Mack Brown Extended To 2020 – What Lies Ahead For Texas?

Remember

that rumor Mack Brown was retiring

following Texas’s season finale vs. Baylor? Well, it turns out Topeka, Kan. radio host Jake Lebahn was ahead of every other reporter in the nation, by a whole nine years.

Uh, yeah…Brown signed an extension that keeps him at UT through 2020, four years longer than the deal originally called for. Brown has earned every bit of confidence instilled in him. He took over a Texas program John Mackovic had sank to its lowest depths since Harry Truman was president, and almost immediately turned the Longhorns around.

Brown’s national championship in the 2005 season sealed his legacy as one of the program’s most successful coaches — and bought him some leeway with the fan base to excuse a 5-7 2010. UT bounced back with eight wins in the past season, but the problems of 2010 beg the question of whether those were aberrations, or worrisome signs for the long haul in which the program is vested with Brown.

Nine years is a veritable lifetime in college football, and will put Brown at 69 when the contract expires. UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds told The Austin Statesman that 2020 is no definitive end to the Brown era, either:

"“I want to be sure that everyone understands this is Mack’s job as long as he wants it,” Dodds told the American-Statesman. “I’ve been here 30 years, and I can’t think of a time when I supported a coach more and wanted him to be here as long as he wants to be.”"

There’s little in his track record to suggest Brown will slow down. North Carolina languished near the bottom of college football when he came to Chapel Hill. By his third season, he began a streak of winning seasons that lasted eight years and culminated with a pair of 10-win campaigns. Prior to the current two-year dip, Brown never had a single season with fewer than nine years, while in every season since 2001, his Horns won at least 10.

But it’s that little, recent dip that serves as the dissenting voice.

The 2010 season’s 5-7 record was largely the result of an anemic offense, ranked No. 88 in points scored among Bowl Subdivision programs. UT had no answer at quarterback for the graduated Colt McCoy — few programs could, given McCoy left after four years as a starter and carving a place for himself among the game’s all-time elite playmakers.

But UT’s dip was especially profound. Improvements under new offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin in 2011 were apparent, but the Longhorns remained a significant distance from its upper echelon levels of the Aughties.

A positive sign for UT returning to championship is its outstanding defensive production in the past season. Manny Diaz guided a defense that ranked No. 6 against the rush, and was the 33rd least scored-upon team in the FBS — an impressive figure given the Big 12 was home to five of the top 20 scoring offenses in the nation.

But like his predecessor Will Muschamp, Diaz is not long for Austin. Rare are the Jeff Casteels who spend a successful decade as a coordinator. Good coordinators are snatched up by other programs to be head coaches with amazing expediency, and Diaz is a name sure to appear on short lists come next season’s coaching carousel season.

Rival Oklahoma has cycled through offensive coordinators on a regular basis — could Brown maintain a similar rotation deep into his contract, while maintaining the level of excellence that has been established?

And keeping up that level will be a necessity as UT reexamines its offensive identity. Some of the lingering questions from the last two campaigns still drift — namely, who will captain the ship? Case McCoy and David Ash split snaps; McCoy threw for more yards per game, a better completion percentage, and more touchdowns while throwing fewer interceptions. Yet Ash proved a versatile running option, and is widely considered the Longhorns’ future.

Barring drastic improvement by one party over the other come spring football, a heavy does of Malcolm Brown is in order to try and kickstart the offense. Regardless how strong the defense is, UT will need some offensive firepower to maintain pace with OU, Oklahoma State, as well new additions TCU and pending litigation, West Virginia.

The 2012 campaign will set an important tone for the next two presidential administrations’ worth of Brown leadership.