Texas Football: Is Urban Meyer’s ‘allure’ too much to resist?
Forecasting what the Texas football head coaching situation will look like next offseason is an improbable task at the moment.
The Dallas Morning News gave a pretty interesting and edgy article that gave an opinion on the hot seat situation concerning fourth-year Texas football head coach Tom Herman earlier this week. This piece from Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News opened up on the subject of the coaching rumors surrounding the former Florida Gators and Ohio State Buckeyes three-time National Championship winning head coach Urban Meyer and the “self-confidence” of Herman at this moment.
Even the title of the article asks the question for Longhorns fans; is the “allure” of the potential of hiring Meyer as the next head coach “too powerful for Texas to ignore”?
What makes this conversation so much more relevant now is the combination of the struggles on the recruiting trail for the Longhorns and the fact that Herman actually addressed these rumors in his weekly press conference. A lot of scrutiny came Herman’s way of late for the Longhorns results on the recruiting trail in the last two months or so.
To make matters worse, the nation’s top ranked 2022 quarterback recruit and the elite five-star Southlake Carroll pro-style signal caller Quinn Ewers just essentially flipped his commitment from Texas to Ohio State heading into the weekend. Losing Ewers was the biggest matter of discussion on the recruiting trail this year for the Longhorns, and rightly so.
Moreover, the fact that Herman pushed the envelope with addressing the Meyer speculation and coaching rumors in his weekly press conference around actually relevant topics isn’t something that should inspire confidence in where his head is at. Hence the importance of this Dallas Morning News piece on Herman and Meyer in association with the Texas head coaching job.
This article brings up a lot of the talking points on why there is coaching speculation in the first place for the Longhorns, namely due to the lack of player development and on-field success for this team under Herman and former head coach Charlie Strong. As a whole, the 2010’s did not provide a decade to remember on the Forty Acres.
The end of the article supports the point that I think is relevant to the Meyer conversation as a whole. If he is healthy enough, I do believe he will eventually take a blue blood job with the passion he still speaks with in the media week in and week out.
"Every week, his flock grows. Like any populist, he gives the masses what they want, which is a simple answer. Here’s what’s wrong with your team. Here’s how you fix it. Here’s how you win a national title.Coaches often take TV gigs to remind boosters and athletic directors that they’re still alive. Mack Brown comes to mind. But not even Mack did a better job of demonstrating why he’s still relevant, and it’s that argument, and not Kansas or Iowa State or Kansas State, that should keep Herman up at night.One of these days, and probably soon, Texas or USC or Michigan or someone else dying to win will make Meyer a coach again. You just watch. If you don’t already, that is."
It is also valid to bring up that Herman does have the Longhorns on a nice three-game winning streak in this de facto double bye week. Texas could still very realistically round out the regular season slate on a high note and make an appearance in the Big 12 Championship Game. The problem for Herman is that it’s hard to see the case for his longevity with the program with the inconsistencies on the field and the lack of success of late on the recruiting trail for the next two cycles.
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Texas was supposed to face the lowly Kansas Jayhawks and second-year former LSU Tigers head coach Les Miles on the road in Lawrence on Nov. 21. But due to novel coronavirus-related issues, the Texas-Kansas game had to be delayed until Dec. 12, the weekend before the Big 12 Championship Game (set for Dec. 19).
Texas currently sits on a record of 5-2 (4-2 Big 12), with their latest game resulting in a narrow four-point win over the West Virginia Mountaineers at home back on Nov. 7.