Yeah, I looked him up too after my post. He worked 10 years at Goldman Sachs.........he should have done the tutoring then........
Uhhh, Nick Saban? Tom Landry? FSU fired Bobby Bowden. Arkansas fired Lou Holtz. The Browns fired Belichick. Tennessee ran Johnny Majors out of town. How many times did Gene Stallings get canned? (not even mentioning the dirty ones like Tressel or Paterno or Switzer or Dennis Erickson or Pete Carroll)
I post on Shaggy. Clutch is where I come to discuss Houston sports, just didn't realize there was any talk on Longhorns matters until I got really bored the other day and accidently discovered here. Also, I don't usually post when things are looking up, that's when I choose to savor my happiness inside.
Both very valid points, although you and I differ on what makes a great coach. I guess when I think of a great coach, knowing the Xs and Os is a requisite. You have to know at least one side of football, either offense or defense. You have to have a system or a scheme in place and find players to fit within that scheme. And if not, you are really great at adapting your scheme to fit the players you recruit. I am sorry to say that Mack never gave me that impression of having a coherant plan. Maybe he's old school and failed to catch up to a more modern football or something. His bread and butter had always been about persuading talented player to come play for him. Once the recruiting well dries up, his team's performance suffers. His passive aggressive style also doesn't bode well for the young men he's trying to influence. The players take on his personality, and we wound up with a team full of "soft" players. People remember the big wins, but they forget how we got bowled over by those OU ********ers in Stoops early years. They probably also don't remember how apathic our team responded to losses from 10-14. Those guys were taking a beating and they couldn't wait to get off the field. It was both embarrassing and excruiciating.
You and I had probably crossed path during our time on the 40. I was in Jester from 91 to 93, Cameron Road in 94, and West Campus in 95. I first began watching the Horns when Brett Stafford was QBing for us in the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, but my time on campus was mostly with Gardere and James Brown as our QB. I was there at CB in 95 or 96? when Stonie Clarke made the touchdown saving tackle near the goal line to preserve our victory. Morenz started one year I think and later gave away to Brown due to injury. Shea had something going with Lovell Pickney and Mike Adams as his receivers. Was always a fan of Machovic's passing attack, but his corporate exec demeanor was just a really bad fit for us. Come to think of it, I might have even passed by Gardere a couple of times on campus my freshman year. He was a senior then. He had a really hot gf and he was driving a Z. I was in a class with a RB named Adrian Walker. He was a really quiet guy. Never missed a class, but never said anything. I didn't know he was a football player until towards the end of the semester when a classmate congratulated him on a win the weekend before.
You are pretty insufferable as a UT grad. Can't have an intelligent discussion other than name calling? Aren't we all entitled to our opinions? You are not worth the time.
Why are we rehashing Mack here? Can't we just enjoy what's happening so far this season? We've got a big game tomorrow and it'll be a big test on the road for our true freshman quarterback. We've talked enough about Mack over the last few years. Strong finally has this thing turned around. Let's stop discussing the ghosts of seasons past and look forward to the future for the first time in a while.
Jester was fun, strange but fun. I remember betting beers (nobody had money) on a Brockermeyer (sp?) vs Bustamante hallway wrestling match.
Yeah, that was a different time. No internet, no social media, not even much ESPN I don't think. We had no money and I would get one of my neighbors to cut my hair for free. Also, lots of $5 pepperoni pizza late in the night. I was in Jester West but my best friend got a suite in the East Wing, and right downstairs to him in the back alley is where the players' cafeteria is. We used to go throw football there and got to meet quite a few of them walking by. I know they are on the team but it was difficult to put the names to their faces.
Rabbit ears and a Sega Genesis on a 20" tv? NBA Jams and bong hits and dryer sheets and Icehouse beer. Those were the days.
