Tom Herman Fired as UT Football Coach

1 minute ago, Wanker Bob said:

I get that it’s easy to criticize Texas but the realities of recruiting these days seem to me to necessitate moves like today’s. 
 

I know it bothers some that Texas fans understand that we have the resources to have really high expectations and do crazy things financially to try and meet those expectations, but that’s inherent to the university. We have rich tradition, we have access to fertile recruiting, we have good (improving) facilities, we have more money than God. We should make moves like today’s because we can. A lot of universities can’t afford to pursue their expectations as vigorously as we do.

Also, I’ve lurked here for a long time and all you ever post is negative stuff about Texas...if you are so upset by our fans why do you show up here? 

Tom would be crazy not to take our buyout money.  He’s the big winner here.  

6 minutes ago, Longhornlove said:

No, just a model

I'll still fap to her 

Strong cheated on his wife and lied about Wickline's role to try to scam Ok State out his buyout.

This........

 
This is interesting.
If I am remembering right didn't Saban tell Freshwater to go on to Ole Piss when he got the job,  we got this. 
Now he's keeping SK. 
I need help here,  did SK take over as interim OC and 'bama lose the next game?

Saban told Kiffin to get lost when he took the FAU job.

Sark came in and did well for us but Deshaun Watson did Deshaun Watson things.

14 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

The more I think it through the more I am. Tom Herman provides a valuable lesson that smug arrogance when combined with a reliance on gimmicky bullshit over a real work ethic, and a flair for the immature and immoral - that’s not a good combo. 

I don’t know...made him 20-25 million dollars and counting. 

2 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Saban told Kiffin to get lost when he took the FAU job.

Sark came in and did well for us but Deshaun Watson did Deshaun Watson things.

Anyone u worried about going with him? 

Edited January 2, 2021 by totallynotabuttpirate

1 minute ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Not sure about that. I heard he almost triggered his morals clause and they’re negotiating the buyout. 

I wasn’t counting the buyout 

15 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Hearing very good things about Sark from people who know him and about his problems of the past. Says CDC knows what he’s doing. 

I'll hope you're right, but why wouldn't those people then be rooting for his success? I'll let his actions speak for themselves, starting with staff hires and whatever the fuck the free agency of transfers looks like the next month or so.

1 minute ago, Nuthn2CHere said:

 

Also, I’ve lurked here for a long time and all you ever post is negative stuff about Texas...if you are so upset by our fans why do you show up here? 

He claims he is a British guy with just a passing interest in UT and American Football but seems really upset the administration and the boosters want to move on to another coach as if something similar has not already happened at other schools several times in the last few weeks.

I mean at least Gus won the SEC.

4 minutes ago, LongestHorn said:

Tom would be crazy not to take our buyout money.  He’s the big winner here.  

Gets to keep $35 million and his trophy silicone.

 

6 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Saban told Kiffin to get lost when he took the FAU job.

Sark came in and did well for us but Deshaun Watson did Deshaun Watson things.

That's right.  

Forgot about FAU.

Say what you will about Alabama being loaded with 5 stars, he had their offense running better than anyone else in the past with all those resources

1 hour ago, mdleast said:

Funny how I will suddenly be rooting more for Alabama in that game than I ever could have imagined possible.  Wait! is it still 2020?  Did I fall into a time warp?!?

December 33rd right now.

4 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

South Austin’s mom for OL coach is an enigma. Her lines are great at opening up holes but allow way too much penetration. 

Sounds like the Aggie football women’s clinic

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

I like this hire today a lot more than I liked Herman’s hiring on the day he was announced. 

All depends on who he hires as coordinators.  I was okay with Strong until he announced Shawn Watson. I was happy about Herman until he announced Beck and most of his uH staff

14 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

All I know about him as a man is he had a no guns policy that was a rather obvious rule, he was dumber than fuck, and he banged a booster’s wife. Not what I would define a solid man. Fuck him, and fuck Herman. 

Yeah the guns rule is one of those tricky ones.  You don’t think you even need to say it, but

7 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

Say what you will about Alabama being loaded with 5 stars, he had their offense running better than anyone else in the past with all those resources

Wasn't Mac Jones a 3 star? He's a Heisman finalist under 1 year with Sark. 

Too bad Herman didn’t last. He just figured out the handshake.  

Covid was his ultimate demise since he was no longer allowed to smooch his players

2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Yeah the guns rule is one of those tricky ones.  You don’t think you even need to say it, but

What was the no guns policy?  Was it no guns?  Like you can’t hunt?  Or no doing stupid and illegal shit with guns?

Anyone u worried about going with him? 

Maybe Flood?

It sucks but it is what it is. The number of coaches Bama has lost over the last 14 years could probably fill up 3 to 4 coaching staffs. Saban just plugs in the next. The real problem is when no other team wants your coaches.

