Texas Football: Should the Longhorns Have Done More To Keep Will Muschamp?

After a disappointing 5-7 season in which the Texas Longhorns failed to play in a bowl game for the first time since 1997, many changes were made to the coaching staff in the offseason.

Longtime offensive coordinator Greg Davis resigned and was replaced by Bryan Harsin after Davis faced a lot of heat for his team’s lack of offensive prowess during the season. The offensive line, defensive line, wide receivers, strength and conditioning and defensive tackles coaches were also all replaced with new faces.

Amongst all of these new hires, there was one change that the Longhorns did not plan: the departure of defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. 

After three seasons at the University of Texas, Muschamp left to take the head coaching position at the University of Florida. In his three seasons at Texas, he significantly improved the defense and was a big reason why the team played in the 2009 National Championship game against the University of Alabama.

With a resume that includes over 15 years of assistant coaching experience, a national championship and a track record of success, why did the Longhorns let such a great coach walk away so easily?

When Muschamp signed with the University of Texas to be their defensive coordinator in January 2008, he received a contract with an annual salary of $425,000, making him the highest paid assistant coach in the Big 12. Several months later in November 2008, his salary was increased to $900,000 and he was labeled as the “coach-in-waiting” to take over after Mack Brown retired.

The issue, however, was that three seasons later Muschamp was still waiting. Even in a season in which the Longhorns struggled to win five games, Mack Brown showed no signs of stepping down as the head coach. 

So why didn’t the Longhorns do more to keep Muschamp?

In a sport where coaches often changes schools so they can lead a better team, get more national attention and most importantly get more money, the Longhorns had the ability to give Muschamp all this and more if they wanted to keep him at the University of Texas.

With the athletic department racking in more than $87 million a year in revenue, Texas certainly could have afforded to raise Muschamp’s salary higher to $1 million to $2 million a year to try to entice him into staying.

They could have guaranteed him that he would take over the head coaching position no later than one or two years from now.

The Longhorns could have even tried to convince him that he would get more exposure and success by staying at a football program with more talented athletes and more national coverage than a school like Florida could offer him.

At the end of the day though, the Longhorns did none of this. They simply let Muschamp walk away without even the slightest semblance of a concern that he was leaving. 

Muschamp’s replacement at Texas is Manny Diaz, the former defensive coordinator at Mississippi State who Mack Brown touts as one of the youngest coaching talents in the game. While he certainly has an upside, let’s be honest.

He is not the same kind of fiery, energetic person who chest bumps his players to celebrate a key play or has blood pouring down his face because he threw off his headset in frustration.

Diaz is also not someone who has the experience to step into a head coaching role if needed. Mack Brown’s contract extends through the 2016 season and Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds does not expect Brown to step down any time before that.

The problem is that things don’t always go as expected.

The reason that the coaching vacancy at Florida became open is because former coach Urban Myer’s health deteriorated to the point that he felt he had to step down. With Mack Brown being older than Myer and having just as stressful of a job, who can guarantee that he won’t unexpectedly face health issues that cause him to make the same decision Myer did?

Or what if the Longhorns have another bad season and Brown decides to retire? Rather than having a named coach from within the staff to take over, Texas would have to go on a full-blown coaching search to find a suitable replacement.

This would throw a wind of uncertainty into a Texas football program that has been very stable and successful for over the past decade. 

After taking the head coaching position at Florida, Muschamp said, “This is home for me. It was a very easy decision for me, although I enjoyed my time at Texas.”

However, the key thing to note here is that this statement was made after he accepted the coaching position.

We’ll never know how he would have reacted had Texas changed their approach towards him and tried keeping him more aggressively. The future will only tell if the Longhorns will regret their decision.