull their head out of the *** and the offense decides it’s cool to fart around the rest of the season and cost us a game or two.

It’s up to Yuricih and Ash to change that but I don’t know if they can do it in spite of Tom Herman.

if they do manage to do it, one of them should be handed TH’s job but that won’t be the case.
 
I am optimistic of more time hunting, fishing, and golf. I only watched a few games this year and as die hard of a fan as I am, I found it humorous when we lost. I felt bad for Sam and a few others who actually care and worked their a$$ off. The rest of the team who didn’t participate in the Eyes and now the quitters don’t deserve my attention or our University in my opinion.
 
nashhorn said:
where we are today I cannot blame on Mack
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You may not be able to, but I assure you that where we are today is at the feet of Mack Brown and monogrammed by Billie Powers. Without Mack's stunt, Texas would have three more national championships.
 
SabreHorn said:
You may not be able to, but I assure you that where we are today is at the feet of Mack Brown and monogrammed by Billie Powers. Without Mack's stunt, Texas would have three more national championships.
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That's a big stretch. I can see lingering effects for a couple of years based on how Mack went out the door, but we are coming up on 8 years down the line and going back to then and saying if something different had happened we would have three NC's, well that's just rank speculation.

I have already posted why I will always be a Mack fan but I was also on board with it being time for Mack to move on in 2013, he clearly was worn out and wasn't the Mack of the mid 2000's. I am not arguing he shouldn't have been let go in 2013 but holding him responsible for the Strong error and now the Herman mess is just a bridge too far.
 
Joe Fan said:
OL Jaylen Garth cleared to practice (knee), and has practiced the last two days.
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This is good.

As underwhelming as this year's OL recruiting class looks (thus far at least...), last year's OL class was at least an A-. Garth may be the most well-rounded of the bunch, with Karic as the quick-footed athletic LT (a replacement for NFL-bound Cosmi), and Majors and Parr as the interior maulers. Majors is a current starter. Karic may be our starting LT for the bowl with Cosmi gone. If Garth has recovered from his injury, this bodes well for our future OL.
 
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