Everyone gets outcoached/outoplayed, but how do they react? Texas football has been in a funk for 2 years now. How many good efforts have we seen vs how many weak ones? The ratio is better for Barnes than it is for Mack. And when the football team sucks but wins, we get pandering from MB, while when the basketball team sucks and wins, RB is pissed and lets us know about it.
I think this thread would look a lot different if it wasn't coming on the heals of the worst season in football in the Mack Brown era and what many think will be the best season in basketball.
I still fail to see how asking why the coaches are treated/perceived differently while having similar results makes me insecure ... Is it b/c I'm offering a different opinion to some blanket statements about Barnes creating Texas basketball and always having his teams prepared/inspired ? OK then ...
The problem with this whole line of reasoning is that you just can't compare the two. Basketball has more games and a much closer margin for error - it's a lot more common for a very good basketball team to lose to a very mediocre basketball team to begin with, adding in the fact that there are so many more teams out there with guys who can light you up on any given night. In hoops, you are going to have nights when you aren't shooting well, or when you don't get the calls, or you just have dead legs after a tough stretch of games. Because of the three-point shot, fouling, any number of other factors, you just can't look at a blown double-digit lead in hoops like you do in football. It's also harder to win a conference championship simply because there are so many more teams capable of playing at that level if only for that one weekend during the tournament. In addition, the very nature of the playoff season makes it harder to judge a coach's success than simply to say "he won his bowl game". I could go on and on, but the point is that you simply can't look at raw numbers wthout any context and say that a football coach outperformed a basketball coach, or vice versa.
For a lot of people, it boils down to this: How many coaches could have done what Mack Brown did with our football team? Given the resources, tradition, and talent available, how many coaches could have won 1 Big 12 title and 1 national title in 10 years? Likewise, how many coaches could have done what Barnes did here - 2 Big 12 titles and a Final Four appearance? I think most people would agree that the number of coaches who could have equaled Mack's success here is higher than the number of coaches who could have equaled Barnes' success.
BH, please read my above post. I think it does a decent job in summarizing what some feel. No, general treatment of players doesn't translate to more wins and I think we understand that. We beat Rice 60-0 and lose to OU 14-0. Mack would then tell us that we average 30 pts per game any criticism of Greg Davis and the players is baseless and suggesting there's a problem makes us ********. If you don't see why this pisses off the entire Texas fanbase then there's nothing more to say. Barnes doesn't treat us like this.
Both are good coaches but my vote goes to Barnes. One, it is all about expectations and at Texas the bar for football is much higher. I don't think most fan realistically expect a NCAA championship for Bball. Two, I see more improvement and progress on the basketball side and the opposite for football. Lastly, co-champs south divison means nothing. It is a bad made up title. Barnes has two conference championships vs 1 for Mac.
What I don't understand is why my thread of three weeks ago on this very same subject was moved from this board and this one gets to stay.
this is a great thread because it brings into stark reality that Barnes IS in fact a much better basketball coach than Mack Brown is a football coach. To deny it is comical. Thats why there is a comparison of the two at all. If Barnes sucked do you think he would have been mentioned? ha - You would think some of the no nonsense 'perform or sit' Barnes 'tell it like it is' mojo would have rubbed onto Mack by now, but no.
BH. I think your post is spot on. Both are great coaches. I really get tired of all the whiners on this board. That is why I hardly even read the On the Field board anymore. Our fan base went from absolutely LOVING Mack's attitude in 2004, 2005, and most of 2006 to doing nothing but bitching about it now. All you used to hear is "Mack is such a great guy, I'm proud to have him as our coach" and "Mack is doing things the right way, being a great coach and a great father figure to our players." Nothing has changed. The players still love him. He is still being a mentor. Has there ever been a more fickle group of fans than the Texas fan base? Last year people were talking about how he was having his best coaching job ever. Rightfully so. None of you that want to ***** seem to remember that though. The most ironic thing is, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if UT had scored 9 more points against the Ags. What would be talking about? We'd be talking about our latest trip to a BCS bowl. Everybody would be happy and praising Mack for his great coaching job overcoming diversity and injury. 9 points. Think about that for a second.
