Pre-Game Kansas St.

Turn Turn Turn

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven -(Ecclesiastes 3:1)

For Longhorn Football it’s been drama week and if the Longhorns lose Saturday night the drama will only intensify.  Mack Brown looked and sounded defeated at his Monday press conference. The highlight for me was when Mack complained that punter Alex King is being pressed into duty as the back up quarterback because the NCAA doesn’t allow five years of playing eligibility; thereby not being able play one of the freshmen quarterbacks without burning a year of eligibility.  Quite a stretch and really whiny even for Mack.

We have also seen reports of shouting matches between coaches, between players and between coaches and players in the locker room during halftime and after the TCU game. Mack reportedly reacted to this turmoil with an incoherent rant in the locker room after the game.  Right now Mack Brown’s Texas Football looks like a dying star releasing huge amounts of energy with no purpose.

Isn’t it ironic that Darrell Royal’s passing and the celebration of his life and accomplishments comes at the time when the end game of Mack Brown’s coaching tenure at Texas has become perhaps the biggest issue for the program?  It has been widely reported that Mack wanted to step down after the 2009 season if it had ended with a victory over Alabama and his second national championship but the loss in that game derailed his plans to go out on top. In other words, Mack wants total control over the scenario under which he steps down as the Head Football Coach at U.T. This is not surprising. College Football Head Coaches are control freaks but it’s a fool’s errand to think you can control everything.  Most of us have learned that there is very little in life that we have control over. We can’t control our children, our spouses, our bosses, our clients and the list goes on. Maybe someone who has ascended to the very top of their profession has a harder time understanding the concept of control than we more ordinary folks do.

Mack Brown was a genius, in my opinion, to understand Darrell Royal’s importance to the traditions of Texas Football and to associate his program with those traditions.  Fred Akers and John Mackovic, mistakenly, seemed to want to distance themselves from Royal and the past.  Mack admires and has been inspired by Royal, and would be wise to draw further inspiration from Royal as he considers how he wants to end his coaching career at Texas.  When we celebrated Darrell Royal’ life a few weeks back and listened to the great stories from the people who knew Royal best we didn’t hear any regrets about Royal’s last season at Texas being his worst one. In fact we heard and remembered how wise Royal was to know when to say when. I’ll bet when Royal stepped down he wasn’t thinking about his legacy in regards to Texas Football.  Not a single one of us thinks any less of Darrell Royal because he didn’t go out at or near the top of his game.

Mack Brown needs to realize that he can exit the stage after this season regardless of how it ends with his reputation intact. The last three seasons will become inconsequential to his legacy to Texas Football.

It’s okay to leave now, Mack. Your work is done and you’ve done it as well as anybody ever has.

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