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There won't be any more Mack the Nice at Texas
By Jimmy Burch
jburch@ star-telegram.com
AUSTIN -- Mack Brown talks the talk. The Texas football coach has declared himself guilty of contributing to an environment of arrogance and entitlement that helped sink the team's 2010 season.
Brown, 59, said he set a poor leadership example by spending too much time "pouting" in the wake of a 37-21 loss to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game that capped the 2009 season.
"I thought when you won a national championship, you might have an entitlement [issue] and a down year," Brown said during a recent interview. "I didn't know when you lost it that it could happen then, too. I thought we'd be more motivated after losing. But I wasn't. I was down."
That body language, he said, transferred to players and laid the foundation for a substandard work ethic and a lack of on-field leadership that culminated in a 5-7 record for a team coming off a 13-1 season.
Brown has vowed to make the necessary changes to right the ship in 2011. That's the easy part: saying the words. The tough part will be following through for a coach whose $5 million salary translated to $1 million per win in 2010 -- the highest cost-per-victory ratio in the Big 12.
Simply put, Mack the Nice must walk the walk. He must stop being an enabler. He must become more of a kick-butt disciplinarian, with help from six new assistant coaches and a first-year conditioning coach, during off-season workouts and team meetings.
Brown must continue to channel his inner Bob Stoops or Vince Lombardi throughout spring drills, which begin Feb. 24, and into the 2011 season. If not, the entitlement issues that plague Texas -- a school awash in top-shelf facilities and, coming in September, its own TV network -- will only resurface. It's part of the challenge of coaching at an elite program.
Every February, the Longhorns load their recruiting plate with four-star and five-star prospects. Most of the signees never have had to fight for playing time or attention during their football careers because they've always been the biggest, fastest and strongest in their school for 18 years.
Once in college, the talent gap disappears because every school signs quality athletes. Teams that succeed at the highest levels in college football push themselves to do so, even if that means turning a boatload of three-star prospects into five-star diamonds, as TCU or Boise State does.
Texas has been at its best under Brown when its top players and team leaders also were the team's hardest workers. Quarterbacks Vince Young and Colt McCoy leap to mind.
With those guys gone, what happened last season? After posting 12 consecutive winning records, Brown said he got the idea that "because we're Texas and we'd won so much, we're just going to win... and you can't think that."
After falling to Alabama in the BCS title game, Brown said: "I just pouted for a while. And when you're pouting at 13-1, that's pretty stupid."
No argument here. Frankly, I can't see Stoops -- who has won seven Big 12 championships in 12 seasons at Oklahoma -- or Lombardi, the late Green Bay Packers legend, pouting under any circumstances. Or admitting it afterward.
But every coach is different. And Brown, without question, is capable of turning up the internal heat on his players in a quest for more production.
A coach does not average 10-plus wins for 14 consecutive seasons, as Brown managed at Texas and North Carolina (1996-2009), without pushing the proper buttons to motivate players the majority of the time.
The 2010 season for Brown marked a major swing-and-miss in the motivation department. So it's time for Brown to unleash some Stoops on his troops -- isn't that ironic? -- until he can find a player or group of players who will do it for him. Entitlement issues start at the top and must disappear at the top to be eradicated completely.
That means making all jobs open during spring drills, as Brown insists will be the case, rather than paying lip service to the idea. That means convincing 2011 signees and the next wave of recruits they still have much to prove after arriving on campus.
Brown acknowledged Texas has struggled to drive home that second point with recent recruits, which factors into the entitlement mind-set. He didn't name names but prime candidates include tailback Chris Whaley (2009 signee with zero career carries and weight issues) and three defensive tackles from 2010 (Taylor Bible, Ashton Dorsey, De'Aires Cotton) who combined for two tackles last season -- both by Dorsey.
"Last year, a couple of freshmen misunderstood us and thought we said, 'You're going to play,'" Brown said, without naming names. "What they have to understand is, you're going to play if you're good enough and ready to play. You're not going to play just because you show up and you have stars next to your name [from recruiting services]. I think that is the thing we have to do a better job of."
The problem, Brown said, rests with signees who skate on their conditioning programs from February to June when they arrive on campus for voluntary workouts.
Brown cited multiple signees from 2010 who "weren't in shape when they got here. And they didn't get in shape over the summer. I was really disappointed.... That is something we're talking to all of these [2011 signees] about in a very strong manner."
In efforts to end an atmosphere of entitlement, that's a good place to start. Because even at Texas, $1million per coaching victory is a high price to pay for a successful football program.
