TEXAS FANS: WEEEEEEE'RRRRRE BaaaacK!!!

for one brief and shiny moment...there was hope...I heard us discussed amongst people that talk about college football.....



now, back to the hike in the dessert....

missed assignments? maybe it was the injuries...

where and what has happened to all our talent?

 

Our struggles are all a result of Sam jumping the gun and saying that. He, and everyone else associated with this team, should be schooled on the fact that, unless you just won the MNC, you DO NOT say "we are back".

 

Our problems have nothing to do with Sam saying that. It has everything to do with coaching.

 

Anyone who didn't cringe with that Elizabeth Warren screech of "Werrr'eeee Baaaccckkkk", apparently missed Maryland 2.0, Stillwater 2.0, et al. and that this was still a 4 loss team that had just beaten a disinterested conference title game loser. It was a great moment and a great win, that all Horns, and Sam especially, should have been proud of. But to declare that we were now nationally relevant from a conference that we had been an after thought in for almost a decade, was a deeply flawed vision.

And for those who want to tell me to take my comparison's to Sen. Warren to West Mall......Liz Warren (nee Herring) and I went to the same high school in Oklahoma City. Additionally, as my name suggest, am a Yellow Dog Democrat, who agrees with her on most issues, I acknowledge that she is ballot box poison.

So flame on, but not about Liz. Cause "We are the KNIGHTS! AND WE ARE PROUD!! STAND UP KNIGHT FANS AND SHOUT OUT LOUD!! TAKE STATE!! TAKE!! TAKE STATE!!.

 

I would take a bullet for SAM....

 

Next player to say “We’re back” immediately loses their scholarship. We’re not back. Haven’t been back. Not even close.

 

how 'bout WE JUST BEAT AN $EC TEAM!

 

I now cringe now when I hear that phrase....

 

Didn’t Brent Musbergher say that after we beat ND with CS? His was much more egregious than Sam. Had 62% of our starters not gone down this year With injury we probably would be back to the Sugar Bowl.

 

Honestly, this seems like something is wrong inside the team/coaches. We've seen them play better than the last 6 weeks. We DID start of very good offensively. Something is wrong inside. like an infection.

 

I am a regular listener of Mark Packer on his CFB radio show on SiriusXM radio. Packer always says you are back when you don’t have to say you are back. I agree. Let your play do the talking.

 

We're not back. Everyone in the country knows it, and thinks we're a joke. But Sam saying it has nothing to do with our lackluster performances this season. I'd take 22 Sams.

 

Texas was back when Mack made everyone (BMDs) happy enough somehow where Vince and co were recruited and stayed. Mack lost that ability. Feel like he lost it around 2007 or 2008 because 2010 was 5-7. What handcuffs Texas when it comes to bringing in talent? Is it academic requirements? Is it related to non-cheating? Have to believe Texas cheats as much as the next team, just too many lawyers.... What is it that's required at Texas that turns players away?

 

Man some of yall have no bloody sense of humor.

 

I was just thinking of shooting you

 

Texas isn't hampered by anything, Texas gathers recruits with a butterfly net. Getting talent has never been a problem at Texas. Coaching has always been the problem. When was the last time we felt like we had elite coaches but no talent? Yes we had years where we felt the talent level was down, or we had positions that were extremely low talent, but for the most part, talent is never an issue at Texas.

Stop with this ideal that Texas doesn't break the rules, there are just as many 100 dollar hand shakes here as there are at any other University. Acting like we don't is like staring at the sun and saying it doesn't exist.

Look back at our choices for a head coach

Akers - Not a bad coach, but he didn't want to recruit the black inner-city schools and was a bit of arrogant prick when it came to recruiting. he hurt himself with this and it eventually killed him.

McWilliams - a great DC but a terrible head coach.

Mackovic - A 100% prick according to former players I spoke with. Pomus, and arrogant beyond belief. he was a great offensive mind with no though to defense.

Mack - 100% a CEO - Pride was his downfall, he should have retired in 2009 as he promised. He was one of those guys that didn't want to hire the right guy because he didn't want to hire his replacement.

Strong - completely over his head with this job, or any head coaching job for that matter.

