Let us start by observing that it isn't simple, this thing with Mack Brown. A lot of times these things are simple. A lot of times the coach goes 5-19. A lot of times the guy does OK for a while but never gets over the big hump. Sometimes the guy wrecks his motorcycle with the fiancé of one of his staffers on the back.
Some people make it easy on you.
Decisions about coaches are almost always controversial, because some people fear change and some people crave it. But most of the time it is easy to decide whether a coach has been successful or not.
Mack Brown's situation at Texas is not quite that way. Brown has won a national championship, and only one other Texas coach has done that. He has won 79 percent of his games, which puts him ahead of Texas' historical pace (72 percent). He has won two conference championships. You may know the first one, in 2005, broke a nine-year drought, which was UT's longest span without a conference championship since the Great Depression.
There is a great myth about Texas football, and it is that Texas is part of this grand metabolic rhythm in college football -- that Alabama, USC, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Texas and a few others are these cylinders in the college football engine and that when it is their turn to fire – boom! – crank up the Corvettes, we're parading down 6th Street.
But it just doesn't work like that.
Brown has done better at UT than all but one coach in Texas history, and we all need to recognize that. We all need to say that before we say what needs to be said. Which is this:
The game appears to have passed Mack Brown by, and in these parts the game is being driven by Bob Stoops.
Since Brown took over in 1998, -- a year before Stoops arrived in Norman, Okla. -- Texas is 35-27 against Top 25 teams, which fine. But there is a turning point. From 2004-09, Brown's teams went 18-5 against the Top 25. Since Texas lost to Alabama in the 2009 national championship game, it is 1-10 against ranked teams with two humiliating losses to Stoops and rival Oklahoma.
Of course, it helps when you have quarterbacks like Vince Young and Colt McCoy. But that begs the question: Why doesn't Texas have quarterbacks like Vince Young and Colt McCoy?
The state of Texas is the nation's most fertile recruiting ground for the position. That's not an opinion. It's fact. An NFL quarterback in 2012 is almost twice as likely to be a native Texan as he is a native of any other region. UT is the state's flagship institution and highest-profile football program. Finding great quarterbacks should not be a problem.
And yet Andrew Luck went to Stanford. Robert Griffin III went to Baylor. Ryan Tannehill went to Texas A&M. Johnny Manziel committed to Oregon, but wanted to stay closer to home … and chose Texas A&M.
In fairness, Texas got burned by Garrett Gilbert and Connor Wood, a pair of highly touted players who signed with Texas, transferred out and turned out to not be very good anyway. This isn't to say it is unforgivable if a couple of good recruits don't work out, but it is to say that if there is going to be a Quarterback U, it ought to be UT.
And yet the good ones keep getting away.
Subtly, this appears to be true of other positions too. We are told Texas continues to recruit at the highest level. None of its last four signing classes have been ranked lower than seventh by Scout.com. But that's the team on the field right now. Does it look that talented to you? Either Texas isn't actually recruiting at the highest level or it is recruiting at the highest level and the players are not developing like they do at some other places. Either way, that's trouble.
If Texas had ever surpassed Oklahoma as a football program – which is debatable – is has given it all away again. By any measure, OU is the superior program. During Mack Brown's tenure, OU has the same number of national championships at Texas (one), five more Big 12 championships (7-2), has sent more players to the NFL (357-325) and has beaten UT head-to-head nine times out of 15.
Oklahoma is a blueblood, but Oklahoma doesn't have any built-in advantages over Texas. What it has is a better coach.
So the question the University of Texas and its supporters have to answer is, Is that OK? Are you comfortable chalking it up to simple probability – that OU, such as it is, is simply going to end up with a superior coach from time to time and there's not much you can do about it? Do you believe Stoops probably is better than whatever coach would replace Mack Brown?
Or do you think Brown is starting to drift away a little? Starting to delegate too much. Starting to operate like a CEO when what Texas really needs is an SOB. What goes through your head when you see him hunched over on the sidelines with no headset on?
This isn't simple. Keep Brown, and you risk erosion. Let him go, and you risk implosion. The next coach might have a motorcycle and a mistress. It isn't an easy decision either way.
But if it wasn't clear before, it is clear now. Texas is No. 2 in the Big 12.
And Bob Stoops is only 52 years old.
