Texas and Texas A&M: Rich and Talented Jokes

Htown77

Htown77

5,000+ Posts
Records since 2021:
UTSA 20-4
Baylor 18-6
Houston 18-6
TCU 15-7
SMU 14-8
Texas Tech 12-11
North Texas 12-12
Texas 11-11
Texas A&M 11-11
UTEP 11-12
Rice 9-13
Texas State 7-15

Despite being the most talented programs in the state, UT and A&M have put together as many wins as UTEP since the start of the 2021 season. Tech, TCU and SMU have changed coaches since 2021 and all won more games.

I hope UT is smart enough to either make Gary Patterson the HC or, even better, hire Jeff Traylor when the time comes. Jeff Traylor reminds me of Mack Brown. He wins. #meepmeep

The only positive is we should win 2 or 3 more games this year and A&M should go 1-1, so we should at least pass them.
 
Records since 2020:
UTSA 27-9
TCU 21-11
Houston 21-11
SMU 21-11
Texas A&M 20-12
Baylor 20-13
Texas 18-14
Texas Tech 16-17
North Texas 16-18
UTEP 14-17
Rice 11-16
Texas State 9-25

Traylor looks even better when you go back to 2020.
 
Great. Texas should hire another unproven low level program coach. One who has a nice record with 2 bowl losses.
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I know it looks that way from the outside looking in. I have an undergrad and grad degree from the real UT in Austin. I attended nearly every Texas home game, most of the OU games and many away/bowl games/conference championships from 1994-2019. Given I live in San Antonio, I have attended about 1 UTSA game a year from 2011-2019. In 2020, due to the pandemic, I started attending UTSA games when Traylor was hired. In 2021, I switched to being a UTSA season ticket holder and have attended every home game since while going to 2-3 UT games a year. Admittedly most of the reasons (ticket price, I-35, the destruction of the UT tailgating scene, how UT treats its ticket holders nows, how much cheaper it is to buy tickets on stubhub for UT games than season tickets with foundation dues, a domed stadium in SA is nicer then freezing against TCU, the commercial breaks for P5 games are now absurd, etc) do not have to do with the product on the field, but the better product Traylor has put out since 2020 helped sway me.

Traylor is not some unproven low level program coach. I cannot emphasize enough how much he is the real deal. Straight up, he is 20-1 as a favorite and 7-8 as an underdog. He has also greatly improved recruiting despite having a terrible NIL budget to work with. The team is well coached, tackles, catches the ball, manages time well, etc. He took over a pretty :e-poo: team and coached it up. This year the team suffered staff turnover and numerous key injuries. At one point a converted defensive linemen was starting on the online. Unlike even Mack Brown in 2010 and Jimbo in 2022 who had losing seasons following injuries, UTSA is 8-2 and on the verge of overcoming for another conference title.

I will add on the bowl games, he did not remotely get favorable matchups. In 2020, 9-1 Louisiana was 14 point favorites and finished #15 in the AP Poll. Traylor had covid and was unable to coach the game. 7-5 UTSA still only lost by 7. In 2021, I do think a full strength UTSA beats SDSU. Unfortunately a lot of starters for UTSA sat out the game against 12-2 SDSU that finished #25 in the AP Poll. Traylor did a heck of a job keeping UTSA in the game, but did not have the depth to beat a top 25 team with a lot of backups. I will note those starters were not recruited by Traylor and unsurprisingly did not get drafted. That sort of modern player silliness plagued a lot of teams the past few years.

This year UTSA gave UT a hell of a game until the combined injuries in the first game against U of H and in the first half against UT took their toll in the second half.

I FEAR Texas missing out on Traylor. My worst nightmare is Texas does not hire him, hires another Strong, Herman or Sark, and Traylor goes and builds a dynasty at Baylor, Arkansas or A&M. A&M fans probably also wrongly think they are too good for him, so we may dodge that bullet.

Anyway, you heard it here first.
 
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He may be great at where is he at, and he may be great if Texas somehow hired him. That is not the history as of late is all I am saying.

And, if he is great, Texas won't hire him. That is the history as of late as well.
 
