Texas' Mack Brown: Elite Football Coach or Lucky CEO of a Loaded Program?
Brown is old-school, charming, hands-off. His hellacious motivational rants are notably rare, and are directed, more often than not, at referees or other coaches rather than players.
But is he also just enormously lucky? Lucky in a way that excludes him from the more outstanding coaches of the game?
Is winning the only thing making Mack Brown a good coach? Or do the Longhorns win because he coaches?
8 months ago
burntorangehorn
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Bleacher Report houses the biggest collection of morons this side of an A&M message board.
Not even worth reading to get offended about.
I posted it because I thought the article was actually decent
I don’t think BR is normally very good at all, but that article wasn’t bad.
by burntorangehorn on Dec 18, 2009 3:51 PM CST up reply actions
I thought it was an excellent article
Thank you.
"Know your enemy, and know yourself, and victory will be yours in 100 battles" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
by SpiritOfTheFedora on Dec 19, 2009 8:09 AM CST up reply actions
completely agree
"We'll be baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!"
by greenspointexas on Dec 18, 2009 10:52 PM CST up reply actions
Wish I had a tool to prevent linkage over to them
90% of the time when someone posts something because it’s shockingly inane, it’s Bleacher Report.
You ain't hurt.
Completely disagree
at the risk of being banned of course :)
If anyone bothered to read the article it was actually very positive and somewhat insightful. Well laid out and made some good points positive to Mack, the first bullet being a prime example:
Openness is Intelligence
Mack is the best CEO around but being human he has weaknesses. The article points out a couple of Mack’s weaknesses, namely OOS recruiting and impatience when doling out scholarships. The questions in the title were rhetorical questions.
I always try to get a view from the outside provided it’s reasonable. It helps avoid some of the pitfalls associated with Groupthink, namely that you don’t know when things are crashing down until it’s too late (see recent economic crisis).
"Know your enemy, and know yourself, and victory will be yours in 100 battles" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
by SpiritOfTheFedora on Dec 19, 2009 8:08 AM CST up reply actions
...also see Big Game Bob Goes 7-5
It is irritating when people discount something because it states any negatives about us. The inaccuracies (VY being a senior and Scott’s name) were glaring but trivial.
"Know your enemy, and know yourself, and victory will be yours in 100 battles" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
by SpiritOfTheFedora on Dec 19, 2009 9:02 AM CST up reply actions
I think...
Mack presides over an elite program more than he is a great strategist or motivator. But, personally, I view that as being an equal accomplishment.
Part of maintaining an elite status for a program is avoiding economic, academic, and media catastrophes. Some guys are better “coaches” (in a traditional sense), but always run the risk of mismanaging a high-pressure, high-profile program. Mack runs a program with elite potential, maintains its talent, navigates it around potential pitfalls, and diminishes risk as much as possible. This, I think, accounts for his steady and consistent success, as opposed to someone like, say, Pete Carroll, who has bursts of more intense success, but balanced by occasional downturns and scandals.
In a sense, Mack is maybe the most modern coach around. Pure economics.
his consistency is unmatched
Bob Stoops, the supposed superior coach has two 5-loss seasons to his name. So Stoops may have great highs but when the wheels fall off, its a catastrophe. Contrast that with Mack’s “down/rebuilding” seasons which all look like 10-3. He’s a fantastic game manager in close games (lets give him a pass on the nebraska game) and he doesnt lose his cool with players or fans.
How does Mr. Bleacher Report
think Texas got, to use his word, “loaded”? . . . Funny, we weren’t loaded when McWilliams and Mackovic were the HC.
My thoughts exactly
Lived through both of them…
I concur
We didn’t have this level of talent when McWilliams and Mackovic were on campus. Those were dark days for us students who were there. I mean we had a starting WR named Cosmo for heaven’s sake!
by TexasGarcia37 on Dec 18, 2009 8:44 PM CST up reply actions
My answer to the thread title:
Mack is both a good coach and a great CEO, both over the highest-potential program in the country.
by burntorangehorn on Dec 18, 2009 5:31 PM CST up reply actions
DeLoss Dodds & Mack Brown...
Have built a fortress and deserve a huge amount of credit for what is now developing into the premier NCAA Football Program in the nation. It has taken Mack 10 years to get to this level, but we must stop and give credit where credit is due. I don’t know of any Head Coach who works harder than Mack does. Running a team is one thing, but leading a dynasty is quite another. Look at the work ethic modeled by Mack and we can see how he has become so successful. We are now having elite recruits contacting us late in the race to come and be a Longhorn. Remember when we hoped and prayed for a 5 star to come for a visit?
Mack is constantly evaluating and seeking ways to improve and get better and for anyone to suggest he’s merely lucky or has inherited a loaded program is just flat out ignorant to his career development.
