Mack Brown denies to 247Sports that he is resigning

There's a certain cadence to retirement songs with the Texas Longhorns recently -- there's the report before the official announcement, the denials from the principals, and then the official announcement.

Welcome to the denial stage of the process, the most irritating and worthless part of it all!

After the Orangebloods report broke early Tuesday afternoon that head coach Mack Brown will step down this week, the originator of the 48 hours report that immediately preceded Chip Brown going all-in with Brown's resignation, Horns247, actually spoke with Brown, who is in Florida recruiting running back Dalvin Cook, currently a Florida pledge who is expected to flip his commitment to Florida State at some point before Signing Day.

Brown told Bobby Burton that he hadn't seen the article before offering the following statement:

"I'm in Florida recruiting. If I had decided to step down I sure wouldn't be killing myself down here. I have not decided to step down."

The quote from Brown about killing himself doing his job didn't go over so well:

Just got this text from a college coach: "Great quote by Mack 'killing himself"..That's what other people call 'working'"

— Bruce Feldman (@BFeldmanCBS) December 10, 2013

Indeed.

So not only is the same process that happened with the retirement of former athletic director DeLoss Dodds repeating itself-- report, denial, announcement -- it's also worth pointing out here that Brown really doesn't like hates Chip Brown and probably agreed to communicate with Burton in an attempt to damage Browns' credibility as much as to merely deny the report.

There's also a conspiracy theory going around that the leak to Chip Brown was designed to accelerate the process and help force a change by the administration:

Yep > RT @engeljen: If Mack's recruiting in Florida, as reported by others, this leak was planted internally in hope of pushing a change.

— Jimmy Burch (@Jimmy_Burch) December 10, 2013

Conspiracy theories exist by definition because of a lack of information.

In this case, that lack of information is about what's actually going on behind the scenes -- there's been a meeting between new athletic director Steve Patterson and Mack Brown that was described as "positive and productive" by a source likely pushing the university's agenda.

But there may not have actually been the conversation between whatever powers are making the call and Brown that he's done, which would suggest that Chip Brown's report is on rather thin footing.

Tweets like this, for instance:

Several top UT officials are caught off guard by report of Mack Brown stepping down. They all say its wrong. @statesman

— Brian Davis (@BDavisAAS) December 10, 2013

As much as Chip Brown still receives criticism for his strongly-worded comments about Texas A&M not leaving for the SEC, he did break the DeLoss Dodds retirement story. And he's putting his reputation on the line in a much more significant way in this case -- he'll have little credibility remaining if Brown does indeed come back for another season.

Given that Chip Brown has been around the business long enough to understand the stakes here, as well as the modus operandi of the university in previous situations, Chip Brown's report seems more credible than the denials coming from Mack Brown and the school -- none of that reasoning should exactly come as a surprise by this point.

So can we maybe just fast-forward past all the denials and get to the part where Brown actually announces his resignation?

Thanks,

Texas football fans