And, if he is great, Texas won't hire him. That is the history as of late as well.
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I laughed. Honestly, i fear that with Texas Football. As far as someone proven, I did not think Brian Kelly would leave Notre Dame. LSU proved he was obtainable and we did not even try. DKR hired Mack Brown. I do not see any DKR's helping us hire, and I am pretty pessimistic. As much as I am for hiring Traylor, I would be perfectly fine with making Gary Patterson the HC. It is a very simple and easy move. I do not think our leadership is smart enough to do that, but it would be wonderful if Del Conte would prove me wrong.

Hell, let's face it: Texas beat his team this year. What does that say?
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2021 5-7 Texas Football beat 13-1 Louisiana Football (who finished #16 in the AP Poll) 38-18. It tells me the talent gap between the P5 and G5 matters and you have to be pretty incompetent or have a really bad day to lose to a G5 team that is not in the American Athletic Conference (which makes Jimbo losing to a 5-5 App State team that Texas State beat even funnier). Sark does not appear to be a winner, but he is apparently competent enough to beat good Louisiana and UTSA squads.
 
guy4321 said:
I'd like to see Traylor have success at a P5 school before I anoint him the savior.
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The problem is that school has a good shot of being Baylor or Arkansas. I guess the good news is we could probably steal him away from those.
 
Htown77 said:
The problem is that school has a good shot of being Baylor or Arkansas. I guess the good news is we could probably steal him away from those.
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Agree with could grab from Baylor. Arkansas probably too but slightly less. Brown had success at UNC then here. Strong and Herman did not have the P5 success before we grabbed them. I don't count the Big East as a P5 equivalent.
 
Strong and Herman not succeeding was not because they did not have P5 experience. Sark has as much P5 experience as it gets have been the HC at USC and Washington and OC at Bama.

Urban Meyer went from Utah (not at all a P5 program at the time) to Florida. Jim Tressel went from Youngstown State (not even an FBS program) to Ohio State. Bob Stoops had no head coaching experience when OU hired him.

In an extreme example, Cliff Gustafson went from South San Antonio High School to UT baseball head coach and did pretty well.

Jimbo Fisher won a natty at FSU and how is that working for the Aggies this year?

Every coach has to evaluated individually. There is no hard and fast rule.
 
I will say no coach is the perfect candidate and Jeff Traylor is certainly not. I do not think he is on par with Mack Brown in dealing with the media/LHN/the boosters. I would worry about him in that area. I will say having coached at UT before, he is at least familiar with the situation. For me, he checks the following boxes:
1. Recruiting and ties to Texas;
2. Coaching/player development;
3. Hiring staff;
4. Game management/play calling;
5. Great reputation/scandal free; and
6. Winner.

He probably does not check the glad-handing media/boosters box and it is unknown how he would handle the LHN commitments.

I think Gary Patterson generally checks most of the boxes as well.

Hindsight is 20/20, but we will play the hindsight game.

As far as our previous hires:
1. Charlie Strong:
a. Had no recruiting ties. In fact, there were big red flags in this area;
b. His coaching/player development seemed to be fine at the time;
c. His staff hiring at Louisville was not great (shawn watson) and this was a red flag;
d. Great reputation/scandal free;
e. He did check the winning box at the time; and
f. I think it was known he would not be great at glad-handing when he was hired.
Recruiting, bad staff hiring and inability to glad hand were probably enough indicators he would not work out.

2. Tom Herman:
Herman checked every box EXCEPT great reputation/scandal free and glad-handing. In fact, if you asked those around Texas State, Rice, Iowa State, Ohio State, and Houston when he was there, he made A LOT of enemies. He made an abnormal amount of enemies. As far as football coaching itself, I think he was a good coach, not a great coach. I do not think he was a bad coach. However, I cannot help but think his entire career has been derailed by him being an ***hole. He is an ***hole to the fans/boosters/those around him to an unnecessary and idiotic extent. Texas was the last straw for an already pretty terrible reputation. Yes, he checked the other boxes, but it is not normal for coach to be hated at every previous stop and have that bad of a reputation. That should have been a big enough red flag.


3. Steve Sarkisian:
This one is really easy. He did not check the winner box. There are other issues, but I think everyone has been well aware of this since he was hired. I think most (including myself) hold out hope he will improve and turn it around. That said, I have not seen any indication he is a winner/great coach. The biggest issue is he is often clearly out-coached in game, and this was also the case at Washington and USC.
 
