Man, he really suffered some bad breaks in 2008-2009, that had they gone a different way things would be completely different right now.
yes, Mack and the program definitely had some big time bad breaks those two years, which were still fantastic seasons to be proud of, obviously.
Unfortunately, there were many underlying problems that our HC let fester, leading to the troubles we're having the last several years. Mack complains about his own success creating such high fan expectations, but that's not true at all. This program has always expected--no, demanded--excellence, and it's why folks outside the Longhorn Nation failed to understand why we'd fire Fred Akers, despite the last few years of junk, or why a John Mackovic could win the last SWC title, the inaugural Big XII one, and then be fired a year later. It's why Blair Cherry, back in the late 40s-early 50s, had to get out to keep his health and basic sanity despite having a great four year string upon his departure.
It's the nature of the beast, and it has nothing to do with Mack. We can thank him a lot for all the good he accomplished, a type of good that could have been even a lot better had he figured how to approach OU and how to find that healthier balance between personal, blind loyalty to certain individuals vs what's best for the overall program, which affected a lot more individuals.
Still, Mack came at the right time and, at least thru the decade of the 2000's, did a lot of great things by any measure.
