I think this take summarizes Mack's tenure (including all of it, not just omitting his last several years) pretty well. He had a great run from '04-09, there's no dispute on that. Unfortunately, as this post above reminds, he's had a whole lot of shortcomings.
As to his "winning with integrity," as a whole, he hasn't done enough of the former (winning really big, like conf titles and performing well against our biggest rival). And when he really did (2005), it came with a whole lot of baggage. Did some of us forget the great number of arrests and moments of embarrassment the program dealt with as negative events came out one after another?
Mack resolved the character and legal issues by taking a lot of "choir boy" types--kids who were really nice kids, not enough of an edge on the football field. We got by for awhile with Colt's otherworldly heroics and some good defense (Muschamp), but when the all-time winningest QB departed, all the holes that had been developing under Mack's watch were exposed.
DKR warned Mack after the national title to guard against complacency, because it would be a real temptation to fall into that. Mack may have listened to Royal on some things, but he sure failed to on that critical component. Eventually, it cost him and created the need to totally rebuild the program. Bob Stoops takes a year, generally, to "rebuild," then proceeds to win the conference. Mack, in contrast, requires three or four years, which is pretty inexcusable, especially when you barely win 40% of your games against your rival and win your conference obviously far, far less.
Mack has had a really good run, and it ended before this decade began. He may inevitably have a good year this one, but that's the least we could expect of a guy requiring that long to rebuild, having the most experienced team in the nation, and having the conference opponents be generally down and inexperienced in the same year.
He requires way too many things to line up just right for a HC in charge of a program like Texas. It doesn't recruit itself as automatically as some would state, but it darn sure shouldn't be a place that requires so much to be perfect in order to have a conference title season.
