Texas Football: Cowherd says Herman is not doing good enough so far

Getting upset by the TCU Horned Frogs was a good way to send head coach Tom Herman and the Texas football program into a good bit of chaos this week.

In a recent episode of his daily talk show “The Herd” Colin Cowherd reportedly opened up on his take on the situation involving head coach Tom Herman and whether his seat is heating up with the Texas football program this year. After Texas fell short at the hands of head coach Gary Patterson and the TCU Horned Frogs last weekend, the Herman hot seat questions started bubbling back up.

It does seem like whenever the Longhorns are upset, there is almost too much pressure that is cast back on Herman. But it is true that this team should be getting better week-by-week, and year-by-year, but the results are spotty and anything but consistent. Texas looked great in their season opening win over the UTEP Miners.

And even though they nearly fell short on the road in Lubbock in their Big 12 opener back on Sep. 26 against the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the Longhorns managed to pull out the win and looked good at different points of the game. Texas had to put together an incredibly and pretty lucky 15-point comeback just to push the game into overtime. Then the Longhorns got the sole touchdown of overtime and escaped Lubbock with a 63-56 thrilling victory.

However, there isn’t near as much positivity surrounding the Longhorns camp after the Big 12 home opener. TCU was a very winnable game for Herman and the Longhorns and they just couldn’t get it done in the end. Texas fell short to the Horned Frogs by the final score of 33-31, largely due to an intentional safety that redshirt sophomore quarterback Max Duggan ran into the back of the end zone to cap the game.

The bigger point here is that the Longhorns keep losing games like this that they should be winning. TCU is a major thorn in their side, as the Horned Frogs own a record of 7-2 against Texas since joining the Big 12 in 2012. Cowherd does have a valid point on the matter that what Herman is doing now with Texas simply isn’t good enough.

Here’s more on what he had to say on the matter (monologue thanks to 247Sports).

"“I thought Tom Herman was a great hire by Texas, they’re now 1-3 against TCU, the defense is a mess,” Cowherd said. “He’s obviously got a personality, can be a little snippy with the media, but the truth is, they’re getting manhandled by TCU. They feel they are getting out coached. They’ve recruited offense very well, defense not quite as well. He’s smart, he’s young but he has a senior quarterback, an NFL quarterback, they should be rolling over some of these teams. They really should be. They were fortunate to beat Texas Tech, they have not been as good as they should be.“In the Big 12, frankly if you’re Texas, it should not take two to three to four years to rebuild. Outside of Oklahoma, you should be heavily favored. You’re getting better players in recruiting than every school. There’s Oklahoma, Texas (and) TCU is a distant third in terms of recruiting. Simply so far, not good enough.”"

Herman has led Texas to a record of 2-1 (1-1 Big 12) heading into the week of the annual Red River Rivalry game against the Oklahoma Sooners, who are also struggling this fall. Oklahoma comes into Red River with a record of 1-2 (0-2 Big 12) after dropping two straight to open up conference play against the Kansas State Wildcats and Iowa State Cyclones.

The total record Herman has registered as Texas head coach sits at 27-16. And his career head coaching record between his time with Texas and the Houston Cougars as an FBS head coach is 49-20.

There is still potential with Herman and his coaching staff, but the level of inconsistency year in and year out is very concerning. Texas is not developing well as seasons move along, as evident by the difficult to predict losses, like the one to TCU last weekend.

Texas was bounced from the top 20 of both major polls after losing to TCU. They are an underdog ahead of the Oct. 10 kick off for the Red River Rivalry game, but they are also the only ranked team in this matchup. Beating Oklahoma for the first time since the 2018 regular season would be a great way for Herman to get a lot of this heat off of him and get back atop the Big 12.