In my opinion, the UT AThletic department has utterly botched the firing of Mack Brown and the search for a new football coach.
First, they spent waaaay too much time talking about and spreading rumors about the hiring of Nick Saban… who was probably NEVER going to leave Alabama (and why WOULD he?), and just used Texas to get more money from the Tide.
Now, they’re twiddling their thumbs waiting for Jimbo Fisher… who ALSO looks like a guy who’s staying put and just using use Texas to get more money from Florida State.
EVERY big name imaginable has been floated, but realistically, all of the coaches who’d actually excite fans and boosters are either staying put (Saban, Fisher, Jim Harbaugh, Urban Meyer) or staying out of coaching (Jon Gruden).
That doesn’t mean Texas can’t or won’t hire a very good football coach. Problem is, after all that silly Saban and Fisher talk, when the Longhorns inevitably end up hiring a James Franklin, a Jim Mora Jr., a Dabo Swinney or a Charlie Strong (good, solid candidates all), fans are going to be underwhelmed at best and FURIOUS at worst.
Fans, reporters and boosters alike have been led to believe that the new coach will be a grand slam, a big name. What they’re going to GET is merely a good football coach. And that coach will be on VERY thin ice from day one.
Yeah, they’ve screwed the pooch. Anybody going in now is just the guy that followed Mack Brown. And all he did was win 1 National Championship and play in another… and still got fired.
Red McCombs is making daily headlines with his pronouncements of who is going to be the next coach. A couple of days ago he tweeted “Of course UT has money. What money that is not buried under the Vatican is here in Austin*”.
Well, apparently it WILL be Charlie Strong. Las Vegas had made him the favorite to be the new coach all along, so I guess the wiseguys knew something we didn’t.
As a pure football man, I think he’s a great hire. He knows what it takes to build a championship defense, and he’s already done something Mack Brown NEVER did: he’s groomed an NFL-ready quarterback.
But the big hurdle he’ll face is this: he’s NOT the kind of guy who’s going to be able to schmooze with Jim Bob Oilman or Billy Joe Fatcat. He’s NOT going to host big barbecues at a ranch and tell folksy stories to the big boosters who really run things at UT.
Which means… as long as Charlie Strong wins early and often, he’ll have no problems. But if things don’t go perfectly, the rich alums won’t have any emotional connection to him.
Why? Because he’s black? Then that’s not really his hurdle to climb. So can black guys only coach in Texas if they’re bringing in the wins? Is this why Kevin Sumlin still has his job at A&M? :dubious:
SOLELY because he’s black? No- but that’s part of it.
There are SOME colleges where a coach can just be a coach. But at big football or basketball factories, the job entails a lot more than winning football games. I have no doubt that Charlie Strong is a smart guy and a good football coach who can get the job done on the field.
But at Texas (AND, yes, at Sumlin’s A & M), there are a lot of big boosters who love having their egos stroked, who love playing golf and hanging out shooting the breeze with the coach. And if you’re NOT a back-slapping good ol’ boy, you’re going to alienate those boosters, no matter how well your teams play.
There have been several WHITE coaches down here who weren’t good ol’ boys, and even they can tell you how hard that made their lives. Fred Akers was, on the whole, a great coach, but he wasn’t the folksy Darrell Royal, which meant that when things went poorly on the field (as they always do, eventually), he didn’t have any powerful boosters in his corner. John Mackovic wasn’t a good ol’ boy either- if he HAD been, that might have bought him a little more time and patience from the administration.
Now, is Jim Bob Oilman a racist? Is Billy Joe Fatcat a Klansman? No! They WANT their new coach, black or white, to succeed. But EVERY booster wants a coach who feels like his kind of guy. A rich booster may like or admire a black coach, but he’s unlikely to bond with a black coach. And it helps a LOT to have a cadre of rich boosters who’ve bonded with you.
If Red McCombs and team can ease out a good ol’ boy like Mack Brown after two National Championship game appearances (going 1-1, with the win being the culmination of one the all-time great seasons with Vince Young at QB), they don’t need to be racist to get Charlie Strong fired for not performing.
That’s the thing. If Strong totally blows at UT, then of course he deserves to be fired. I just don’t think his race has anything to do with his ability to be a good coach just because the boosters don’t want to golf with a black dude. I’m pretty sure recruits won’t care what color he is since he’s the coach of the Longhorns. I mean it’s not like they’re replacing a local legend with Randy Edsall. :mad:
I will admit my Sumlin comparison earlier was sloppy and I should’ve completed that thought. Sumlin wins so the A&M fans don’t care, but if he’s there long enough to start losing, then he’ll deserve to be fired. Ultimately, it’s a business. I just think it is possible for a black college coach to get the Marvin Lewis treatment when so many white ones get Gary Kubiak. I’m not saying he deserves preferential treatment, but I hate how he’s not even being given a chance.
I agree with Astorian. The reason Texas HAS ungodly amounts of money is because of the boosters (though I’m sure Louisville has its fair share of good old boy boosters) and to keep those boosters happy you’ve got to do things beyond the gridiron. From what I’ve heard, Mack Brown was very good at gladhanding, working the crowd, setting tee times, remembering people’s names, and all of the ancillary things that make the boosters happy all while winning.
Of course this isn’t to say that Strong is going in with a disadvantage. He just might not have the added advantage that Mack had - race or not. But who knows. Maybe he can schmooze with the best of them and we just have no clue. Plus it only amounts to just a marginal modicum of job security. Winning still trumps all.
Sure enough, McCombs is angry. He says Strong, who has been head coach at Louisville for four years, should be a coordinator and Jon Gruden, who has never been a college coordinator or head coach and doesn’t want to leave ESPN, would’ve been a better choice.
I got a laugh when Texas said they wanted to talk to Mark Dantonio. Then you heard nothing, nada. Turns out Dantonio doesn’t have an agent. He said something like “Talk to my wife.” I wonder if she got a call and said, “You may want to talk to us but we don’t want to talk to you.”
In the mean time some of the Texas fans were cheesed because Dantonio has a Texas connection. He was born in El Paso. Seems his dad was in the military and stationed there. Huge connection.
Only a quarter of Texas’ revenue comes from donations, the rest comes from ticket sales, merchandising, subsidies (Texas has $0), and media rights. This is on pare with Division 1 FBS average of 27% of revenue coming from donations. So while Texas’ donations are large, they scale with the rest of the revenue sources.
I think even Mack was surprised at his resignation. "
