Mack Brown Tarheel Football: The Orange Slice Boogaloo

[SimkinsMan 4424]

Arthur Smith scares you to death.

[Jkwellborn 6769]

Yep…. Ricky Williams staying for his Senior season was a huge boost for Mack.   

Probably the biggest recruiting victory for Mack. That season is probably what got him started kicking ass.

[tbone_ 14210]

Probably the biggest recruiting victory for Mack. That season is probably what got him started kicking ass.

Well, yeah.

[RoyalBevo21 810]

2 hours ago, closetojumping said:

I am not sure what to make of what this thread has turned into in the aftermath of Mack Brown’s unceremonious firing in Chapel Hill, but it seems like there’s at least a vestige of a notion that this is also a North Carolina football thread? I don’t know. Anyway, on the chance that it is, I was amused to read that those idiots are trying to recruit Arthur Smith to the their next HC. I hope that happens. 

CDC is great, but for a machine as complicated as Texas athletics to truly hum, the support of the UT President and the BOR is paramount. The AD at Texas wields a lot of power, but it is not unlimited. An unsupportive and uninterested structure above the AD has served to our fandom’s detriment on multiple occasions. A hostile group above the AD at one point attempted to actively dismantle the program and did a great deal of damage in the process. 

Hartzell, Eltife and the current BOR working well in conjunction with CDC is a blessing and here’s hoping it continues as higher ups transition in the future. 

You make great points. Nebraska, CU, Miami, ND, hell, even Michigan and Ohio State, all benefitted from Texas talent while UT played with its food. It was brutal to read the top 100’s in the newspapers as a kid and see everyone leaving the state. 

While I am no great fan of Dodds, I do think you may be underselling his admin and business contributions as AD. Not taking away from you giving him some credit, but to build on it:

My understanding, from what I’ve read and been told by the elders, is that the dude revolutionized revenue generation within college athletic departments. The LHF was the first of its kind and became a model for others to follow.

Sponsorships and advertising in aggressive and new ways also drove change in the sport. This plus the LHF played major roles in making Texas the revenue juggernaut that it remains to this day.

His conversations with ND and conference commissioners helped plant the seeds for conference networks. I was at a gathering in which he spoke in the early 2000s and he talked of, at some point, the viability of going independent. The small group knew him well (I didn’t) and poo poo’d this take as silliness. He looked at us with a straight face and said that having our network channel changes all of that. This was years before the MWC Network or the Big 10 Network. It kind of haunts my memories of the past 20+ years to this day. 

Anyways, I’m not going to go into all of the obvious negatives that came along with those innovations, hopefully everyone can see and know them and realize that some of it is still with the department, but the guy does deserve credit as something of a pioneer, with all of the flaws that come with those types.  

See, this is good stuff. We need more of this around here.

Can you go in more depth on the bolded above?

I'm really interested to learn more about: 

1. Darrell Royal was only 52 years old when he stepped away. Did he leave on his own or was it a “please resign or we’ll fire you” 

2. Why was Fred Akers chosen to replace him? 
 

3. How the hell was Steve Patterson ever selected as AD?

4. Was hiring Charlie Strong a rogue move by the athletics department? (The BMDs didn’t support?) I know Red McCombs hated it.

[closetojumping 62917]

21 minutes ago, RoyalBevo21 said:

See, this is good stuff. We need more of this around here.

Can you go in more depth on the bolded above?

I'm really interested to learn more about: 

1. Darrell Royal was only 52 years old when he stepped away. Did he leave on his own or was it a “please resign or we’ll fire you” 

2. Why was Fred Akers chosen to replace him? 
 

3. How the hell was Steve Patterson ever selected as AD?

4. Was hiring Charlie Strong a rogue move by the athletics department? (The BMDs didn’t support?) I know Red McCombs hated it.

I was not alive when DKR was the HC at Texas. The black bolded part is reference to the academics resenting the acclaim of the football program under DKR. When he left the HC role, there were several power struggles in the aftermath, part of which was the academic side fucking with athletic department constantly, trying to descope it, disrupt it, suffocate it, you name it. These idiots didn’t realize the importance of athletics for higher application demand and quality of applicants. May those people rot in hell. Others will have to provide better details. 

1) Dude left on his own. Burned out and hated the cheating.  

2) Others would have to explain it. 

3) Patterson allegedly had a great interview and claimed he’d happily do the dirty work of cleaning house and reducing costs. He reported into a bad/clueless regime above him. Anyone who followed the Rockets, NBA or Trailblazers knew he was going to be a complete fucking disaster. 

4) The academic regime hid behind the utilization of a search firm to hire someone and they wanted it to be a black guy that didn’t cost much. Charlie Strong checked all of the boxes. That may bother folks, doesn’t matter. That is the truth of how they looked at that role for UT at the time. The boosters were fatigued from the Saban/Jamail/Brown debacle and let it happen.

Stick around and read and follow the recruiting board and you’ll find a ton of stories about the school, programs, personalities, rivals, players, coaches, boosters, etc.  

[closetohumping 17487]

5 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

I was not alive when DKR was the HC at Texas. The black bolded part is reference to the academics resenting the acclaim of the football program under DKR. When he left the HC role, there were several power struggles in the aftermath, part of which was the academic side fucking with athletic department constantly, trying to descope it, disrupt it, suffocate it, you name it. These idiots didn’t realize the importance of athletics for higher application demand and quality of applicants. May those people rot in hell. Others will have to provide better details. 

