The Mack Brown era's end was inevitable 2 years into its 16 year reign? That's quite a drawn out goodbye. Mack's ultimate end has nothing to do with Stoops; remember he beat him this year. Mack's end was caused by a failure to adapt borne out of complacency. Due to demographics and the evolution of the high school game - the talent pool is big enough now that you can't just outrecruit everyone and expect to figure something out and win - the number of high school players capable at playing at a high level as underclassmen is substantially higher now so that process is what differentiates more so than talent. Where there were 20 or so guys in the state of Texas worth grabbing in the past, there's probably 40-60-80 now. So just grabbing top guys isn't going to provide the separation that it did in the past. Mack didn't have a process. Laziness set in (particulary in offensive recruiting) and everybody else kept up with the times. The result was that he was too far in the hole by 2010 to fix it, and the course-corrections he made in mid stream weren't enough.
The main reason Mack needed to go is because the game has evolved around him and he is stuck in 2005. He told RG3 and Manziel both they were not good enough to play QB for The University of Texas, and he didnt go after Jameis Winston who also wanted to go to UT, all this while trotting out the carcass of David Ash and Colt McCoys little brother. But it should also be noted he has done a great job building the program and recruiting guys who tend to stay away from trouble which i admire. He doesn't lie to recruits, he looks out for his players. He realizes they are just kids and its just football which takes balls to do at a program that big.
others have responded already, but while that might have been true if mack was fired in 2004, it doesn't hold up much now. granted, last year's margin of victory probably pushed more fans over the edge than any other single game, but mack survived it pretty easily in retrospect. and on top of that, he's actually beaten ou 5 of the last 9 years, including a fairly dominating victory as a huge underdog this year. and he's been to a title game 1 year more recently than stoops. and if not for being completely screwed the year before that, it would be 5 years more recently than stoops. and stoops seems to be trending down enough that looking over the border to ou's success hasn't even been a perception problem for mack to fight in recent years (even if they tripped and fell into a bcs bowl even more than we almost did into a conference title).