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/06/2827783/there-wont-be-any-more-mack-the.html##ixzz1DP9szQ2b
By Jimmy Burch
jburch@ star-telegram.com
AUSTIN -- Mack Brown talks the talk. The Texas football coach has declared himself guilty of contributing to an environment of arrogance and entitlement that helped sink the team's 2010 season.
Brown, 59, said he set a poor leadership example by spending too much time "pouting" in the wake of a 37-21 loss to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game that capped the 2009 season.
"I thought when you won a national championship, you might have an entitlement [issue] and a down year," Brown said during a recent interview. "I didn't know when you lost it that it could happen then, too. I thought we'd be more motivated after losing. But I wasn't. I was down."
That body language, he said, transferred to players and laid the foundation for a substandard work ethic and a lack of on-field leadership that culminated in a 5-7 record for a team coming off a 13-1 season.
Brown has vowed to make the necessary changes to right the ship in 2011. That's the easy part: saying the words. The tough part will be following through for a coach whose $5 million salary translated to $1 million per win in 2010 -- the highest cost-per-victory ratio in the Big 12.
Simply put, Mack the Nice must walk the walk. He must stop being an enabler. He must become more of a kick-butt disciplinarian, with help from six new assistant coaches and a first-year conditioning coach, during off-season workouts and team meetings.
Brown must continue to channel his inner Bob Stoops or Vince Lombardi throughout spring drills, which begin Feb. 24, and into the 2011 season. If not, the entitlement issues that plague Texas -- a school awash in top-shelf facilities and, coming in September, its own TV network -- will only resurface. It's part of the challenge of coaching at an elite program.
Every February, the Longhorns load their recruiting plate with four-star and five-star prospects. Most of the signees never have had to fight for playing time or attention during their football careers because they've always been the biggest, fastest and strongest in their school for 18 years.
Once in college, the talent gap disappears because every school signs quality athletes. Teams that succeed at the highest levels in college football push themselves to do so, even if that means turning a boatload of three-star prospects into five-star diamonds, as TCU or Boise State does.
Texas has been at its best under Brown when its top players and team leaders also were the team's hardest workers. Quarterbacks Vince Young and Colt McCoy leap to mind.
With those guys gone, what happened last season? After posting 12 consecutive winning records, Brown said he got the idea that "because we're Texas and we'd won so much, we're just going to win... and you can't think that."
After falling to Alabama in the BCS title game, Brown said: "I just pouted for a while. And when you're pouting at 13-1, that's pretty stupid."
No argument here. Frankly, I can't see Stoops -- who has won seven Big 12 championships in 12 seasons at Oklahoma -- or Lombardi, the late Green Bay Packers legend, pouting under any circumstances. Or admitting it afterward.
But every coach is different. And Brown, without question, is capable of turning up the internal heat on his players in a quest for more production.
A coach does not average 10-plus wins for 14 consecutive seasons, as Brown managed at Texas and North Carolina (1996-2009), without pushing the proper buttons to motivate players the majority of the time.
The 2010 season for Brown marked a major swing-and-miss in the motivation department. So it's time for Brown to unleash some Stoops on his troops -- isn't that ironic? -- until he can find a player or group of players who will do it for him. Entitlement issues start at the top and must disappear at the top to be eradicated completely.
That means making all jobs open during spring drills, as Brown insists will be the case, rather than paying lip service to the idea. That means convincing 2011 signees and the next wave of recruits they still have much to prove after arriving on campus.
Brown acknowledged Texas has struggled to drive home that second point with recent recruits, which factors into the entitlement mind-set. He didn't name names but prime candidates include tailback Chris Whaley (2009 signee with zero career carries and weight issues) and three defensive tackles from 2010 (Taylor Bible, Ashton Dorsey, De'Aires Cotton) who combined for two tackles last season -- both by Dorsey.
"Last year, a couple of freshmen misunderstood us and thought we said, 'You're going to play,'" Brown said, without naming names. "What they have to understand is, you're going to play if you're good enough and ready to play. You're not going to play just because you show up and you have stars next to your name [from recruiting services]. I think that is the thing we have to do a better job of."
The problem, Brown said, rests with signees who skate on their conditioning programs from February to June when they arrive on campus for voluntary workouts.
Brown cited multiple signees from 2010 who "weren't in shape when they got here. And they didn't get in shape over the summer. I was really disappointed.... That is something we're talking to all of these [2011 signees] about in a very strong manner."
In efforts to end an atmosphere of entitlement, that's a good place to start. Because even at Texas, $1million per coaching victory is a high price to pay for a successful football program.
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/06/2827783/there-wont-be-any-more-mack-the.html##ixzz1DP9szQ2b