Herman - Was not ready for this job. He needed more seasoning as a head coach.


If you want to point fingers, might I offer this. Look closely at who and how's of coaching searches. What you will find is we tend to listen to the wrong people when it comes to hiring coaches. BMD tend to throw their money and weight around when it comes to who we pick as our coach. Patterson had a lot of shortcomings, one of his biggest was that he was defiant in picking a football coach. In doing so, he made a hire for all the wrong reasons.

Texas is never short on BMDs and BMDs are never short on arrogance. Everyone wants to believe that their money gives them the right to determine how it is spent.

I applaud CDC for how he is handling his role as AD, I am 100% confident he would handle a new coaching hire in a way that would get us the best man for the job. He has done nothing that would make me think anything less.

 

Excellent post, AB! Frustrates me to no end...

 

Texas “shouldn’t” be hampered by anything. But if you think we’ve been getting all this great talent for the past 10 years, all you have to do is look at the NFL draft the last 10 years.

And that had zip to do with coaching or “coaching up” all those players. Zero. They just weren’t that good.

In 3-4 years you’re going to start seeing that trend reversed beginning when TH’s first true class enter the draft.

 

Akers wasn’t hampered by the lack of inner city recruiting He was hampered by Darrell Royal and his big money donor friends and Fedex and SMU! Granted he had a limited view of offense and he did recruit small town Texasbut he was behind the eight ball when he took the job! Heck Earl considered not returning after his junior year but Akers changed to the I formation and made him the feature back! Royal got Lazy and thought he’d get to appoint Mike Campbell as his successor! His supporters never forgave that and didn’t support Akers!

 

When Sam made that statement, it made me cringe. Didn't care much for it. Way too early. Had the Horn's gone say 11-1 this year, won the CCG and got to the playoffs, maybe played for and/or won an NC, that's different. But we were not at that point in time. And we are definitely not after seeing the production on the field this season starting with the OU game. So, it was a nice win today, but it was over a now 4-8 team with a worse D than we have. I am happy the Seniors had a W today for their last home game. I don't consider 7-5 a "great season" or even a good season. It's only an ok winning season with a bowl game attached. We as fan's expect more than what we saw this season.

 

Bill.

I take exception to Fred not wanting to recruit inner city schools

1) Fred's first "bigtime" recruit would have been Texas first black QB, until Third Ward $$$ got in the way. I believe it was $4,000 and $500 a month.

2) We had never had a recruit from Houston Wheatley, but Fred got Everett Gay in spite of the Aggies having $25,000 on the table

3) I picked Fred up at the Jet Center at Hobby, and we attended three games between inner city schools. Fred spoke to both teams in the locker rooms before kickoff at Charlie Dyer, then we walked next door to Delmar, and he spoke to both teams at the half. I then drove him over to Barnett on our way back to Hobby where he spoke in those two locker rooms after their game

It was Fred who recruited our first black QB, although Dickinson is hardly inner city.

We went into a home in Acres Home that had 2x4s over the windows because the family couldn't afford burglar bars. Damn, it was stiflingly hot in there, but the apple pie was extraordinary.

Philadelphia, MS is no garden spot, but losing Marcos wasn't on Fred or Tommy. Nobody knew the truth but Barry & Scott (maybe Selmon), and I didn't pry it out of them for over a decade.

Now David's assistant Clarence James was the one that was adamantly opposed to visiting inner city schools and homes.

 

Back in the Mid-80's I was sitting in circle of players with from Omega Psi Phi. My best friend is black and his sister would host us for games. Guys like Tony Degrate, Anthony Byerly, and a few others were there. They were talking about their experience at Texas. They talked about Akers from a not so nice point of view. I understood their point of view because I was playing for a high school coach named Jim Rodrique who was about as big a bigot as they come.

Later I read a few articles about the Akers years with regard to how he wouldn't recruit inner-city school and how Sherrill would and that was the turning point in the fortunes for both schools.

 

Could be; could not be. However, the difference between Akers and Sherrill was the FedEx account.

