Texas is shining example of a program turning itself around
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By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
When it comes to talking football, David McWilliams likes to borrow quotes from the man, the Longhorn legend, their Bobfather — Darrell Royal.
Just as Bob Devaney was always right in Nebraska, the words of Royal are treated as gospel in Texas.
So it’s little surprise that McWilliams, a former Texas player and coach, turns to a favorite Royal saying when beginning a discussion about Longhorn football.
“What’s the best thing about Texas fans is that they all know football and love football. What’s the worst thing about Texas fans is that they all know football and love football.”
It sounds similar to something somebody might say about Nebraska fans, whose passion for their team rivals that of any fan base, even in a year of Husker football mourning.
You look at Nebraska today — which hasn’t won a conference title since 1999, is 4-4 and has a coach who may be gone at season’s end — and it’s easy to think that the great ride is over, that the days of Husker dominance are something to be found only on dusty VHS tapes.
You want hope in this year of discontent? Kindly turn toward the enemy dressed in burnt orange. It might hurt to look that way, but there’s your hope.
Nebraska fans are feeling like Texas fans felt 10 years ago.
That’s when John Mackovic coached the Longhorns to one of their most embarrassing seasons in modern history.
Texas went 4-7 in 1997, lost to UCLA by a score of 66-3. Only about 38,000 people had season tickets. The Longhorns hadn’t even come close to a national title since 1983.
The attitude surrounding the program was worse than Bevo’s stench. “The best way to describe it was defeated,” says Bobby Burton, the Rivals.com recruiting guru who followed the Horns closely.
A new coach arrived a year later. Texas has won at least nine games a season ever since.
Nebraska coach Bill Callahan likes to talk about the cyclical nature of football. Say what you will about his team’s struggles, but he’s not wrong about that. Giants fall in sports, only to usually rise again.
Look at Oklahoma, Southern California, Louisiana State — all programs that recently suffered their share of lean years. Oklahoma has the 1996-98 seasons in its media guide to prove it. John Blake was the coach. His record was 12-22.
Two years after Blake’s last season, the Sooners won a national title under Bob Stoops.
And it was only six years ago that people were laughing at USC. From 1996-2001, under John Robinson and Paul Hackett, the Trojans went 37-35, finishing higher than fifth in the Pac-10 only once.
Then there is Texas, perhaps the most interesting case for Nebraskans to look at, mostly because there are parallels with Mackovic and Callahan.
Mackovic might be remembered best by Nebraskans as the daredevil who burned the Huskers on a fourth-and-inches pass to clinch the 1996 Big 12 Championship Game.
But many Texas fans think of him as a former NFL coach who struggled to connect with them, local high school coaches and former players.
Callahan and Mackovic both came in as outsiders. Mackovic arrived in Texas from Illinois. But before that, he was an NFL guy — a head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs and assistant with the Dallas Cowboys.
He was different from the five Texas head coaches that preceded him, who had either played or been an assistant for the Longhorns.
“I don’t know if this applies to Bill Callahan or not, but John Mackovic alienated fans and boosters alike,” Burton says. “I don’t know if anyone could alienate fans or boosters more than what happened to John Mackovic.”
Winning cures all, but Mackovic’s teams were inconsistent. Like Callahan’s, his teams would occasionally provide the fan base with rays of hope.
Mackovic’s Big 12 championship victory against Nebraska was akin to Callahan’s 2005 Alamo Bowl triumph against Michigan. It gave people optimism going into the next season.
But momentum never came.
Mack Brown did, and Longhorn backers thank the heavens for that.
He was no Texan, but Brown brought a folksy charm and philosophy that he summed up in a two-word slogan: “One heartbeat.”
Brown wanted the entire state to feel a connection to the program again. That’s why McWilliams says the first phone call Brown made as Longhorn coach was to the director of the Texas High School Coaches Association.
Respect had to be won back within the state before it could be gained nationally.
Says McWilliams: “Coach Royal always said when Mack came in, it was like if you took a handful of BB’s and dropped them on a concrete floor. There they are everywhere. Mack’s job was to get those BB’s picked up and put them in one hand.”
It didn’t hurt that Mackovic left Brown a running back named Ricky Williams.
Williams got Brown’s Longhorns off and running. Almost 10 seasons later, the coach has a record of 99-24 at Texas and has won at least 11 games four times. And in 2005, Texas earned its first national championship since Royal’s 1970 team shared one with Nebraska.
“The reason it worked was because of Mack’s personality,” McWilliams says. “He reminded people so much of Coach Royal, down-to-earth, easy to talk to. He was able to answer the tough questions without giving in, but also without making someone mad.”
Nowadays, Brown hears criticism about his team’s play after 21-point wins. It’s a sure sign things are going all right when that happens.
The Texas coach admits it’s not easy trying to stay ahead of the pack. Some fans have criticized Callahan for using the word “parity” to describe college football today. Those fans think it’s a cop-out, an excuse to accept being mediocre.
But Brown often uses the same term.
“It’s tougher on a program like Texas that people think should be really, really good,” Brown says. “Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, programs with storied histories … when we’re playing teams that people think should not be able to beat us, and then they (do) or they’re great ballgames, people are having trouble understanding it. I think the game’s changing faster than the fans and media.”
Still, Brown keeps winning. He has the best winning percentage of any Texas coach, better even than Royal, who never had a losing season while coaching from 1957-76 and winning three national titles.
It’s been a thing of pleasure to watch for McWilliams, who got his shot to coach the Longhorns in 1986.
Now the executive director of the T Association, a club for former Texas letterwinners, McWilliams says he feels for Callahan and his assistants.
McWilliams knows what it’s like to have things go sour. After leading the Longhorns to a 10-2 season in 1990, nothing would go right the next year.
“You’re a little tight. When you’re a little tight and the first thing goes wrong, you’re like, ‘Here we go again,’” McWilliams says. “There’s no question I started pressing and my assistant coaches started pressing. The things that had gone right before all of a sudden seemed to go wrong.”
His 1991 team ended the season 5-6 and McWilliams resigned. His head coaching record was 31-26.
Restoring a program to greatness is no easy thing. It takes the right man.
“I always think about that book that said the tough times never last but the tough people do,” McWilliams says. “But that’s easier said than done sometimes.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
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