I think it was Matt Millen who made the comment while in the booth for the KU game that Texas has the best recruiting base in the country. “They can just go out and say I want 1 of those and 2 of these”. That doesn’t just happen on it’s own. Mack has rewritten the book on recruiting and as Pete Carroll has proven, top recruits don’t gauranty victories. You still have to coach them, teach them, and bring them together as a unit.
Let them call Mack lucky. They just don’t realize it’s us who are lucky to have Mack Brown.
When I hear this stuff....
… I always remember what my grandfather told me. “envy breeds contempt.” I think Mack knows the fans and players love him, and to borrow a line from T.O.’s former PR person The University has given him 5 million reasons a year to show its love. All except maybe the faculty, but I refer back to my grand dad on that one. Who cares about everyone else. We are the lucky ones. We are lucky to have him.
....something about the union of preparation and opportunity comes to mind.
"We don't freestyle Texas Fight, big boy." - Coach Brown
A union of preparation, opportunity...
…and capitalizing on both.
by burntorangehorn on Dec 19, 2009 7:18 PM CST up reply actions
I never read Bleacher Report...
so I can’t comment on its usual practices. It’s tough to give this author much credence, though, when he writes that Vince Young led the NCAA in passing efficiency his senior year and that Texas got burned in a last-minute defection by a high-profile recruit named Charles Scott.
+1 , , , I found ab out 5 other instances where
he was factually wrong (like the date of the USC game, and Colt not being able to read the option the way Vince did — when the difference is size and speed, not the read).
It is a good article in many ways. But as I posted under the article, when you offer wrong facts, your credibility flies away faster than Goodwin on that KO return against Aggie. Also, I thought it was pretty foolish to dig up the Jessie issue as evidence of bad coaching. Esp. since the final in that game was 52-34.
He's barely inaccurate in the claim on Vince
VY was actually a close second to Rudy Carpenter, who just barely qualified after taking over for the injured guy (Sam Keller, I think?), and of course VY was a RS-junior, not a senior.
by burntorangehorn on Dec 19, 2009 7:19 PM CST up reply actions
Barely inaccurate?
To write that Vince had a senior year at UT is not what I’d call "barely inaccurate." That’s a significant error, even for a casual blogger, and it impugns the writer’s credibility.
Why is that a significant error?
It was his last season at UT. The vast majority of players’ final seasons is as seniors. That’s not a “significant error” by any stretch, and in fact, it was his fourth season at UT. I wouldn’t consider that a credibility-undermining issue.
Fact is, most articles you read in the paper have errors MUCH larger than that, until such time as fact-checkers and copy-editors get their hands on them. I’m not sure whom you consider to be a great sports journalist these days, but chances are he has a lot of errors that other people correct for him. This writer did not have such luxuries, of course, yet you’re holding him to the same standard as you would an ESPN writer.
by burntorangehorn on Dec 19, 2009 9:53 PM CST up reply actions
No, I'm not holding him to the standard of accuracy...
that I would a professional sports writer. I said, and meant, that I was assessing him as a casual blogger.
As casual observers on sports websites, we all occasionally make factual errors in our writing, and I don’t fault the small ones. But this isn’t a small error in the context of this story. The author here didn’t just toss this erroneous "fact" out in a comment on an unrelated thread somewhere, which wouldn’t be worth remarking on. This guy was writing a rather lengthy piece that focused primarily on Mack Brown and UT, and Vince Young played an undeniably large role (arguably the largest single role of any player) in Mack’s tenure. Given that context, to be unaware of a basic fact about a major figure in your story does seem to me to be less than diligent work. And, in my opinion, it undermines the writer’s credibility.
Now, if you think it’s a small error given the context of the statement, then we have nowhere else to take this discussion. We just disagree.
Not one thing in that article hinged on whether Vince played three or four seasons
So I consider the mistake a rather unimportant one as far as the overall article’s quality.
by burntorangehorn on Dec 20, 2009 10:34 PM CST up reply actions
I never mentioned the article's overall quality
Your point is irrelevant. The author may have, for example, written that Vince Young is 6’0" tall and runs a 4.3 forty. Neither of these errors impacts the question of whether Mack Brown is a good coach or not, but they’re the types of things one would reasonably expect anyone even passably conversant about Vince Young to know are false.
And while the article’s main thrust may or may not hinge on the errors he did make, the author’s credibility certainly does.
Let me make this as patent as I can: Vince Young was among the most well-recognized college athletes of the last decade. This author was writing about the team and coach for whom Vince played, and for whom he won a national championship. And this writer wasn’t even aware that Vince Young declared early for the draft? I for one would consider that to be basic information about the guy (in fact, it’s pretty much common knowledge for anyone who even casually follows either the Horns or the Titans). And when you can’t get your basic facts straight, your credibility suffers.
Making a mountain out of a molehill, my friend
But it’s your perjo…preroga…right.
by burntorangehorn on Dec 21, 2009 8:21 AM CST up reply actions
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