Texas Football: ESPN ranks Darrell Royal, Mack Brown as top coaches

The Texas football program has two former prominent head coaches that made ESPN’s list as some of the 60 best of all-time.

Any blue blood like the Texas football program is going to have a plethora of head coaches that will be considered all-time greats. But there’s a handful that stick out that had lengthy tenures on the Forty Acres. The first that usually comes to mind among the best Texas coaches of all-time is Darrell Royal. And the most recent is Mack Brown.

ESPN released their top 150 college football coaches in the history of the sport earlier this week. The list was part of ESPN’s big 150 year celebration of the history of college football. And it had the usual suspects at the top, but a mix of head coaches that manned the Texas Longhorns football program at one point or another in it.

Those two aforementioned prominent former Longhorns football head coaches, Brown and Royal, were both ranked inside the top 60 of all-time on ESPN’s list.

Brown ranked at No. 59 on the list. He had previous stints with the likes of the Appalachian State Mountaineers, North Carolina Tar Heels (and that is his current position), Tulane Green Wave, and the Longhorns. Here’s what ESPN had to say about the coach they ranked at No. 59 on the list.

"With his folksy, Southern charm, Brown united Texas’ divided fan base and returned the Longhorns to national prominence. From 2001-09, the Longhorns won at least 10 games every season. During a six-year stretch from 2004-09, UT went 69-9 behind quarterbacks Vince Young and Colt McCoy. In 2005, Young led Texas to its first undisputed national title in 36 years, capped off with a memorable 41-38 win over USC in the Rose Bowl. Brown’s 158 victories at Texas ranks No. 2 in school history, behind Darrell Royal, who won 167 in 20 seasons."

And Royal fell in line at No. 38 on the list. Outside of his coaching tenure at Texas, Royal was also a head coach with the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Washington Huskies. Here’s what ESPN had to say about their 38th ranked coach on the list.

"When Royal was once asked if he might ever switch his offense to a passing attack, he famously said that you’ve got to “dance with the one who brung ya.” The architect of the wishbone offense always believed in a strong running game, and that was a staple of his three national championship teams at Texas in 1963, ’69 and 1970. In 20 seasons at Texas, Royal’s teams never had a losing record, they won or shared 11 Southwest Conference titles and reached 10 Cotton Bowls. His teams won 30 straight games from 1968-70."

The only other former Texas head coach on the list was Dana X. Bible. And Bible was made famous for his coaching tenures with both the Longhorns and the in-state rival Texas A&M Aggies. Bible ranked No. 104 on the list.

Other significant coaches on the list included Alabama’s Bear Bryant and Nick Saban (No. 1 and 2, respectively), and Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne (No. 3). Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, TCU’s Gary Patterson, and Kansas State’s Bill Snyder were three of the more significant recent Big 12 head coaches that made the top 80.