Mack Brown flunks his coaches, Texas braces for the purge

Unless you're a new-age type that doesn't believe in grades or something, you probably don't need to refer to the rubric to hand out scores for Texas' ongoing collapse, especially if you're grading on a curve. The Longhorns have lost five of six, three of them as substantial favorites over perennial punching bags UCLA, Iowa State, Baylor and Kansas State, and currently boast a losing record for the first time under Mack Brown.

The call is so obvious, even Brown was compelled this week to flunk himself and his entire staff for the season. From the Austin American-Statesman:

If Mack Brown had to assign a grade to himself and his coaching staff for the jobs they've done this season, he knows what it would be.

"I think it's an 'F,'" Brown said Wednesday. "We just haven't been as productive as we should have with these players. That doesn't sound good. It's not pretty. But it's factual."

Well, yes. By the time the usual top-10 projections have evaporated in the course of a 4-5 meltdown, the record pretty much assesses itself. The hard part is the correction.

Brown has spent much of the last month calling out the entire organization, and targeting the coaching staff, specifically. After the stunning home flop against Iowa State, he openly admitted he was losing trust in the staff. Two humiliating losses later, the calls for sacrificial blood have already yielded to matter-of-fact assessments of how the heads will roll after the season:

While acknowledging he "constantly looks at the big picture," Brown said he'll do what he always does — wait until emotions stabilize after a season before making decisions about his assistants.

"During the season, you're tired," he said.

"This season I've been mad about half of it. So when you're tired and you're mad, I've been told you never make decisions.

"What you do is research information and take some time after the season to look at it and see exactly where things are. I do it every year, good and bad. Then you try to make the decision that's best."

The standing answer among the faithful remains, "Fire Greg Davis." Davis has been the offensive coordinator for all 13 of Brown's seasons in Austin, and staved off previous campaigns for his job by adjusting the prevailing pro-style scheme for the more spread-friendly talents of Vince Young in 2004-05 and Colt McCoy in 2008-09. The results then were chart-topping attacks that combined to go 49-3 with two undefeated regular seasons and a BCS championship in those four seasons. In the current attack, though, sophomore Garrett Gilbert's talents have yet to make an appearance.

His hyped arm has made the lowest-rated, most interception-prone starter in the Big 12. The running game is so anemic that the key midseason adjustment seems to have been to build the ground attack around Gilbert's gangly, uninspiring lope, which actually paid off against a stunned Nebraska defense in the first half of the Longhorns' only win since mid-September. But that didn't stop him from putting the ball in the air 59 times last Saturday against the worst-ranked run defense in the nation. That included 22 passes in a row – three of which were picked off – after the 'Horns fell behind 17-0 in the second quarter at Kansas State. It didn't stop Davis from defending his decision to keep Gilbert in the game after serving up five interceptions. The K-State debacle was the third time this season UT entered the fourth quarter without an offensive touchdown, the fourth time it finished minus-2 or worse in turnover margin and the seventh straight in which it failed to top 24 points.

The defense, meanwhile, continues to rank No. 1 in the Big 12 and fifth nationally in total D under Brown's anointed successor, Will Muschamp. It's easily good enough to turn two or three of the losses into wins if not saddled with the offense's pathetic turnover margin. If there's going to be a purge next month, it's not going to be directed at Muschamp. That leaves either Davis or Gilbert to take the fall for the offense, and – barring a miracle turnaround to salvage a not-too-embarrassing bowl bid over the last three games – a very small chance of both returning in their current roles in 2011.

- - -
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

Source: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Mack-Brown-flunks-his-coaches-Texas-braces-for-?urn=ncaaf-284899

baseball yankees american football