Texas Football: This is Tom Herman’s last chance with Longhorns
Bad results in 2019 at times from Tom Herman with the Texas football program makes it so that 2020 could be his final chance at consistent success.
The athletic director at the University of Texas, Chris del Conte, made his intentions know regarding this football team. If the Texas football program doesn’t succeed after the latest retooling of the coaching staff, then it could be the end of the line for head coach Tom Herman on the Forty Acres.
It seemed like Herman had the full support not only of everyone high up in the Texas Longhorns football program, but all the donors and support staff at the school in general at the outset of the offseason to make things work. But patience will run thin in Austin if Herman can’t get this Longhorns team to the next level starting this fall.
Texas returns a lot of production and starting experience from last year’s team, so there is little to no excuse that Herman is just dealing with a young team. The injury and youth excuse worked for Herman and the Longhorns last year, and validly so, but that can’t be a theme again this fall.
In an interview with Horns247, del Conte opened up on what he feels like the status of the football program is and how the direction looks after the retooling of the coaching staff. Here’s what del Conte had to say on the matter with 247Sports.
"Tom goes, ‘Look, we have a chance. We have really good players and I wanted to have someone calling the offense and defense.With what he did, I’m really proud of him because he took a step back, looked within, looked at what he needed to do to change and what he wanted to do with his staff and made the changes.Tom made some really difficult choices in letting go a lot of people that were dear friends of his and were with him for a long time."
The overarching point here was made with one quote from del Conte, though.
"He knows that you get a chance to do that one time."
Former Texas head coach Charlie Strong never got the chance to retool his coaching staff completely. But the complete overhaul of a coaching staff is usually warranted when a head coach finds recent success at some point. Texas made a return to national prominence in 2018 with a double-digit win season, appearance in the Big 12 Championship Game, and a Sugar Bowl victory over the Georgia Bulldogs.
The 2019 campaign wasn’t a complete letdown for the Longhorns either, finishing up with eight wins. This past season also saw Texas knock off the No. 11 ranked Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl by the final score of 38-10 and nearly upset the National Champion LSU Tigers during the non-conference slate.
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Texas opens up their 2020 season with the South Florida Bulls on Sep. 5. They face head coach Ed Orgeron and LSU one week later, on Sep. 12, in the back end of that home-and-home series for 2019 and 2020. Starting out with a 2-0 record this fall would go a long way to working Herman back in a very positive light among Longhorns fans.