 

AT THE TIME.....we thought it was FRED....it was NOT FRED....it was SMU and a&m cheating their asses off!!! Fred was a good coach. I was in charge of tutoring the athletes at the time the talk amongst the players were that SMU and aggy were now starting to get the great recruits....WELL, there was a GOOD reason for this: $$$$$$$$$$$....The thing I didn't realize would be the biggest takeaway was Danny Akers and how much he loved his DAD....after Danny died, especially....

 

please, read below....at the time, even the players didn't know what was going on and why some recruits we not coming to Texas....it was $herril and $$$$$$$$$$. He cheated his *** off the entire time he was there....SHOULD HAVE GOT THE DEATH PENALTY!!!!

 

Bill,

Since I lived it, and was privileged to visit with many recruits, I shall be happy to set it straight.

1) Yes, there were disgruntled players, who blamed Fred for serious short comings of some of his assistants. Like one white starter told me, "I hated that little son of a *****, but winning with him was much more fun than suffering loses with Darrell". Fred was prevented from hiring certain assistants because DKR didn't like them or Fred. One of them is the best coach I've ever known.

2) Bill Little is a close friend, but we started off with me riding him like a rented mule for not getting REAL stories out there, while certain alums and University employees fed ******** to gullible reporters. So much so, that Barry felt sorry for Fred.

3) Yes, Jackie cheated his *** off, but he organized and "unionized" Aggie football. Why wasn't Aggie winning with all that talent? Too many players on too many different pay scales. If I'm the starter, but your mother is getting more money than my mother, I ain't happy. Jackie fixed that.

4) SMU holds the distinction of being the first school to buy a house for a player's mother. He cried when he told me that if he came to Texas, they would take away his mother's new house and fire her from her new job. The kid lasted at SMU less than six weeks, but we saw to it that "momma" got to keep her job and house.

39 Z cars from Warren Bankston on one team. Dickerson's Trans AM was picked up by a "friend" of Ron Meyer, but somewhere between Addicks and Sealy it inherited two suitcases.

There are plenty more stories of cars, insurance annuities, cash, airplane tickets.

Bottom line is, that I was with Fred during those days, I know what was and was not. I'll go toe to toe with any of those fish wrap merchants that peddled the **** pushed by DKR's buddies. I was the one sitting in the den with a blue chip LB when one of those ******** called and warned him that Akers was going to be fired and he wouldn't know who his coach would be. We had the advantage that his girlfriend (future wife) was already enrolled. The kid went elsewhere.

It was a dark time in our school's history, which left many angry and ours the most fractionalized program in the country. Mack Brown did the unimaginable by reuniting the vast majority of those, which I thought would be impossible.

That said, none of Fred's assistants asked us to cosign loans for a girlfriend's car or bet on games

 

So to summarize Sabre's first hand experience's with Fred and the reasons he was fed to the wolves in 1986:

He was a stand up guy that gave the better part of two decades to UT, who did not feel it incumbent upon himself to suck farts out of DKR's ***.

During the "greed is good" 1980's, when the outlaw programs from Cullen Blvd., to Norman, to the Htilltop, to Hooterville, were perfecting their craft, Fred didn't cheat.

He played defense. Great defense.

He wasn't a folksy guy who had survived the depression and the great War, nor was he the charismatic charmer from Tobacco Road. But like DKR and Mack, he would always remember your name.

When things were coming undone in 1986, he went to Deloss and told him that he would have to fire him, because he would not resign. Deloss sincerely thanked him for telling him that. Fred thought it only fair that Deloss know ahead of time. (Perhaps so a repeat of the Abe Lemons debacle wasn't repeated).

Leaving out the BMD, fanbase, Exes, newly formed Foundation squabbles, and bowl game record, Sabre, does that all about sum it up?

 

Sabre,

That's awesome information for you to put out here! I've mentioned you on other threads, wondering if (now that I know) what Fred went through, do all coaches go through. BMDs and DKR? (wow!) inhibiting recruiting efforts? Your story justifies (IMO) my theory that Texas doesn't do as well as the top 10 teams until everyone unites behind one coach, because they don't want the current coach to do well. And that's sad. Guess OU/Alabama/Clemson/Ohio State/etc are better at uniting for the greater good....which is winning football games....