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Yeah, I wasn't impressed with Traylor's sideline demeanor in the game earlier this season. Not that it matters much if you are a winner.
 
Give me a proven winner “at a lower level program,” like Klieman at Northern Iowa or Leipold at Buffalo, now Kansas. Or Traylor. There really is a next Nick Saban out there.

I don’t buy into the “it’s too big a program for someone like that” argument. And I don’t want a jerk like Harbaugh, or Riley, and I’m really not interested in a Meyer or one of those types.

Seinfeld was onto something:

“If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”

I’m tired of the University paying big bucks and getting nothing but under performance and grief and return.

If (when?) we choose to move on from Sarkisian, it’s time to finally take a different approach.
 
Htown77 said:
I know it looks that way from the outside looking in. I have an undergrad and grad degree from the real UT in Austin. I attended nearly every Texas home game, most of the OU games and many away/bowl games/conference championships from 1994-2019. Given I live in San Antonio, I have attended about 1 UTSA game a year from 2011-2019. In 2020, due to the pandemic, I started attending UTSA games when Traylor was hired. In 2021, I switched to being a UTSA season ticket holder and have attended every home game since while going to 2-3 UT games a year. Admittedly most of the reasons (ticket price, I-35, the destruction of the UT tailgating scene, how UT treats its ticket holders nows, how much cheaper it is to buy tickets on stubhub for UT games than season tickets with foundation dues, a domed stadium in SA is nicer then freezing against TCU, the commercial breaks for P5 games are now absurd, etc) do not have to do with the product on the field, but the better product Traylor has put out since 2020 helped sway me.

Traylor is not some unproven low level program coach. I cannot emphasize enough how much he is the real deal. Straight up, he is 20-1 as a favorite and 7-8 as an underdog. He has also greatly improved recruiting despite having a terrible NIL budget to work with. The team is well coached, tackles, catches the ball, manages time well, etc. He took over a pretty :e-poo: team and coached it up. This year the team suffered staff turnover and numerous key injuries. At one point a converted defensive linemen was starting on the online. Unlike even Mack Brown in 2010 and Jimbo in 2022 who had losing seasons following injuries, UTSA is 8-2 and on the verge of overcoming for another conference title.

I will add on the bowl games, he did not remotely get favorable matchups. In 2020, 9-1 Louisiana was 14 point favorites and finished #15 in the AP Poll. Traylor had covid and was unable to coach the game. 7-5 UTSA still only lost by 7. In 2021, I do think a full strength UTSA beats SDSU. Unfortunately a lot of starters for UTSA sat out the game against 12-2 SDSU that finished #25 in the AP Poll. Traylor did a heck of a job keeping UTSA in the game, but did not have the depth to beat a top 25 team with a lot of backups. I will note those starters were not recruited by Traylor and unsurprisingly did not get drafted. That sort of modern player silliness plagued a lot of teams the past few years.

This year UTSA gave UT a hell of a game until the combined injuries in the first game against U of H and in the first half against UT took their toll in the second half.

I FEAR Texas missing out on Traylor. My worst nightmare is Texas does not hire him, hires another Strong, Herman or Sark, and Traylor goes and builds a dynasty at Baylor, Arkansas or A&M. A&M fans probably also wrongly think they are too good for him, so we may dodge that bullet.

Anyway, you heard it here first.
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I have 2 son's who are UTSA Grads. I also live in SA (about 7 min. from UTSA). Bought season tix season 1. Have closely followed the Runners since. They are a good, well coached team. Tceh came gunning to steal Traylor last year. They offered him way more than double what UTSA offered. Traylor turned them down. He is INCREDIBLY loyal to his kids & the team he's built here. If a&m or UT were to offer he might/probably would accept. Not sure anybody else could lure him away. But, you never can tell. For as long as Traylor is here, the Roadrunners are my 2nd favorite team. Love em. Hook 'Em & Meep Meep.
 