I didn't just namecall. I threw 3 points at you that you did not respond to. 1) You don't micro-analyze each of a college football coach's attributes to evaluate them. All you need to do is look at the program's success before and during the coach's tenure. Valuing x's and o's for a college head coach is like evaluating a tech company CEO on their programming skills. 2) I am so sick of hearing about how Mack did not recruit at the end of his time here and left Strong with no talent. Consider this when you're throwing Strong parades for two Top 10 recruiting classes: Rivals Recruiting Rank by Year: 2010 - #3 2011 - #3 2012 - #2 The argument is not that he quit recruiting. More fitting is the player development was not good. 3) No UT fan from before Mack's arrival would be criticizing Mack the way you do. When I went to school, we would be jumping for joy if we were Top 15. Mack made the program relevant. His success still helps us today. You don't think new recruits don't think about having seen VY and Colt growing up? You can give all the credit to the players if you want, but we don't ever have them without Mack. He made us the Yankees of college football. In 2008, I went to a fair in Dallas. I counted 27 UT shirts/caps and 2 A&M shirts/caps. That's the way it should be, and Mack deserves the credit. This is why I know you don't have any genuine history with the school and team. Or you just are way off up there.
I threw out plenty of points that none of you Mack lovers bothered to address. It's clear that we have a difference in opinion. I don't think he was that great of a coach to begin with. The fanbase was not all that supportive in his first three years because I think we had 11 total losses, and some of those were pretty bad ones. However, he was able to beat our biggest rival in OU, and was bringing highly ranked recruiting classes, so he stayed on until VY arrived. In my opinion, VY deserved much more credit in turning the program around than Mack. VY was responsible in us beating tOSU, Michigan, then SC for the championship, not Mack. Mack was a recipient of circumstance. This correlates with the fact that the only time when Mack was able to win the big one is when he has himself a transcendent QB. Successes, like failures, usually come in spades. So our success on the field led us to easier recruiting time in the most fertile recruiting state outside of Florida, which brought us Colt. Keep in mind that noone thought Colt was ever going to be anything more than a backup. Colt became Colt mostly due to his own doing. Nothing was ever handed to him, but he rose above and beyond and mostly maintained our success on the field. Then Colt was gone, our record took a free fall, then people began to realize just how much Colt had been covering for the rest of the team, not just offense, but defense too. Football is a unique sport in that even though the team is split between offensive and defensive units, but the performance of one greatly affects the other. The ability to sustain drives by the offensive unit takes a huge pressure off your defensive unit, and vice versa. It is my opinion that a top notch coach would be able to see all that. He would understand what it takes to get to the top, and once there, maintain it for as long as he could with a coherant plan and a sound strategy. He would manage the roster and encourage competition at all levels. This of course is alot easier said than done, but Texas is among only a handful of institutions on land that command that kind of respect. We have the tradition, we have the fanbase, we have the resources, and we are in a state that offers the most competitive high school football anywhere. And practically overnight, like the night of our loss to Bama in 09, we just lost it all. We lost it all, and four years later, Mack still had no clue to how to fix it. It is my opinion that he had no clue on how to fix it because he had no idea on how he got there in the first place. He knew VY had alot to do with it, so he was looking for the second coming of VY, and thus came Swoopes. To me, a great coach, or even a decent coach, would not hinge on the fate of his football team to just one player, or any player. Most people refer Mack's recruiting prowess as his best attribute. Well, in my opinion, yes and no. To me, recruiting isn't just about getting the players to come play for you. To me, recruiting is about to correctly identify teenage athletes and have the foresight to see what becomes of them two to three years down the road. I am no football coach or scout, but I am sure there are certain traits that the coaches look for. Once they are identified, then you sell them on playing time, an NFL career, education, publicity, etc. in order to lure them to play for you. And as we all know, as one of the most prestigious programs on land, Texas pretty much sells itself. The problem here, is that Mack was never very good at identifying talents. He could get them to come to UT, but I am not sure he really knew what he was getting. He went after Simms, who was the #1 ranked QB his year. He didn't want VY, because GD's offense tailors to a pocket passer QB. He went after GG hard for the same reason. So anyway, my point here is that he can sell the program, but I don't believe he ever really knew just what type of player he was getting, their mental make up, and their projected growth. This post is getting a bit too long. I guess the best I can say is that we agree to disagree. Let's just end it at that. Like someone else said here, enough Mack.
Very quickly on your #2, tell me which is worse for a coaching staff - a highly ranked recruiting class with a middling record on the field, or a lowly ranked recruiting class with a top 25 finish in the poll? Just think of the repercussion that the ags are enduring now that they have lost out on consecutive 5 star QBs and you get my gist. I am also willing to bet that a Strong's 10th ranked recruiting class will churn out more NFL draftees than Mack's 2nd ranked recruiting class. Once again, in the game of recruiting, the keys are to identify and to develop. Between Mack and Strong in terms of recruiting, I'd pick Strong everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.
