Texas’ Urban Meyer mess is another reason why Longhorns can’t catch Sooner Schooner
At least Urban Meyer didn’t tell Texas he doesn’t want the job because he wants to spend more time with his family.
Then the University of Texas would know their preferred head football coach was lying.
Meyer reportedly told Texas “Thanks, no” based on his documented health issues, which have been exacerbated by head coaching. And, given the rigors of the job, those concerns sound legitimate.
While flirting with Urban Meyer was justified, and it’s not as humiliating as Bevo’s pursuit of Nick Saban, this is another embarrassment for the University of Texas.
For the second time in less than a decade, UT has undercut its head football coach, and looks afool.
There are plenty of reasons why Texas can’t catch Oklahoma, but since OU dumped the late John Blake in 1998 you have not seen the Sooners pull stunts like these.
UT hired former TCU athletic Chris Del Conte to do in Austin what he did in Fort Worth. There are plenty of new facilities going up in and around Austin, but the football team remains a steaming pile of 8-win magic.
CDC had to try with Meyer. He was worth it.
Now UT has to figure out what it wants to do with a football coach it clearly no longer wants. Tom Herman will be the spouse who remains married to Texas because it’s “cheaper to keep him.”
Herman projects the image of your standard tough guy, macho, bad-a-- ball coach, but he’s also human. All of this has to hurt.
With an annual salary of $5.2 million a year, Herman is the second-highest paid employee on the state payroll in Texas. If he was fired today, he would be paid a buyout of just north of $15 million.
That is more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life, and, therefore, Herman will never be a sympathetic figure. Nor is anyone else in that position.
Herman knew when he took the job that along with a salary most can’t comprehend comes a public level of scrutiny, criticism and sometimes savage personal attacks, that your average 9-to-5er can’t fathom, either.
Texas will beat Kansas on Saturday, and with a victory in the Paycheck Protection Program Bowl the Horns will have an eight win season in this mess of an 11-game schedule. That’s assuming UT can actually get in its game at Kansas on Saturday.
While he has had his share of embarrassing public moments, flipping off the Longhorn Network cameras et al, our Tommy Boy has improved in his time in Austin. They will have a fourth straight winning season, and how he has handled the “Eyes of Texas” song controversy with his players is admirable.
The team is routinely “close,” but there is no “Almost” banner. Unless it’s at Kyle Field. (I am sorry, I am contractually obligated to use that until 2078.)
The Horns are not going to finish in the Top 10. They will not come close to the BcS + 2 Playoff. They will not win the Big 12 title. They will not make the Sooners Invitational, otherwise known as the Big 12 title game.
UT remains just as far behind Oklahoma today as it has for nearly 10 years.
The only topic with Oklahoma football is its inability to win a playoff game.
The only topic with Texas football is whether the head coach will return for a fifth season.
That is toxic for a coach, the staff and the team, and hinders efforts to recruit a kid to Austin.
Del Conte can’t publicly address this because to do so would set a terrible precedent. No AD should talk about a coach until after the season is complete.
If Herman returns, Del Conte will have some, not much, plausible deniability because no one officially has said a word about this.
Del Conte wanted this job for a reason, and while he inherited Herman this is his problem. To fix this will require all of Del Conte’s sales skills that are second only to maybe Jerry Jones.
With the Urban flirt out of the bag, not even Del Conte may be able to convince Texas, and Herman, that this marriage can do anything other than co-exist moving forward.
