Texas Football: Tom Herman headed to ND to meet with Brian Kelly
All the success that the Texas football program found in 2018 faded in 2019 under head coach Tom Herman. He’s trying to make adjustments this offseason.
In the final season for current head coach Tom Herman took over at the helm for the Texas football program, the men in burnt orange battled the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the back end of a home-and-home series. Texas and Notre Dame faced each other in South Bend in 2015 and in Austin in 2016. Both of those games came under the direction of former Texas head coach Charlie Strong.
And on the opposite sideline of the Texas Longhorns football program in those meetings with Notre Dame was their current head coach Brian Kelly. Kelly had a much better run for the Fighting Irish in 2015 than he did 2016. That was evident in the results for the Fighting Irish against the Longhorns.
But in 2016, Texas and Notre Dame would play in a game with a large national spotlight on it that ultimately wouldn’t matter in the slightest when it came to bowl season. Neither Texas nor Notre Dame finished up bowl eligible in 2016. That was the final year for Strong as head coach on the Forty Acres.
Herman took over for the Longhorns in December 2016, after coming over from the Houston Cougars football program. And he had a good upward trend in his first three years for Texas. But his latest was not the most impressive. Herman and the Longhorns finished up the 2019 regular season with just 7-5.
A win in the Alamo Bowl on New Year’s Eve 2019 over the No. 11 ranked Utah Utes by the final score of 38-10 did help to salvage some of the result for last season. Texas ultimately finished up the 2019 season with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12).
Given the way the Longhorns wrapped up their 2018 season, winning eight games in way they did is still not up to standard. Texas entered the 2019 campaign with a top 10 preseason ranking and plenty of hype to make their second straight appearance in the Big 12 Championship Game.
However, the down results in 2019 led to many changes for the Texas coaching staff entering the 2020 offseason. Texas brought in three new coordinators and pretty much completely turned over their positional coaches.
Texas football coach Tom Herman will spend Thursday in South Bend learning how to succeed after a coaching overhaul from Notre Dame's Brian Kelly, according to my sources. After a 4-8 season in 2016, Kelly's new staff finished 10-3 in 2017, 12-1 in 2018, and 11-2 in 2019 pic.twitter.com/8HLCoZKq85
— Anwar Richardson (@AnwarRichardson) February 27, 2020
The report that Herman will be heading out to South Bend to meet with Kelly at Notre Dame came from the Twitter timeline of Anwar Richardson of Orange Bloods. He will be apparently trying to replicate what Kelly did entering the 2017 college football season, where he nearly took Notre Dame to the College Football Playoff just one year after losing to a five-win Texas team and missing bowl eligibility.
Next. 3 most underrated 2020 Texas signees. dark
What made a big difference for Notre Dame in 2017 compared to 2016 was the efficiency of former quarterback Brandon Wimbush. While Wimbush wound up losing the starting job in 2018 to Notre Dame’s current starter Ian Book, he racked up more than 30 total touchdowns with only six interceptions in 2017. Get a similar jump out of to-be senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger for the Longhorns, and this will be a good Texas team in 2020.