Let's hope that if the time ever arrives, the committee or AD that selects the coach won't have a sophomoric mentality to let where a person earned his paper influence the decision to hire the best possible coach.
The first thing that needs to be understood about the Steve Patterson affair is that is was an eipc failure. Patterson wasn't just "not the right guy." Evidenced he was on the verge of being let go for cause just 22 months into his contract, Steve Patterson can only be recognized as absolutely the wrong guy to lead UT athletics. The hiring committee made a mistake, the likes of which have never before been made in connection with UT athletics.
If, heaven forbid, the university does need to hire a new head football coach in two years, it will be at a period of epic discontinuity in UT athletics. It will be part of a span of four athletics directors and three head football coached in a five year span.
The alumni are fragmented and pretty much fatigued by the turmoil and underperformance they have had to deal with over the past few years. Replacing the head football coach would probably mean the period of fragmentation and fatigue would have been extended two more years, thus exacerbating many problems that would need to be handled in order to get UT athletics and UT football moving forward.
The frustrations with Coach Strong's leadership of football have nothing to do with the culture he is instilling in the program. I think we all agree one thing the alumni love about Coach Strong's leadership is his values and the culture he prought with him when assuming the position. It is the performance of his offense and, as of late, that of his defense that is hard to love.
It is unquestioned the values and culture of that which we call aggy is are far different than those of The University of Texas. Many of us chose UT over aggy, at least in part, because of the difference in values and culture of UT and the UT alumni. If, in two years, the university is seeking a new head football coach, one of the qualities under considerationwould have to be the ability to help unify the alumni and mitigate the frustrations. What would not be appropriate is any coach who would further divide the alumni.
At present, I would submit there is only one aggy any one of us could name with even the most remote chance of being the head coach at a major university in two years, that being Chad Morris of SMU. I don't know Chad Morris. He may be the finest of coaches. However, if he were to become head coach of UT, he would have to embrace the culture and values of the alumni and that would mean publicly rejecting the culture and values he embraced earlier in his life. He would also largely need to embrace the values Coach Strong has instilled in the program. It is the height of folly to believe we could ask someone to embrace a culture and values not already highly consistent with that which they have already embraced. Likewise, it is the height of folly to believe we can impose a set of coaching constricts on the next head football coach. Whoever assumes the position must be allowed to be themself and run the program as they see fit if they are to succeed.
It is far from sophomoric to understand if the university were to hire an aggy as the next head football coach, any move away from the existing culture of the alumni or from the values being instilled by Coach Strong will be met with reservation from a faction of the alumni. The majority of the alumni are not willing to embrace the culture that brought the University of Miami its championships, nor are they willing to embrace the culture of OU that Barry Switzer rode to his championships. I also submit there will never be a wholehearted embrace of a move away from the long term culture and values of UT and toward those of aggy even if it meant multiple national championships in football. If the alumni wanted a football program that embraced aggy culture and values to any material degree, they would have gone to A&M to begin with.
Coach Royal was able to transition from player at OU to coach at UT because his values were always consistent with the culture and values of the UT alumni. The OU culture we have come to know and loathe is a post-WWII construct, of which Coach Royal largely did not participate. There is no question it was a culture he did not wholeheartedly embrace.
At the end of the day, it would be a mistake of proportions even greater than the hiring of Steve Patterson to bring in an aggy as head coach and charge him with uniting the UT fans and alumni. No aggy will ever be the one to unite the UT fans and alumni. Anyone who doesn't understand that doesn't understand the difference between the cultures of the two schools or the two alumni bases. Senior university administratorsat UT have made enough mistakes as of late. Making one bigger than Steve Patterson is not what we need.
Chad Morris may win more national championships in his career than any coach in the history of college football. They won't be won at UT. He would be a bad cultural fit for the program.
