https://www.hornsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Mack-Brown-300×240.jpgThere is usually a time and place where the realization hits you that it isn’t working anymore. And last Saturday the Longhorns and their fans got hit with that possibility. Time for what, you may ask…well, to put it simple, It’s time for the Mack Brown era to come to an end in Austin. Don’t get me wrong, Mack Brown has been a good coach, and he has put Texas back into the national conversation. He brought Texas out of that dark period of mediocrity and took them to the top of the mountain. But he hasn’t been able to do it consistently; there is always something that happens to his teams that keep them from reaching their full potential.
Is it the talent of player that he has brought to Austin? Possibly, I won’t put the blame square on the recruits just because of Mack’s tendency to bring in four and five star recruits. To accuse Mack of not getting the best talent would be horribly wrong, but let’s look at this on a deeper level, is there a possibility some of these top recruits who the Longhorns covet so much, have they reached their max potential? There have been cases where a player peaks his senior year of High School and doesn’t become the player so many expected.
This happens with every team in the country, because when you are dealing with 18 year old kids, it is hard to project the next four years for them. Mack has always liked the big time recruit, which is how he earned the “coach February” as his nickname. Maybe there is a problem where Mack wants the five star kids, whom has probably reached his max potential, or is near it and doesn’t have much room for growth. While it all looks good one year on paper, when it comes time for these kids to prove something, it tends to fall off and fall short of expectations for the Longhorns. But again, this isn’t just a Mack Brown problem, it happens to every coach…it just seems like it is happening more to Mack than others.
Recruiting aside, let’s look at the overall talent of the team, every year people will rant and rave about the Longhorns talent and their depth. But halfway through the season, everybody is saying it was once again all hype and no substance. While this seems to be a recurring problem within the program, this falls onto one man and one man alone. It is all on Mack Brown here, he can’t coach every aspect of the team, but he is responsible for bringing in the people who will push these players to be their best. And he sold us all a bill off goods when he went out and hired Bryan Harsin and Manny Diaz to take over the offense and defense. After bringing in two of the hottest coordinators, everyone was willing to give Mack a chance to turn it around and last year was a nice turnaround for the team. So naturally expectations got bigger.
This season was supposed to be a bigger turnaround for the Longhorns and they were expected to compete for a conference title and some would have thought a national championship, but that last one may have been a little too much, even for the most diehard fan. It was easy to forgive the loss to West Virginia because of the heart the team showed and simply the team did everything it could to try and win the game, but just couldn’t make a key stop when they needed it most.
Mack Brown has already had turnover on his staff, and it seems that the problems from two years ago keep resurfacinghttps://www.hornsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Mack-Brown-2-150×150.jpg within the program. At some point everybody is going to have to take a long hard look at the man in charge and not his staff. This will be hard to do for a lot of people within the athletic department because of everything Mack has done in Austin. He is almost as beloved as the great Darrel Royal.
This wouldn’t even be an issue right now if Longhorn fans hadn’t experienced a fourth beat down in 12 years from the hands of their biggest rival. These are the games that fans expect the team to win, or at least be competitive enough to keep it close. As we have seen more and more in the last three to four years under Mack Brown the Longhorns show up flat, and seem bored at times, then there is the entitlement issue…
Yes, I just mentioned the “E†word, and it has become an issue within the team for a while seasons now. It seems like when the players put on their helmets with that Longhorn on the side of it, they feel like everybody should bow down to them. This is a sickening thought for fans to face because this team has no “skins on the wall†much like previous teams who had won conference championships and a national championship.
This is the part where Mack Brown has been lacking, because it is his job to get the team ready to play. He needs to make sure these players don’t feel entitled; he needs to tell these players how horrible they are playing and make them mad. Mack has always been the nice guy coach, this has worked for a while, but now it seems the nice guy routine is wearing off. Maybe it is just 14 years of the same voice has finally run its course.
Texas owes a lot to Mack, and the fans will be forever grateful for everything that he has done on the 40 acres. But at some point, having your rear end handed to you in Dallas every time you turn around gets old and fans are growing impatient with more bad seasons in the last four years than good. But it is also unacceptable to the fans to have back to back years where you get embarrassed by your biggest opponent. Mack Brown has refused to quit, even refused to retire at the end of the year.
At this point the fans are not going to accept mediocrity anymore, fans will expect to see a Texas team back among the elite in the country, but until a coach can keep these kids from feeling entitled and expecting to win, then the Longhorns will do the same song and dance every year. It is a tough fact to face, but Mack Brown…it is time for you to go.