Htown77 said:
I will say no coach is the perfect candidate and Jeff Traylor is certainly not. I do not think he is on par with Mack Brown in dealing with the media/LHN/the boosters. I would worry about him in that area. I will say having coached at UT before, he is at least familiar with the situation. For me, he checks the following boxes:
1. Recruiting and ties to Texas;
2. Coaching/player development;
3. Hiring staff;
4. Game management/play calling;
5. Great reputation/scandal free; and
6. Winner.

He probably does not check the glad-handing media/boosters box and it is unknown how he would handle the LHN commitments.

I think Gary Patterson generally checks most of the boxes as well.

Hindsight is 20/20, but we will play the hindsight game.

As far as our previous hires:
1. Charlie Strong:
a. Had no recruiting ties. In fact, there were big red flags in this area;
b. His coaching/player development seemed to be fine at the time;
c. His staff hiring at Louisville was not great (shawn watson) and this was a red flag;
d. Great reputation/scandal free;
e. He did check the winning box at the time; and
f. I think it was known he would not be great at glad-handing when he was hired.
Recruiting, bad staff hiring and inability to glad hand were probably enough indicators he would not work out.

2. Tom Herman:
Herman checked every box EXCEPT great reputation/scandal free and glad-handing. In fact, if you asked those around Texas State, Rice, Iowa State, Ohio State, and Houston when he was there, he made A LOT of enemies. He made an abnormal amount of enemies. As far as football coaching itself, I think he was a good coach, not a great coach. I do not think he was a bad coach. However, I cannot help but think his entire career has been derailed by him being an ***hole. He is an ***hole to the fans/boosters/those around him to an unnecessary and idiotic extent. Texas was the last straw for an already pretty terrible reputation. Yes, he checked the other boxes, but it is not normal for coach to be hated at every previous stop and have that bad of a reputation. That should have been a big enough red flag.


3. Steve Sarkisian:
This one is really easy. He did not check the winner box. There are other issues, but I think everyone has been well aware of this since he was hired. I think most (including myself) hold out hope he will improve and turn it around. That said, I have not seen any indication he is a winner/great coach. The biggest issue is he is often clearly out-coached in game, and this was also the case at Washington and USC.
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Go back and apply your analysis to Gary Barnett and Mac Brown, back when. I think all metrics are great but in my mind Barnett won and arguably Mac Brown was not near yhe hire we needed w these metrics. maybe it is perception of the metrics. don't know, but other than Mack's ability to squeeze money outa turnips, something he came into at Texas not before, Mack would not be the guy before Texas. Multiple 10 win seasons later he was not enough.
 
1sahorn said:
I have 2 son's who are UTSA Grads. I also live in SA (about 7 min. from UTSA). Bought season tix season 1. Have closely followed the Runners since. They are a good, well coached team. Tceh came gunning to steal Traylor last year. They offered him way more than double what UTSA offered. Traylor turned them down. He is INCREDIBLY loyal to his kids & the team he's built here. If a&m or UT were to offer he might/probably would accept. Not sure anybody else could lure him away. But, you never can tell. For as long as Traylor is here, the Roadrunners are my 2nd favorite team. Love em. Hook 'Em & Meep Meep.
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Im glad another SA area Longhorn discovered the best deal in college football the past three seasons! #MeepMeep
 
Htown77 said:
Im glad another SA area Longhorn discovered the best deal in college football the past three seasons! #MeepMeep
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Kinda crazy but sounds like Patterson. wont leave. just saying.

And agie wont offer. they are out of cash and other than a 2.5 million dollar Huckle Bearrer, there is no opening.
 
LonghornDave said:
Go back and apply your analysis to Gary Barnett and Mac Brown, back when. I think all metrics are great but in my mind Barnett won and arguably Mac Brown was not near yhe hire we needed w these metrics. maybe it is perception of the metrics. don't know, but other than Mack's ability to squeeze money outa turnips, something he came into at Texas not before, Mack would not be the guy before Texas. Multiple 10 win seasons later he was not enough.
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Mack Brown
1992 9-3 - won bowl - #18/#19
1993 10-3 - lost bowl - #21/#19
1994 8-4 - lost bowl - #21/NR
1995 7-5 - won bowl - NR/NR
1996 10-2 - won bowl - #10/#10
1997 10-1 - (team won bowl) - #6/#4

Gary Barnett
1992 3-8
1993 2-9
1994 3-7-1
1995 10-2 - lost bowl - #7/#8
1996 9-3 - lost bowl - #16/#15
1997 5-7
(Barnett went 3-8 in 1998)

Gary Barnett hired Shawn Watson as a qb coach in 1997 and got that failed career going.

