Mack Brown has completed his first decade at Texas, and some Texas fans are wondering if he is on the hot seat.
Brown has won a national title, but the perception of some is that he can't win The Big One without Vince Young. He also has struggled against his rival Oklahoma, something that has never made Longhorns happy. To make matters worse, he has lost his last two against Texas A&M.
The situation reminded me most of Tennessee in the 1990s under Phillip Fulmer. He had a national title but ended up getting overshadowed by division rival Florida in the decade. I decided to go back and compare Fulmer's first ten seasons with Brown's ten years at Texas.
For the purpose of evening things out, I included Fulmer's four games as coach in 1992 after Johnny Majors got fired to make up for the extra games Brown got thanks to 12-game seasons.
The AP Top 10 refers to teams that finished the year in the top 10. For Fulmer, "Division Rival" means Florida; for Brown, "Division Rival" means Oklahoma.
| Fulmer | Brown | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 103-25 | 103-25 |
| National Titles | 1 | 1 |
| Conference Titles | 2 | 1 |
| Division Titles | 3 | 3 |
| vs. AP Top 10 | 7-14 (.333) | 4-15 (.211) |
| vs. Division Rival | 2-8 (.200) | 4-6 (.400) |
| Heisman Finalists | 1 (Manning) | 1 (V. Young) |
Those two slates are remarkably close. Fulmer did better against the top 10, but Brown did better against his rival school. Brown's first win against OU did come before Bob Stoops got there, so Mack has gone 3-6 (.333) against his foil.
There have been some key differences: Brown so far has mostly avoided the rash of off-the-field incidents that have plagued Fulmer, while Fulmer won his national title without his Heisman runner up. Brown had more 10-win seasons, but three of them were 10-3 seasons that would have been a 9-3 record without the 12th game against a cupcake.
It's impossible to say where Texas will go in Brown's second decade. Fulmer has won two more division titles so far in his second decade, but he did have an inexplicable 5-6 record in 2005. The Longhorn faithful point to 2009 as their next best chance to contend for a title, so we shall see.
I just find it funny that the best analogue for Brown's tenure at UT just so happens to be the other UT: Tennessee.
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4 months ago
Interesting. I was at UNC under Brown and thought he did a great job there. He recruited and coached my old roommate, who speaks highly of him. Of course, UT is another league compared to UNC.
One thing to note... There is not one Tennersee fan alive who will tell you Florida is their rival. Alabama is the most important game on their schedule by far, just ask Johnny Majors who was fired after his seventh straight loss in the series. They didn't even let him finish the season.Other than that Majors had a pretty good resume. I know that change hurts that aspect of your argument, so maybe you conveniently overlooked that.
from 4 months ago
How does "division rival" sound? I know UF isn't Tennessee's #1 rival; Tennessee isn't Florida's #1 rival either.
4 months ago
The comparison is pretty crazy. Both have impressive resumes and both have been on the hotseat for a while. I would say Brown is more a product of a weaker conference and Vince Young...
from 4 months ago
I wouldn't go that far. Georgia was down in the '90s, Auburn and Alabama took turns going on probation, and LSU was only good sometimes. The SEC in the '90s was not what it is today.
The Big 12 North has been down for the more recent years in Brown's tenure, but not always. I'd say the Big 12 has always been in the top 3 of the 6 BCS conferences in his time, so I don't buy the "weak conference" bit.
Maybe Brown hasn't won it all without Young, but you could say that Vince Dooley never won it all without Herschel, Spurrier never won it all without Wuerffel, etc. Everyone who has only one national title usually did it with some extremely talented player. That doesn't make the guy any less of a coach.
4 months ago
Right...I'm not saying it makes him any less of a coach. But when you compare him to Fulmer, that's what came to my mind. Fulmer didn't win it all with Peyton Manning, he did it with Tee Martin...
Fulmer also doesn't have the luxury of recruiting in Texas, where half the recruits knew they were going to Texas the moment they were born.
About the weaker conferences thing, I did forget they were only talking about the first 10 years of each coaches tenure. Tenn did have to play Florida every year while they were at their peak. They are both great coaches and I have a lot of respect for both.
from 4 months ago
actually, J listen to this before u start spreading word u don't know. Fulmer has faced florida every year he's been at UT. He rocked his world 31-14 in 1992, when he was only the interim head coach. Just to tick you off i'll go ahead and name off the scores of every tenn. vs. fla. game since fulmer has been there. and mr. gator fan, David, the sec has grown even stronger in the 2000s, but it was still much stronger then the big XII is now or will ever be. Georgia was consistently ranked in the top 15 whil Jim Donnan was there. Alabama had one losing record. 4-7 in 1997, and LSU stunk, but LSU isn't eveybody in the sec. remember what Auburn did while they were on probation. 22-1 in Bowden's first two seasons. But enough nagging here are the scores.
1992: Tenn. 31-14
1993: Fla. 41-34
1994: Fla. 31-0
1995: Fla. 62-37
1996: Fla. 35-29
1997: Fla. 33-20
1998: Tenn. 20-17
1999: Fla. 23-21
2000: Fla 27-23*
2001: Tenn. 34-32
2002: Fla. 30-13
2003: Tenn. 23-10
2004: Tenn. 30-28
2005: Fla. 16-7
2006: Fla. 21-20*#
2007: Fla 56-20
*: Jabar Gaffney dropped a Jesse Palmer pass in the endzone as it bounced off his stomach, referre looking straight at him signaled a TD with 0:06 in the fourth quarter.
*# Early in the third quarter while UT was leading 17-7, a Chris Leak pass was intercepted and returned for a td, but was nullified when a roughing the passer was called on Justin Harrell, who mayber touched Leak's helmet, but know actual contact was made.
Regardless, tennessee and florida have played each other every year since fulmer has been at the helm. so please check your sources before putting false info on the web to deceive others.
Fuck Texas.
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