Return of the Mack

If you are hearing a little bit of 90's hip hop in your head after that title, good for you. If not, go culture yourself and then come back and read (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB1D9wWxd2w).

Anywho, Mack Brown has been awfulllly quiet lately for a man who normally is all too happy to tout his Texas team. And probably with good reason- a non bowl-qualifying, embarrassingly bad season is not something t-shirt 'Horns and a tv outlet primed to carry your 24-7 network really want to hear about (though believe me I've made sure to badger the former relentlessly).

But 'ole Brown bear had to best the groundhog (probably just to throw a little weight around) by popping out of his tear-stained cave to tell us if we could look forward to 6 more months of Longhorn hibernation.

The result of said conference plays out like a meeting of Arrogance Anonymous. Let's examine:

"I think at one point that I must have thought that because we’re Texas and we’ve won so much, we’re just going to win. On bad years we’ll win 10. On good years we got a chance to win it all."

Hard to blame you, Coach, when a billion fans with no real ties to the school practically chant this maxim in their sleep, you can't help but start to believe their (literally) uneducated claims. Unfortunately that's probably not a good mindset for the head coach of a major D-1 program to have. But props for admitting you have a problem. They say that's the first step.

"I do know that I felt like I had a hangover after the national championship game, and I don’t know if I’ve ever taken a loss as hard. I think part of it was Colt [McCoy], part of it was it’s just too hard to get there. We just barely missed in 2008. We just barely missed in 2009, and I don’t think I did a good job of coming back out of it and getting a spark and getting the energy back to where I needed it to be and I didn’t realize it. I just pouted for a while, and when you’re pouting at 13-1 that’s pretty stupid, number one."

So...is Brown saying he was drunk while coaching the national championship game, or that he is just plain stupid? I like both admissions, and I will accept them with equal validity.

That’s just part of it. I did miss the fact, and with me too, that I thought when you won a national championship you might have an entitlement in a down year. I didn’t know [it happened] when you lost it, but if you look at the two Super Bowl teams, the one that loses is usually as bad as the one that wins the next year. It’s just hard to repeat. I didn’t think it would affect you by losing. I thought you’d be more motivated, but I wasn’t. I was down. It’s probably a different reason. You probably relax a little bit when you win it all. You probably get down a little bit and lose your edge some after [you lose]. You make two straight runs at it, and you miss both of them barely - it takes a lot out of you because it’s too hard to get there. I thought that’s what probably happened when you look back at it."

If you can't get excited or motivated about COLLEGE FOOTBALL, maybe it's time for you to turn over the reigns to your head coach-in-waiting... wait....

On the coach-in-waiting strategy: "It’s viable. It worked for us."

Cue: the denial arrogance portion of the program. Wait wait wait... wha? I mean, technically, Muschamp ended up as head coach... for FLORIDA! Basically, that tag meant zilch. When a job came open, the coach-in-waiting left. Neither side really held up their end of the deal.

On whether other coaches are considering leaving Texas: . And I’ve told ours, if you don’t want to stay, come in, tell me, and you can leave. I don’t care. We can hire good coaches at Texas. DeLoss lets us pay them and they want to come, so I just want somebody that wants to be here. So to answer your question, if I walk out of here and one comes in and says, “I’m going to leave”, I’m going to say, “Fine.” I’ll get on the phone. I got a list now. I can hire one pretty fast.

Just like you can win a national championship pretty fast?

On the television network: Do we have an assistant coaches show? Do you have a clinic on ESPN? Do you have your own road trip every week for away games? Do you have gameday for your own home games? There is so much to think about and where does it stop? There is just so much to think about, and where does it help ESPN?

Gameday for your own home games!? Does that sound like a bit much to you? Maybe a little entitled? Didn't we just go over this!? The cool thing about College Game Day is that it covers stories from around college football. Who wants to watch a show dripping in a burnt-orange lovefest? Please, lets make a bandwagon, self-aggrandizing fanbase even more single-minded in its delusions of grandeur.

And a team's job should not be to see where it can help ESPN. This seems like a serious conflict of interest. The football team should be serving the University and the fans, not a money-grabbing third party.

So i'll say it again. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, like dignity or a non-combover hairstyle. And I think this just proves it. He says he wants to change, but that grand 'ole Texas-sized hubris is still their. And pride goeth before the fall, Mack. And only time will tell how long this fall will last. That and Mack Brown's shadow on Signing Day.