every coach in any sport has off days where he is "outcoached". this is where the similarities end. as others have stated, barnes addresses the issues head on. he demands accoutability in himself and his players. i love to see him chew out players in games. he's coaching them then and there. brown gets pissed off that people are pointing out the flaws and gets his pr team in full gear to remind just how good we have it. 10 wins, another bowl game, etc. and then he goes into full father mode protecting his players and coaches from criticism. most wouldn't mind this approach if tangible improvements are made. but all we see from the pandering is another year of lackluster performance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- The most ironic thing is, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if UT had scored 9 more points against the Ags. What would be talking about? We'd be talking about our latest trip to a BCS bowl. Everybody would be happy and praising Mack for his great coaching job overcoming diversity and injury. 9 points. Think about that for a second. ------------------------------------------------------------------- we are now comical. we are aggie. i can see this post in texags. "we were ONLY 9 points from a BCS bowl. fran is good coach. we only lost by 9 points." sad reality is, how many times have we said a version of that "if" statement? what will the if statement be next year? remind us what they were the years before vince.
All one must do is read today's article in the AAS to learn several reasons why RB is a better coach.
Mack is a good coach, but probably no better than 3d best on campus. Barnes has had more success, year in and year out. A final four in basketball is equivalent to a berth in the national championship game in football. I would put Sweeet Sixteens equivalent to conf champs in football, which puts you in the BCS. There is not much other than the admiration of your peers for a conf. champ. in basketball. There's really no way to "prove" any of this.
Agree that if you read today's Statesman article about Barnes... read that and you have no more questions. If the football program were coached with the attitude that Barnes brings, Brown would have a half dozen Big XII titles and more than one run at the national title. The football program spends September not paying attention to the details that Barnes cares so much about. Right now Brown is talking about "no positions are guaranteed." Why not talk like that IN SEPTEMBER!!! In August. In October. Hell, after any game where the players miss tackles, play out of position, drop levels of key fundamentals and concentration. Sports is a game of focused attention to details, coupled with passion. You can drop off in either category, and that's what coaches are for. To help a player learn to play at a high level at all times in all competitions. Here's the question: How many times have you been really disappointed after Horns football win -- because of the level of play? My answer: A lot of times in the past 10 years. Especially in September. And it was the failure to get really "Barnes Mad" about the play in those September games that led to the key losses in Big XII play that has kept Coach Brown and his teams out of Big XII titles. You get mad as hell when you are undefeated in September and fix every detail of fundamentals and attitude, and you'll get the edge it takes to beat OU and not get pushed around by the K-States and Aggies. But if you rest on your laurels and think you are hot **** just because you are 5-0 on Oct 1st, and can't see or care about all the missed fundamentals and poor passion of play, then you are going to miss the Big XII title game, a BCS bowl, and a top-5 "in-the-mix" scenario. You'll get your 9 or 10 wins by the end of bowl season, but if that's all you care about and don't mind playing below a high level, then so be it. Barnes is not satisfied with any old performance. I love Barnes' attitude that is coming out strong this year. Barnes knows what it takes to get the edge you need. And he knows that winning by 20 points does not mean you played well, because in that win you could be showing signs that you are doomed to losing ground later on. It always takes the football team suffering a big loss before they get serious about fundamentals. Lose to A&M for the second year in a row, and now all of a sudden practice is real serious going into a bowl game. Barnes is 10-0 and just grilled his team for 2.5 hours of tape and much scolding and instructing. That article should be must-reading by the entire athletic dept.
Mack after beating Ark St 21-13 that included a botched call that would have given them the ball late in the game... "we're 1-0" Rick Barnes after a 10-0 start ranked #4...