 

Tom Herman....

 

Sarkisian will never be an Urban Meyer, but he can't possibly be any worse than Herman. Can he bring Bama's OL coach with him?

19 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

All I know about him as a man is he had a no guns policy that was a rather obvious rule, he was dumber than fuck, and he banged a booster’s wife. Not what I would define a solid man. Fuck him, and fuck Herman. 

The no guns policy was one of his biggest failings as a head coach. We have plenty of data pointing to guns around the locker room resulting in national championship caliber teams. Just look at OU under Switzer, the Mack glory years, UF under Urban. 

Charlie should have known better. 

5 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Wasn't Mac Jones a 3 star? He's a Heisman finalist under 1 year with Sark. 

Google is your friend.

But yes. https://247sports.com/Player/Mac-Jones-80433/

One thing I know is that I haven't seen Alabama play down to their opponent's talent.  They beat the people they are supposed to beat, and usually beat the rest of them as well.  Tom could be 50/50 against Lamar.

I love this hire Bc the aggy Houston sports media hates it. 

The national media can go fuck off with Herman as well.  Getting tired of the, "Mack Brown was winning with double-digit win totals and was forced out" and "Charlie Strong only got a couple of years".  

 

39 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

CDC is a fucking idiot until proven otherwise. 

Stupid post is stupid.

1 minute ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

The national media can go fuck off with Herman as well.  Getting tired of the, "Mack Brown was winning with double-digit win totals and was forced out" and "Charlie Strong only got a couple of years".  

Just got “Mack Brown was 10-4 against A&M but that was back when Texas won big games.”  Totally unnecessary gig.  
 

Galloway clearly has a festering sore in his asshole over Charlie Strong too. No mention that the guy was a total disaster at USF too.  Just that we only gave him “ a couple of years.”  
 

Fuck ESPN in the ass with a rusty chainsaw.  Can’t wait for Disney to sell that shit smear. 

44 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Hearing very good things about Sark from people who know him and about his problems of the past. Says CDC knows what he’s doing. 

Doing what Hartzell and Eltife tell him

13 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Maybe Flood?

It sucks but it is what it is. The number of coaches Bama has lost over the last 14 years could probably fill up 3 to 4 coaching staffs. Saban just plugs in the next. The real problem is when no other team wants your coaches.

Yea, losing assistants don't make a shit as long as Saban is there. 

10 minutes ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

The national media can go fuck off with Herman as well.  Getting tired of the, "Mack Brown was winning with double-digit win totals and was forced out" and "Charlie Strong only got a couple of years".  

Yeah, ESPN is full of shit. 

8 minutes ago, Longboard Horn said:

 

Those must be those truths Brando was talking about 

I wonder if Galloway thinks Ohio St should have kept John Cooper. 

6 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Galloway clearly has a festering sore in his asshole over Charlie Strong too. No mention that the guy was a total disaster at USF too.  Just that we only gave him “ a couple of years.”  

Exactly.

Strong at Texas - 16-21

Strong at USF - 21-16

He was 5 games better at USF than he was at Texas, yet USF fired him after the same number of games but Texas is the shitty employer for having such high, unrealistic expectations.  Fuck him.

 

What is the difficult truth?

it has to do with fitlump

The no guns policy was one of his biggest failings as a head coach. We have plenty of data pointing to guns around the locker room resulting in national championship caliber teams. Just look at OU under Switzer, the Mack glory years, UF under Urban. 
Charlie should have known better. 

Royal. dumbass

UT fans are waaaay more down on this hire than cfb at large, I have to say

If Urban was never in the equation then the fan base would have been more excited...but not elated like an Urban hire would have been.

Is this thread going to become the Tom Herman destination thread? 

27 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Yeah, I wonder who’s more responsible for Alabama handling their business. Sark or Saban?  Christ dude. 

Right, and there's no way Sark picked up any of that while there, huh.

4 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Is this thread going to become the Tom Herman destination thread? 

Alabama offensive analyst 

29 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Yeah, I wonder who’s more responsible for Alabama handling their business. Sark or Saban?  Christ dude. 

Give me an offensive minded version of Kirby Smart with P5 coaching experience any day 

1 minute ago, Js1 said:

Alabama offensive analyst 

Well thats where Charlie Strong ultimately ended up.

Max Olson: Tom Herman knew what made the Texas job a monster, but he couldn’t conquer it

Quote

On the day of Tom Herman’s arrival in Austin, Texas, he preached about the almighty importance of alignment. This was the No. 1 principle he picked up from his three years working for Urban Meyer at Ohio State: “You have to be aligned in everything that you do.” Everyone has to be fully committed to the same plan and purpose. Herman believed he had a championship blueprint and took the job because he trusted Texas’ administration was fully committed to supporting it.

