Herman is asked about his job security.
.
About those rumors: The two most interesting parts of Monday’s presser dealt with Herman’s job security. Orangeblood’s Anwar Richardson kicked things off by asking (a) if he’s concerned about his job — last month, after those back-to-back losses to Oklahoma and TCU, there were rumors that he may get fired after this season and replaced by former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer — and (b) what effect those kinds of things have on recruiting. Texas has had a couple of high-profile decommitments from 2022 recruits, led by Southlake Carroll quarterback Quinn Ewers, the No. 1-ranked quarterback prospect in the country.
That struck a cord. Herman dismissed the effects those rumors have in the locker room. The recruiting trail, though, is another story.
“The biggest mitigating factor in this is there’s a section of people, which is our program, our coaches, the people intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of our enterprise, if you will, that know the truth. And then there’s rumors, and there’s unnamed sources, there’s Internet reporters with agendas that claim their own opinion as fact and hide behind unnamed sources. The player part is really easy, almost comical, to the point where sometimes a kid will come up to me and say, ‘Coach, you’ll never guess what lunacy just came across my feed. This is crazy, right?’
“The recruiting part’s a different story because when you have the things that have been written about us and our program, myself and our future, very unfounded articles that state, again, opinion as fact, that state unnamed sources as being factual, that’s very hard to defend against. If I’m a competing recruiter, what do you do? You press print and say look, this must be true, it’s on so and so Orangefans.com, right? Or it was written by this guy, so it must be true. Or this source said this, so it must be true. That is really, really the hart part in recruiting. These 16-year-old kids are very impressionable. And unfortunately, when negativity gets written — especially unfounded, rumor-based, unnamed source-based negativity gets written — it makes our competing recruiters’ jobs just so much more easy. But as far as the reality is concerned? We understand that we have the support of hundreds of thousands, tons of our fan base, and we certainly appreciate that. We understand the difference between vocal minorities and people who make decisions and their beliefs. I couldn’t be more aligned with our athletic director — my boss — who we meet with constantly, who has assured me of his support and the support of university leadership, and has even commended me and our staff and our program for how we have handled the craziest year in college football history.”
Texas’ last three signing classes have ranked No. 3, No. 3 and No. 8. The Horns’ 2021 class is 17th with time running out before the early signing period in December and the 2022 class’ ranking has dropped to 26th with the backouts of five-star Ewers and four-star receiver Phaizon Wilson. The 2022 class now has just one committed player, a four-star cornerback.
The Statesman’s Brian Davis looped back to that question late in the presser, referencing Ewers’ backing out of his commitment. It was the final question of the day.
Davis: “I need to go back to what you said a minute ago. Talk about recruiting, though. Do you understand at least the perception of fans when they see the No. 1-rated recruit commits and then all of a sudden decommits, and the signal that sends about what a high-level five-star guy thinks of the program. How do you address that?”
Herman: “Well, you address it with the truth. When a kid has to be bombarded with all of these rumors and conjecture and, again, agendas masked as fact, you have to provide some semblance of truth. You understand that recruiting is a marathon, it’s not a sprint, and you try to provide them with every resource possible in order to get the truth. Because what they’re getting is not the truth. It is, again, unnamed sources and agendas masked as the truth. You just have to have constant communication, constant hard conversations with these recruits, and put them in touch with our players, you put them in touch with our administration, you put them in touch with the people who actually do know the truth. At some point, like anything in life, the truth will prevail.”
Davis: “Right. And one quick follow-up. I understand everything you’re saying about you and Chris (Del Conte) being tight, but he tweets about all these other sports at UT winning and he doesn’t tweet about Texas football. When I ask him about you and the football (program), he refuses to answer anything about how it’s going. So does it bother you that a very public guy doesn’t give a lot of public love to the football program?”
Herman: “No. ‘Cause I know what the truth is. I don’t care what the public love is, or how many tweets football gets in comparison to volleyball. … I’m not gonna worried about a grown man’s tweet count. I’m not. Maybe you guys do and that’s your job, but I know what is said to me eye to eye, man to man, in offices and meetings and all of that. There is no stock whatoever placed in the tweet count of a 50-year-old man.”
https://www.hookem.com/texas-longhorns/20201116/tom-herman-coaching-recruiting-world-rumors-unnamed-sources-personal-agendas-not-easy/