Bevo's Roundup - A Quickie

Would love to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. The Regents gave Mack Brown permission to hire coordinators.

The University of Texas board of regents discussed possible candidates to become the Longhorn football team's new offensive and defensive coordinators and what it might cost to hire them in executive session on Friday.

In a specially called teleconference, the regents publicly authorized head coach Mack Brown and men's athletics director DeLoss Dodds to make the hires "consistent with the parameters" that were discussed in the closed-door session.

Dodds attended the meeting; Brown did not.

Mack's not talking.

After his football program sank in a Titanic of a season, the Longhorns captain hasn't spoken publicly in nearly a month. It's been 22 days since Brown addressed a room of reporters. That came on Thanksgiving night, minutes after the Longhorns put the finishing splotches on the worst season of his tenure with a 24-17 loss to Texas A&M.

The powers-that-be have absolute faith in Brown.

"Today we just made sure that we had whatever authorizations we had from the board to execute these contracts," Powers added. "That’s all that happened. They (Brown and Dodds) now have authorization to move forward."

While the fanbase panics, Brown stays calm and stoic.

If an empire crumbled last Saturday night, no one told the emperor. If a megacorporation went under, the CEO stayed off the ledge. And if Will Muschamp's sudden departure really marked the death knell for one of college football's best programs, Texas coach Mack Brown sure didn't act like it.

  There is actually a basketball game today. And one on Wednesday, too.

When a TV guy in Austin angling for a sound bite asked Barnes about returning to his home state, the coach said, "I don't have any plans set up for a reunion. If I see some people, fine. We're going to play a basketball game, and we're not going to deviate from what we do."

The Longhorns are in a difficult part of their schedule, Carolina today and at Michigan State on Wednesday.

The Horns have an advantage in the NC series.

Not many teams have a winning record against North Carolina but thanks to wins in each of the last three meetings, Texas is currently sporting a 3-2 series advantage.

The Longhorns have veteran leadership which has been able to harness the youthful talent on the roster at times. The result is a team that is getting it done at both ends of the floor, averaging 77.7 ppg, while allowing just 61.2. Sophomore Jordan Hamilton is starting to blossom and that isn't a good thing for the competition. Hamilton leads the team in scoring at 18.9 ppg, while grabbing nearly seven boards per outing (6.9). Senior Gary Johnson (11.7 ppg, 8.0 rpg) provides depth up front, as does freshman Tristan Thompson (11.3 ppg, 7.6 rpg). Yet another youngster, freshman Cory Joseph has proven to be both a scorer (11.0 ppg) and solid distributor (team-high 29 assists). Despite shooting a mere .349 from the field, Texas dominated the Ospreys last time out, holding North Florida to a .283 shooting clip, while hauling in an astounding 51 rebounds. Joseph led the way with 18 points, while Johnson posted a double-double of 17 points and 12 rebounds. Hamilton played just 18 minutes in the game, finishing with nine points.

Wonder why? They were so clever. Big 10÷2 Commish Jim Delany is reconsidering those stupid division names.

Jim Delany has spent more than two decades as commissioner of the Big Ten, overseeing two conference expansions and the formation of the Big Ten Network.

None of it prepared him for the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the conference's new division names.

Today is BYU's final game as a member of the Mountain West Conference.

  It's not like snow is a rare occurrence up there. You would think they could build a stadium in Minnesota that could withstand snow on the roof.