1) Dude left on his own. Burned out and hated the cheating.  

2) Others would have to explain it. 

3) Patterson allegedly had a great interview and claimed he’d happily do the dirty work of cleaning house and reducing costs. He reported into a bad/clueless regime above him. Anyone who followed the Rockets, NBA or Trailblazers knew he was going to be a complete fucking disaster. 

4) The academic regime hid behind the utilization of a search firm to hire someone and they wanted it to be a black guy that didn’t cost much. Charlie Strong checked all of the boxes. That may bother folks, doesn’t matter. That is the truth of how they looked at that role for UT at the time. The boosters were fatigued from the Saban/Jamail/Brown debacle and let it happen.

Stick around and read and follow the recruiting board and you’ll find a ton of stories about the school, programs, personalities, rivals, players, coaches, boosters, etc.  

regarding Charlie, I had read that Bill Powers was determined to hire an AA and that David Shaw said no.  Mack was allegedly pleased with the outcome.  

[RoyalBevo21 810]

8 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

I was not alive when DKR was the HC at Texas. The black bolded part is reference to the academics resenting the acclaim of the football program under DKR. When he left the HC role, there were several power struggles in the aftermath, part of which was the academic side fucking with athletic department constantly, trying to descope it, disrupt it, suffocate it, you name it. These idiots didn’t realize the importance of athletics for higher application demand and quality of applicants. May those people rot in hell. Others will have to provide better details. 

1) Dude left on his own. Burned out and hated the cheating.  

2) Others would have to explain it. 

3) Patterson allegedly had a great interview and claimed he’d happily do the dirty work of cleaning house and reducing costs. He reported into a bad/clueless regime above him. Anyone who followed the Rockets, NBA or Trailblazers knew he was going to be a complete fucking disaster. 

4) The academic regime hid behind the utilization of a search firm to hire someone and they wanted it to be a black guy that didn’t cost much. Charlie Strong checked all of the boxes. That may bother folks, doesn’t matter. That is the truth of how they looked at that role for UT at the time. The boosters were fatigued from the Saban/Jamail/Brown debacle and let it happen.

Stick around and read and follow the recruiting board and you’ll find a ton of stories about the school, programs, personalities, rivals, players, coaches, boosters, etc.  

Nice, I appreciate all the info. Admittedly, I haven’t actively followed recruiting since “Malikmas” 

[Nueces River Rat 5566]

37 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

I was not alive when DKR was the HC at Texas. The black bolded part is reference to the academics resenting the acclaim of the football program under DKR. When he left the HC role, there were several power struggles in the aftermath, part of which was the academic side fucking with athletic department constantly, trying to descope it, disrupt it, suffocate it, you name it. These idiots didn’t realize the importance of athletics for higher application demand and quality of applicants. May those people rot in hell. Others will have to provide better details. 

1) Dude left on his own. Burned out and hated the cheating.  

2) Others would have to explain it. 

3) Patterson allegedly had a great interview and claimed he’d happily do the dirty work of cleaning house and reducing costs. He reported into a bad/clueless regime above him. Anyone who followed the Rockets, NBA or Trailblazers knew he was going to be a complete fucking disaster. 

4) The academic regime hid behind the utilization of a search firm to hire someone and they wanted it to be a black guy that didn’t cost much. Charlie Strong checked all of the boxes. That may bother folks, doesn’t matter. That is the truth of how they looked at that role for UT at the time. The boosters were fatigued from the Saban/Jamail/Brown debacle and let it happen.

Stick around and read and follow the recruiting board and you’ll find a ton of stories about the school, programs, personalities, rivals, players, coaches, boosters, etc.  

Plus Charlie was the ESPN/sports media hype  pick for the next coach that deserved a shot at a blue blood type program.   He had a good year or two at Louisville that put him in that position much like Tom had a Cougar High who was also at the time an ESPN hype pick for the next big job.  

I can now say thankfully we didn’t bite a third time when Sark was hired.   But other than Urban Meyer and maybe Saban’s name coming up I can’t think of a coach from the mid majors or lower profile Power 5 that ESPN pushed as the next big hire. Credit to CDC for being deliberate when he hired Sark.   I had my doubts, but I pretty much glad those doubts were wrong.  

Edited 9 hours ago by Nueces River Rat

[pyrohornIII 4824]

2) Fred Akers, 1938–2020: A Remembrance – Texas Monthly

Quote

When Royal retired after the 1976 season, Texas fans wanted Mike Campbell, Royal’s longtime defensive coordinator, as the next coach. Not Akers. But some at Texas—notably Allan Shivers, chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, and former chairman Frank Erwin—favored a clean break from the past. Akers represented that, sort of. He was 38 and had just led the University of Wyoming to an 8–4 season, Western Athletic Conference Championship, and Fiesta Bowl appearance. Wyoming was not a destination job for a head coach with big dreams, but Akers made it just that. “You have to figure out what you’re going to sell to kids,” Akers said. “What we figured out is that if you’re an inner-city kid, say, from Chicago, and you come to Laramie for the first time, you’re seeing mountains and natural beauty you’ve never seen before. You wouldn’t believe how many kids would be sold on us when they saw the place.”

 

[RoyalBevo21 810]

1 hour ago, pyrohornIII said:

2) Fred Akers, 1938–2020: A Remembrance – Texas Monthly

 

What an interesting time in coaching. Looks like after Campbell wasn’t picked he just straight up retired. 
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Campbell_(American_football)

Edited 7 hours ago by RoyalBevo21