Mack Brown started the "come early, be loud, stay late" at UNC in the 90s and took it with him to Texas (adding "wear orange").

1. Recruiting and ties to Texas; Mack Brown wins recruiting. Neither had strong ties to Texas, although Mack Brown had stronger ties having coached at LSU, OU and Tulane.
2. Coaching/player development; Mack Brown. UNC recruited and produced more NFL players than Northwestern.
3. Hiring staff; Mack Brown. Even Greg Davis was better than Shawn Watson.
4. Game management/play calling; Mack Brown.
5. Great reputation/scandal free; I assume a tie, and
6. Winner: Mack Brown (see above).
I am sure Mack Brown was better at PR as well. Maybe DKR's decision was not as tough as I thought.

Also, that is a topic for another thread, but Mack Brown could potentially win more games at North Carolina (a vastly inferior football program with a lower ceiling) this year than Texas has in a single season since he left. I will add I have no doubt in my mind Texas would have won more games and be better off today if Mack Brown had coached us 2014-2022 than Strong, Herman and Sark. Firing Mack Brown was dumb, because there was no clear better obtainable hire (no I do not believe Nick Saban was coming). I said so on Hornfans in December 2013 (and was not the only one). I also think Bill Powers was hiring Charlie Strong no matter what. I noted that Texas did not have leadership to hire better coaches. Multiple losses to Kansas and Maryland, two shutout losses, 4 losses to Iowa State, a 2-7 record against TCU, a 3-7 record against OU, a 3-6 record against Okie State, an Eyes of Texas controversy, and 4 losing seasons later, I am still right. As I said in 2013, I think we should have stuck with DRK's hire until a sure thing came along and it has not.

Honestly, Gary Patterson and Jeff Traylor are our best prospects since Mack Brown by a long shot.

Mack Brown is 30-18 with a 0.625 winning % at UNC during his second stint.
Mack Brown was 30-21 with a 0.588 winning % at UT his last 4 years.
Texas is 59-50 with a 0.541 winning % since Mack Brown left.
 
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And you can “science the ****” out of the selection process and arrive at no clear answer, leaving you to go by gut instinct … but your gut throws up its hands and says “hellfino”
 
That is why you keep changing until you get it right. Try to make a sound decision but it’s sorta a crap shoot. Just don’t wait too long for the sake of optics.
Strong was wrong -if we nuked him a year early -then we wouldn’t of hired Herman or Sarkisian. Traylor and Patterson are worth a try. Get one of them on. Sark has lowered us from the results of Herman.

Recruits don’t care-win and they will come.
The worse thing is to wait around when you have an ineffective coach.
 
Sark’s record at Washington and USC = 46-35 .567 winning %
Sark’s record at Texas =. 11-11 .500 winning %

Yeah, I would would say past performance is a pretty good indicator of future results when it comes to coaching. 57-46 .553 winning%

I have been following the Roadrunners since they started their program and also started buying season tickets. The games are a lot of fun. I had bought UT season tickets for 46 years and gave them up in 2021 after the **** show that was Texas in 2020. I paid into the LH Foundation since the early 80s.
I still go to games I wish to go to, but no more LH Foundation money or season tickets. Texas will always be my team and University, but I don't have to support feckless administrators and bad decision making.

Traylor is the real deal and coaches his players up. It is fun to watch a well coached team give effort for 60 minutes. It is fun to watch a coach make half time and in game adjustments. I opine he does not have one player that has the talent of the staring 22 players at Texas.

Traylor would be a great choice for Texas. Patterson would be a great choice as well, but we need to make a change.

Htown77, where have you been? I enjoy your posts and research.
 
Htown77, where have you been? I enjoy your posts and research.
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It is hard to get excited enough about the Sark era to post or do deep dive analysis. The poor in gaming coaching has been pretty blatant... no deep dive analysis necessary.

