What will get you fired as UT's HC quicker than anything..

Record (highest national ranking)
11-1 (No. 1)
9-3 (No. 6)
9-3 (No. 2)
7-5 (No.2)
10-1-1 (No. 1)
9-3 (No. 7)
11-1 (No. 2)
7-4-1 (No. 1)
8-4 (No. 7)
5-6 (NR)

 

OK ... fine ... the 80s was a glorious time.

pass me some of what you are smoking, please.

 

I don't justify anything. I wasn't part of it. They didn't ask me. Why won't you discuss Mike Campbell ... is he not relevant to Aker's hiring?

I don't have the intimate knowledge of Eric Metcalf's issues you suppose to have ... you don't want to get me fired-up about the babying football players get for academics I don't care who was the coach. I have experience in being an unknowing lab TA for easy credit ... and Johnny Johnson sat there like a bullfrog ... with his sony walkman earphones. He wasn't even studying a playbook.

I didn't have a sony walkman.

Athletic scholarship for those who can run fast et al. Marvelous. But entitlement? nope. Earn it. Demo-do of some media production equipment. He couldn't be bothered with that ... "Lisa will take care of it."

 

All I can tell you about Fred Akers is that as a freshman in 1986, I sat in an empty student section watching an un-athletic, non-competitive team get beat by mediocre teams. I'd watched the program basically collapse after the '83 season as the top-shelf talent got thinner and thinner. Regardless of what back-room activity was going on (and I'm sure there was plenty of it), the product on the field had become brutally bad, and showed no sign of changing direction.

 

Those don't tell the story. We were ranked highly because we started off well and then collapsed. The lack of a quality tailback in an i-formation program (unless you count Terry Orr, who spent more time at fullback) or a QB that could stop throwing to the wrong team ensured that we collapsed down the stretch and essentially quit on the season.

Jackie Sherrill's cheating made the A&M losses at the end of the year worse, to be sure, but losses in minor bowls by teams that clearly didn't care about being there became stock in trade for Fred's teams.

 

Who else remembers Chuck Long?

 

I would have liked this, but I don't like this.

 

Didn't know that, or hadn't heard before. That is something that I've feared or felt is true today and why recruiting is different (and harder) today. That catch 22 in recruiting, hard to get them when they have no affinity for the program and hard to have affinity when the program struggles.

 

The only bowl game that the athletic department did NOT offer season ticket holders and Longhorn Foundation members the opportunity to purchase tickets. Attendance was maybe 2500.

That game was Chuck Long's finest moment. He "grew up" to be a cancer that MD Anderson couldn't cure.

 

There was no LHF when UT played in The Freedom Bowl.

 

Phil.

You are correct. It was formed not long after that game. Deloss and Craig Helwig made the presentation at the old Bavarian Garden on Feagin Street in Houston. I wrote the first check to them on the trunk of my company car in the rain after Deloss promised to upgrade study facilities and tutoring for the players.

I should have said "option holders".

 

I don't disagree at all that Akers' teams started to decline after 1983. But to deny that from 1977 to 1982, every year of that 5 year span at least Texas was among 4 or 5 teams every year that were considered in the MNC hunt ignores factual records. No misleading stats, just fact.

And as the fade turned to a 5-6 season --- pffftt!! YOU'RE FIRED!!

Now, it's, uh, well okay, 3 first, straight losing LOSING seasons and, well, he needs his own players.

And somehow in comparison some fans **** on Akers record but give Strong a 10 mile leash.

Doesn't wash.

 

BT ... hyperbole much?

As for me, my comments on Akers stand. 10 mile leash for Strong? That's a perception issue ... and as I've already stipulated; one of these days (after Strong is no longer the HC), we are going to learn just how bad it was and that 2016 was year two for all intents/purposes.

adhere to a narrative and ignore the reality ... whatever.

Charlie has made mistakes, to be sure. He may not be a 15 year coach at UT ... but I don't think it's reflective or righteous to berate the man's effort 2.5 years into it, especially given all the turmoil early on. He's been making changes ... something Mack refused to do and it resulted in his having to leave.

What doesn't wash is inflating Aker's position as you did. Texas was a national powerhouse and directly contributed to Aker's success early on ... it just DID. He couldn't sustain that.

 

The difference was that with the level of talent Akers was bringing in, there was no hope of him being successful. He was losing with his own players.

Also, Fred's issues didn't start with one bad season. He'd suffered two straight collapses and embarrassing blowouts to A&M. We hadn't been conditioned for that level of play yet by years of McWilliams and Mackovic. So it's a very different situation.