But Herman’s four-year tenure as head coach, which ended abruptly with his firing on Saturday morning, proved that winning at the highest level is the only force that ever gets the BBs back in the box at Texas. Herman has been on the verge of doing so for three years, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to make good on championship expectations. So Texas is making a bold bet that another coach — Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian — is better suited to finish the job.

The Herman era ends in remarkably awkward fashion after a failed coup that then necessitated a real one. Athletic director Chris Del Conte and Texas leadership pursued and missed out on hiring Meyer before the Longhorns’ season had even ended. Del Conte then had to put out a weak statement of support for Herman on Dec. 12 while quietly regrouping to start a coaching search. The AD told reporters Herman was returning in 2021. His stint in this new year lasted one day.

Herman had to know how this was actually going to end. And maybe he did, because he made little effort to publicly campaign for himself at the end of the regular season or after winning the Alamo Bowl and make the argument why he’s still the right man for the job. The timing might seem like a surprise, but the outcome is not. Once Texas’ leadership decided to go after Meyer, reconciliation was never going to be possible.

That’s a uniquely personal level of betrayal if you recognize how Meyer and Herman feel about each other, though that’s not really the point. Texas shooting its shot on Meyer guaranteed Herman would be a lame duck coach in 2021, no matter how you try to spin it and no matter how much talent the Longhorns had coming back. Getting back to recruiting at a top-10 level was going to be impossible, because why would any elite recruit believe Herman would be there for five more years? Keeping Herman would’ve made for a long, uncomfortable offseason that led to a wasted year that would only set the program back longer.

So from that standpoint, this is not such a bad deal for Herman. He walks away $15 million richer. He can walk away saying a 7-3 record and third-place finish in the Big 12 is defensible — because it is — considering all the challenges that came with playing in this unprecedented year. He can walk away saying a 25-12 record in his final three seasons was proof of progress. But hopefully he walks away wiser for this experience, too.

This outcome is in many ways the result of an important miscalculation made from Day 1: Herman believed he would win big and that would be enough to keep everybody aligned. He knew how things worked at Texas. He’d been a graduate assistant under Mack Brown. He saw exactly what made Brown so effective and capable of enduring for 16 years in this high-pressure job. And yet, Herman didn’t worry enough about collecting allies. He did things his way, always figuring he’d be in charge a long time.

The problem is when expectations aren’t met at a place like Texas, who’s in your corner and fighting for you? Herman liked to say he only cared about the opinions of three constituencies: his family, his team and his bosses. “As long as those three constituencies hold me in decent regard, I feel like I’m doing a good job,” he said. More than that, he privately vowed he never wanted to let this job change him. He told his small inner circle that if they ever felt he’d changed, they should slap him in the face. Because he knew this job was a monster. He could not slay the monster.

Early in his tenure, Herman had a message he repeated often: Winning is really hard. The Herman era is over in part because he made winning at Texas look really hard. He arrived after Charlie Strong’s three consecutive losing seasons. He took the Longhorns from bad to good, and what they accomplished in 2018 inspired optimism. When they won 10 games, defeated Oklahoma, played for a Big 12 title and upset Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, Herman argued they overachieved relative to where they actually were as a program. He was right. But ever since Sam Ehlinger proudly declared, “We’re baaaaaack,” Texas has had to play up to top-10 expectations. In 2019 and 2020, the Longhorns were talented enough but not quite good enough.

The confounding issue of Texas beating Texas never really went away even as it stockpiled blue-chip talent and as those players gained experience. That trend, an inability to get out of its own way and achieve real consistency, was one Herman could not break. How much was he to blame for it? It’s impossible to truly say. But that’s another key reason why the situation reached this point. Del Conte, Texas’ administration and Texas’ fan base had seen it far too many times.

Texas played in 27 games decided by one-score margins under Herman and went 14-13 in those games. No Power 5 program played more one-score games during this four-year run. Sixteen of those games were against unranked opponents. The Longhorns were a top-25 team going into 19 of these games and went 10-9. A ranked Texas team lost to an unranked opponent seven times under Herman. Again, nobody has done this more in the past four years. But it was a unique form of self-destruction, not extremely embarrassing but always intensely frustrating. Herman never once lost a game at Texas by 20 or more points, but he only won three Big 12 games by more than 20.

The 2020 season could’ve been the big year if only Texas hadn’t squandered 2019 so much that Herman had to replace most of his coaching staff. It was always curious that Del Conte said “you get a chance to do that one time” in regards to retooling the staff. But the AD backed Herman with multi-year contracts for those assistants, which is why it could cost as much as $10 million to buy out Herman’s staff. Although Herman hired quality coordinators and a respectable staff that players seemed to embrace, all those changes only made it more difficult for this team to play with week-to-week consistency in a season in which it had College Football Playoff ambitions.