Strong was wrong -if we nuked him a year early -then we wouldn’t of hired Herman or Sarkisian.
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@IvanDiabloHorn at the time correctly said we needed to fire Strong after 2015. I was in favor of giving him 3 years, but the writing was on the wall. I am not sure who we would have hired in 2015.

Jeff Traylor was one of the few bright spots under Charlie Strong. As special teams coordinator, Traylor recruited Michael Dickson and a lot of the players that led to Herman's success. While I do give Strong credit for ultimately taking the chance on him, Traylor has admitted someone else (i do not remember who) recruited him to Texas and convinced Strong to hire him. Traylor has done quite a few interviews about his time at Texas. He has said in the nicest of ways he basically learned everything not to do as a college head coach from Charlie Strong. The two biggest he mentioned were:

1. Wholesale running off players: Traylor (in a very nice way) said Strong pretty unfairly ran off a lot of good players that really did not deserve it. Traylor has no problem with cleaning house (and had no problem getting rid of a key backup WR this year that was an off the field problem), but basically said a new coach should give new players a fair shot and take the time to determine who needs to go. Strong apparently did not take the time to see which players really needed to go and who could have been straightened out. Traylor was not against Strong vision of building a team of his recruits, but concluded burning everything down and running off any player at the drop of a hat was not the way to go.

2. Lack of cohesive staff hiring: Traylor (in a very nice way) said Strong never had any clear vision for his staff. Traylor said that many (not all) of the staff members were great coaches, but there was not a cohesive plan for them and they did not fit together. I will note Traylor has kept Strong hire Matt Mattox with him who has done a very good job coaching UTSA's offensive line. Traylor concluded he learned the importance of hiring a staff that is familiar with and good at the same system on offense and defense.

I think the above are two questions an AD could ask of potential head coaches.
1. What is your plan for the current players?
2. What is your plan for your assistant coaches?
 
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One thing is for sure: great success on the high school level doesn't necessarily translate to success at the college level: e.g., Gerry Faust (Cincinnati Moeller) at Notre Dame; or Gene Mayfield (the "Father of Mojo" at Odessa Permian) at West Texas State U.
 
Giovanni Jones said:
One thing is for sure: great success on the high school level doesn't necessarily translate to success at the college level: e.g., Gerry Faust (Cincinnati Moeller) at Notre Dame; or Gene Mayfield (the "Father of Mojo" at Odessa Permian) at West Texas State U.
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Like anything else, it is not a guarantee. You can throw Todd Dodge and Mike Jinks in the failure category as well. On the other hand, Emory Bellard was a success. Jeff Traylor has been a success so far. Joey McGuire is off to a good start, and I would not bet against him.
 
It’s a crap shoot. You give a dude 3 years but want immediate improvements not regression. We’ve regressed from Herman.
If Sark can go 9-4 then, he should be given another year. 8-5 would suck at this point but it is an improvement from his first year. It is not 7-3 which was Herman’s last year.
Btw: Charlie Strong was the biggest bs artist this side of the snake oil salesman in Josey Wales. Him running off great players was unfair and a compete sham. I forget the name, but he ran off a fantastic running back who reminded me of Roschon but tougher and a stud D-Lineman for no good reason.
His “core values” tried to paint a bleaker picture to the old Mack Brown era than there was.
I’d rate-Strong a 3
Herman a 7, Sark so far-6. Probably need an 8 or better to stay here.
 
Creek said:
It’s a crap shoot. You give a dude 3 years but want immediate improvements not regression. We’ve regressed from Herman.
If Sark can go 9-4 then, he should be given another year. 8-5 would suck at this point but it is an improvement from his first year. It is not 7-3 which was Herman’s last year.
Btw: Charlie Strong was the biggest bs artist this side of the snake oil salesman in Josey Wales. Him running off great players was unfair and a compete sham. I forget the name, but he ran off a fantastic running back who reminded me of Roschon but tougher and a stud D-Lineman for no good reason.
His “core values” tried to paint a bleaker picture to the old Mack Brown era than there was.
I’d rate-Strong a 3
Herman a 7, Sark so far-6. Probably need an 8 or better to stay here.
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Minus 6 wow thats harsh
Lol
 
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