EDIT: Baffling journalism professors everywhere, the headline asked a question that could be answered “Yes.” Aggies pulled the trigger.
Just happy that at least one fanbase believes they have it worse than mine. I do have to wonder if the 51 points yesterday changes anything, or if that was an undercover “interim bump”.
I don’t know that it would, but I believe that our nearly 2 decades of dysfunction stem from not having a plan after Fulmer. While his old school ways may have led to his demise we still could have righted the ship with Kiffin, but he bolted and we were without a paddle for a while afterwards. We knew Fulmer was not the future for 3 seasons before we finally pulled the plug. Surely we could have embedded someone into the culture in that time. Kiffin was not at a point in his career where he wanted to settle down anywhere outside of a hc gig in ca. And his rushed hiring mirrored his hasty departure. Would it have been unorthodox? You betcha. Would it have saved us? ¯\(ツ)/¯
The problem being everybody has to be on board. “Other UT” thought that having Mack wind down with Muschamp in waiting was the perfect scenario, but it seemed like nobody was on the same page, particularly Mack and whoever decided that Mack was indeed winding down. One should never underestimate how long a CEO coach will keep CEO’ing.
And I think this is why it won’t work for cfb, but especially not in this case. Coaches don’t care if the program burns after they leave, fans won’t want a coach around any longer than absolutely necessary to collect the last check. Both parties claim they care about the competitive environment or future of a program but the reality is fuck you so long as I am having mine right now.
Another concern is that fans/boosters clamor for the HC change the minute things start to go sideways and there seems to be a capable replacement already on the staff.
Sticking with Texas as an example: Gary Patterson seemed to be a good analyst for us and I’m glad he got a soft-landing into retirement, but whenever things went sideways, the mob wanted Patterson to take the reins. It can be a huge, dumb distraction.
Not to hijack the thread, but in the right situation, I think Gary might have one more G5 rebuild in him. I’d love to see what he could do with a UNT or Tulsa (or moving next door to his buddy Jerry Kill by taking on the UTEP challenge) if he’s got the itch. I don’t know if his style translates well to the modern P5 portal and NIL world, but coaching up unheralded 2- and 3-stars until they’re ready to blow up in their junior and senior years can still work at that level, and you shouldn’t get TOO much poaching before they produce.