Herman bet big on 2020, on the chances of pulling off a special season that made up for the close losses, the staff changes, the excuses and errors. Had the Longhorns made good on their goals, it would’ve been perfectly timed to keep Texas rolling in recruiting with its brand-new football facility opening in 2021. Herman can admit he’s been prone to hyperbole during his tenure, and calling his shot on 2020 made sense in February and early March. But when everything changed with the coronavirus pandemic, he didn’t reel in expectations. He doubled down in telling everyone that they had long had 2020 circled.

This team, his most talented one yet on paper, played in six games decided by one-score margins, went to overtime in three of those games and went 3-3 in them. Herman proved at Houston and Texas that he can be very successful as an underdog. But for the Longhorns, playing the role of frontrunner was too difficult. Only once under Herman did Texas figure out a way to win more than three games in a row. Once this year’s team fell out of the Big 12 title race by losing to Iowa State, it suddenly started playing its best football against Kansas State (69-31) and Colorado (55-23). Only when there were no stakes did you see the true upside of the 2020 team. And that’s a problem.

Herman and his staff built elite recruiting classes in 2018 and 2019 and did a great job of retaining that talent. They got the most they possibly could out of Ehlinger’s 2017 transition class. But their recruiting over the past year indicated that the elite in-state recruits weren’t buying Texas’ long-term direction. The recruits they lost and missed on in recent months — like Quinn Ewers (Ohio State), the Brockermeyer brothers and Jalen Milroe (Alabama) and Billy Bowman (Oklahoma) — all went places where they knew they could contend for national titles. Texas’ 2021 class ranks No. 17 nationally. One thing that’s been a constant through all seasons, good or disappointing — for Brown, Strong and Herman — was elite-level recruiting. If you make recruiting to Texas look hard, you’re in trouble.

There are plenty of excuses that can be made for all of this. Herman can reasonably blame all the unforeseeable obstacles of 2020 for most of this team’s troubles. But by the end of this season, he eventually understood all that context he could provide would probably be useless. When asked in early December why this Texas team didn’t thrive as planned, Herman replied, “I think any answer I give you right now is going to come across as an excuse.”

In the end, this coaching change also came down to trust. This fall’s “The Eyes of Texas” saga was undeniably a turning point. That was a rallying point for boosters fed up with Herman, and it created a wild moment of palace intrigue. The imagery of Ehlinger standing alone in the Cotton Bowl throwing up the horns after a loss to Oklahoma was a massive problem, and both Herman and Del Conte tried to defuse the matter while hoping to avoid the blame. The rift between head coach and AD was clear. The pressure on Herman to win out and the pressure on Del Conte to go find the next coach became extreme. It was obvious Del Conte tried to publicly distance himself from defending Herman, and now we know why.

It’s important to note that Herman stood up for and marched with his players this summer as they reckoned with social justice issues. He sided with them in the controversy over “The Eyes of Texas.” He did try hard to say and do the right things in 2020. But for many frustrated fans and supporters, his tenure will also be remembered for the viral moments of immaturity in his first three years on the job: mocking Drew Lock, running at Mike Gundy, flipping middle fingers to Longhorn Network cameras.

Del Conte expects Texas to be top-10 in every sport and gives his coaches the resources to get there. Herman’s teams had a combined record of 3-4 after reaching the top 10 during his tenure. They just never handled success all that well. That’s the objective for his successor. All things considered, Texas did arguably make the right hire in 2016. The rising young leader at Houston checked all the boxes of a desirable Texas head coach. But he was not Del Conte’s hire. And now the Longhorns are signing up for another offseason of upheaval because the AD believes he’s found a superior option.

The only thing that can ever fix Texas is more winning. The politicians, million-dollar boosters and regents who take everything they read on message boards as gospel aren’t going away. External perception can be impossible to control or correct. The only thing that earns respect and loyalty is winning a ton of football games. Brown knew how to operate this program better than anyone and make everybody connected to Longhorn football feel important. But winning nine to 11 games a year still wasn’t totally satisfactory until he finally went all the way in 2005. It’s easy now to appreciate how Brown mastered this dynamic, but he also established an expectation about the political elements of this job and managing one’s approval rating that his successors have struggled to uphold.

Texas football can be a Death Star, the evil empire that everyone detests and fears. It has all the resources and advantages necessary to build something dominant. But over the last decade, that analogy is fitting in a different sense: It’s still not fully functional and can easily be blown up by design flaws, oversights and hubris.

 

TLDR Version

 

8 minutes ago, satyanash said:

Max Olson: Tom Herman knew what made the Texas job a monster, but he couldn’t conquer it

 

Max with a perfectly reasonable, clear-eyed, thorough analysis here. He is a national guy but knows the Longhorn program well.