This will be my last post on topic conerning Mack. Of course results matter on the football field, as W-L record usually determines the fate of all coaches, but to me, the process of getting there is just as important, because it guarantees a team's ability to sustain success. You can catch a lightening in a bottle once in a while, but you can't count on always catching that lightening. Mack's winning formula had been rather simple far too long - using UT's cachee to recruit players with the most stars and out-talent your opponents. By his latter years, his record proves that he either had no process at all or that his process could no longer measure up against other more thoughtful programs.
I liked your point on agreeing to disagree. This argument would be more relevant in the pre-championship Mack years when he had his struggles with OU. My point about recruiting wasn't meant to be a defense of Mack. I just wanted to correct the perpetual inaccuracy that there was an issue with recruiting - clearly there wasn't. Player development is actually probably more important than recruiting. I just have seen people misdiagnose the problem for years, and I like to correct it when I see it. I don't mind conceding a flaw of Mack's program in later years. I will take 4 bad years if it comes with all the 10 win seasons, the National Championship, etc. For the record, I was in favor of Mack leaving starting with the BYU game in Utah. And I liked hiring Strong, because of his Florida defense. Also, the 4 bad years didn't ruin the program. There still was plenty of residual goodwill from the great years that carries over to today. Carryover that would not be here without Mack. When we do well today, Mack still deserves some of the credit.
There was an actual issue with recruiting. You see, recruiting isn't simply about piling up a list of athletes with a bunch of stars next to their names and having the class ranked highly. That's called player collecting, not recruiting. Correctly identify the right players, or so called evaluation, goes hand in hand on whether a player can be developed. One cannot exist without the other as both are critical components to complete the recruiting process. Mack was able to "collect" alot of highly ranked players, but he couldn't develop them partly because they probably weren't meant to be developed. Many of them have either peaked athletically in high school, or they didn't have the right mental state of mind to begin with. They see UT as an end and the desire to compete and win just wasn't there. In my earlier days, I followed recruiting just like you, focusing on the stars but not the individuals. Now, I withhold judgement until they get on campus, spend a couple of summers on S&C, and see what becomes of them. Take Jonanthan Gray and D. Foreman for instance, and yes, they are both Mack's recruits. Gray was a concensus 5 star with a record breaking high school career. Foreman was a lowly 2 star who just tagged along for a ride. Everyone was excited when Gray had committed, but not a peep was said about Foreman when he got an offer, probably more doubts than praises. Yet, after two seasons, who's the better RB? Yes, Gray had his share of injuries, but I'd argue that even without the injuries, he never ran with the power and decisiveness shown by Foreman. Charles O. is another good example. He was a 3 star scrawny kid in HS who Mack probably would never have recruited in the first place. Strong identified him early, established a relationship, and now a year and half later, not only is he one of our better players, he's helping us to reel in new recruits. You seem to separate player development from recruiting, when in fact whether a player can be developed is part of the evaluation process. Alot of highly ranked players weren't developed under Mack, and even after Strong took over, we still did not see improvement. When the player is the only constant in this equation, then I'd say they are the problem. And in that case, you just can't fault Strong for not developing them because they weren't his recruits to begin with. Guys like Flowers, C. Hughes, Darius James, the list goes on and on. And those 4 bad years absolutely ruined the program. It didn't completely because no matter how bad we are on the field, there are certain things you just can't take away, like the tradition, the fanbase, the resources. Top rated guys were no longer looking at us and recruiting was on a downward spiral. Again, look at the list of 15 early commits - Shaw, English, Campbell, Garza. When you didn't have the talent to execute your scheme, then it doesn't matter how brilliant the scheme is, the result won't be to your liking. Thus the table was reversed, we have always been somewhat out-schemed, and now we were being out-talented. It doesn't look as bad now because the bleeding has stopped and we are injecting new life into the program. The University of Texas made Mack Brown. Mack Brown did not make the University of Texas. Hook'em!
I decline to discuss the topic with you any further, as the facts of Mack's tenure vs. prior UT coaches (National Championship, 10 win seasons, National Championship opportunities) make the case with anyone rational - without our exchanges being necessary.
Notre Dame getting blown out tonight might reveal we (I) got too high on the Longhorns based on the Game 1 victory.
