Brown and the Longhorns Finally Winning the Big Ones
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
How quickly reputations change.
At the start of the college football season, Texas coach Mack Brown was known as a great recruiter who couldn’t win the big game, thanks mostly to an 0-5 record against arch rival Oklahoma since 2000.
The best comparison for Brown’s career at Texas seemed to be John Cooper’s tenure at Ohio State, during which he compiled a 111-43-4 record from 1988-2000. Cooper routinely churned out 10-win seasons and first-round NFL draft picks, but an inability to beat the school’s chief rival eventually spelled doom for him in Columbus. Cooper was a maddening 2-10-1 against Michigan, often losing with better teams when the Wolverines were having down years. It’s not clear whether his replacement, Jim Tressel, is more loved by the Buckeye faithful for winning the 2002 national championship or for his 3-1 record against the Wolverines; such is the nature of college football, where a 10-1 season can be a considered a failure if the “1” comes against the wrong team.
Brown’s big-game reputation has been put to the test three times already this season, and he has passed each exam with flying colors. There was the Week 2 encounter with, oddly enough, Ohio State, when Texas came from behind to beat the Buckeyes 25-22 on the road before a stunned sellout crowd. Then, on October 8 in Dallas, Brown and the Longhorns exorcised five years of demons in a 45-12 thrashing of the unusually weak Sooners.
Texas’s third test came Saturday against the undefeated Texas Tech Red Raiders, who arrived in Austin with a supposedly unstoppable aerial attack, but with shaky credentials as a national power thanks to a pathetic non-conference schedule. Still, when Tech moved the ball early and took a 7-3 lead thanks in part to two interceptions of passes by Texas quarterback Vince Young, there was no panic from Brown or his team.
The coach had Young continue throwing and he stuck with his defensive game plan, one that pressured Tech quarterback Cody Hodges, allowing plenty of yardage between the 20s on screens and check-downs, but which locked down in the red zone. The result was Longhorn touchdowns on six straight possessions that turned a 7-3 deficit into a 45-17 laugher; the final was 52-17.
The handling of adversity is a reflection of the maturity of Brown’s team, and of Brown as a coach. Cooper frequently came undone against Michigan because he couldn’t manage to treat it as just another game, and when things began to go wrong, his team adopted his own nervous character and fell apart.
That was certainly the case for Brown in past years against Oklahoma. But he and the Longhorns didn’t fall apart facing a late deficit at Ohio State, and they shook off early turnovers that could have kept this year’s Oklahoma game close going into the second half.
With Texas firmly entrenched at no.2 in the BCS standings, and with no ranked teams remaining on the regular-season schedule and no dominant team awaiting in the Big 12 championship game, it appears that Brown won’t have to go to the same lengths as last year to secure a spot in Pasadena. He was heavily criticized last season for publicly lobbying voters to move his team up into position to receive a BCS bid. At the time, it appeared to be the desperate pleadings of a desperate coach, one who was destined to see another 10-win season culminate in a second-tier bowl game. But a funny thing happened on the way to Cooper-dom. Enough voters listened that Texas was able to claim what had been assumed to be Cal’s spot in the Rose Bowl. The criticism was largely forgotten (except in Berkeley) when Texas staged a late comeback to beat Michigan, 38-37, giving Brown what most would consider the first “big” win of his Texas tenure.
It doesn’t appear that Brown will need to resort to pleading this season – although no. 3 Virginia Tech may have something to say about that – but just in case, he’s warming up the stump speech. After dusting off Texas Tech, Brown said of his team, “I thought at the first of the year, nobody deservers to be no. 2. I thought USC deserved to be no.1 and nobody else had done enough to deserve anything past that. Now, I think this team definitely deserves to be no. 2 in the country.”
Brown may not be lobbying for the top spot, but he doesn’t have to. The computers will still have their say, but Texas has the ability to post lopsided wins the rest of the way, and with human elements accounting for two-thirds of the BCS standings, that should be enough to keep them ahead of even an undefeated Virginia Tech, and possibly even to challenge USC for the top spot.
The calm demeanor Texas has displayed since last year’s Rose Bowl will surely come in handy if the Longhorns do indeed end up in Pasadena against USC. Texas certainly appears to have the best combination of offense and defense to challenge the Trojans. Young gets most of the credit for Texas’s success, and deservedly so (he’s completing 65% of his passes and rushing for 65 yards a game), but he is complemented by dominant offensive and defensive lines, and speed at every position.
If Brown is able to take his team to a national championship this year, he may not have to hear the name John Cooper anymore. Instead, the comparisons may be to another coach who was knocked for years as unable to win the big one – former Nebraska legend Tom Osborne.
In the second act of his career, Osborne won three national titles in four years before retiring to a position in the U.S. House of Representatives. Brown has already shown political skills; all he needs now is a championship ring.
Mr. Levine writes for FootballOutsiders.com.