Texas Football: 5 worst coaching hires in Longhorns history

3. Dexter Draper (1909)

Record: 4-3-1 (.563 winning percentage)

There will be some people out there that question the placement of the short-lived Texas head coach Dexter Draper on this list. Draper is the only former Texas head coach that made this list of the worst coaching hires in the program’s history that led the Longhorns for just one season.

Draper was brought aboard to be Texas’ head coach following the resignation of W.E. Metzenthin ahead of the 1909 season. Metzenthin resigned following the 1908 season before he assumed the head coaching role of the men’s basketball program in 1909.

The new Texas head coach in 1909 was an All-American tackle in the mid-to-late 1900s at Penn. This position with Texas would be his first head coaching job in college football, though.

Draper’s squad was up and down during the 1909 season, which included a 23-point shutout loss to the rival Texas A&M Aggies along with a dominant 30-point shutout win over the Oklahoma Sooners. Texas actually faced Texas A&M twice that season, both of which resulted in shutout losses for Draper’s Longhorns.

The 1909 Longhorns finished up with a record of 4-3-1, which was one of the three worst records Texas posted in any season within the first two decades of the program’s existence. Draper also didn’t any longer than the conclusion of the 1909 season, as he resigned soon after the campaign’s finish.

All in all, Draper’s short-lived tenure at Texas is hard to sum up. But it’s hard to say that put a successful stamp on his tenure given the success that some of the coaches that came before and after him on the Forty Acres found (i.e. Dave Allerdice and Metzenthin).