Texas Longhorns football under Mack Brown
William Mack Brown (born August 27, 1951) is the former head coach of the University of Texas Longhorn football team.
Brown is credited with revitalizing North Carolina football program, and his tenure at Texas is the most successful for a head coach at the school in the 21st century to date.
While Brown informed his North Carolina team and the media that he had no plans to leave North Carolina for the recently vacated job at the University of Texas, he was soon identified (over the objections of Longhorn Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds) by the Texas search committee as one of only two men they were interested in hiring.
The offer included a sizable pay raise to about $750,000 a year (which could climb to as high as $1 million with incentives), and a similar amount to recruit assistant coaches.
As a consequence of taking the Texas post, Brown was not on the sidelines during the Tar Heels' 42–3 rout of Virginia Tech in the 1998 Gator Bowl, having been replaced as head coach by defensive coordinator Carl Torbush.
In his early years at UT, Mack Brown was sometimes referred to as "Coach February", a nickname that indicated he performed well during the important recruiting season, but failed to follow up with equally impressive wins on the field.
Brown did however lead the University of Texas to its second Big 12 Conference Championship game only to lose to a higher ranked Nebraska team which they had beaten earlier in the year.
Texas made it to the Big 12 Conference Championship Game, losing to Colorado, a school they had beaten by a substantial margin earlier in the year.
In 2004, the Longhorns began the season with a #7 ranking nationally and started out with a 65–0 blowout of North Texas, setting several UT school records in the process.
Then Texas set a record for the largest come from-behind-win in school history, beating #19 Oklahoma State 56–35 after falling behind 7–35.
Kansas head coach Mark Mangino stirred up controversy by claiming that the officials were biased in favor of Texas.
However, Oklahoma stood undefeated, which meant the Sooners would represent the Big 12 South in the Championship game against a much lower ranked team from the North Division.
Once again, the loss to Oklahoma had kept Texas out of playing for a National or Conference Title, and had seemingly destined them to non-Bowl Championship Series bowl as well.
This lobbying effort and ensuing result led to criticism of Brown for playing politics to get his team into a top bowl.
That was the last time UT had national title hopes, ending the regular season 11–0 before losing to Georgia in the Cotton Bowl Classic.
Voted by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, this award not only affirms the talent, skills and vision of Coach Mack Brown but strengthens the athletic and academic record achieved during his UT tenure.
As the defending national champions, Texas began the season ranked #2 in the polls, but having to replace the NFL-departed quarterback Vince Young with freshman Colt McCoy.
It's a shame that these recent events have generated a great deal of negative attention, because I do think that overall, this is as good of a group of kids that I’ve ever coached.
In their next game they secured a win over #11 Missouri in Austin, setting a new school, state, and conference attendance record in the process.
Texas pulled ahead of Notre Dame at the end of the regular season, to take sole possession of #2 on the list.
It was also the 200th career win for Mack Brown,[51] and it set a new attendance record for UT, the State of Texas, the Big 12 Conference, and the southwest region.
Back-to-back blowouts over non-conference teams Louisiana-Monroe and Wyoming were followed up with a 10-point victory at home over rival Texas Tech.
Texas clinched a spot in the Big 12 championship game by winning the Southern division following the victory over Kansas.
McCoy became the all-time winningest quarterback in college football following the Kansas win, a record that lasted two years before being bested by Kellen Moore at Boise State.
On the play immediately prior to kicker Hunter Lawrence's game-winning field goal, McCoy threw away a pass as time appeared to expire.
Video replay showed that McCoy's pass hit a stadium railing out of bounds with :01 left, allowing Texas to kick the winning field goal to advance to the BCS title game.
On December 14, 2009, the UT faculty council held a special meeting to consider the following resolution[62] "We appreciate the contributions of the athletic staff and, especially, the student-athletes, to the community of the University of Texas at Austin.
However, at a time when students are facing a deteriorating academic environment in the form of declining class offerings and increasing class sizes, and lecturers, teaching assistants, and staff are facing job terminations, we believe a permanent raise of $2 million (a sum greater than the entire career earnings of a typical university employee) offered to any member of the university community is unseemly and inappropriate."
The Browns' have endorsed [a] new Texas license plate, which is designed to raise public awareness for child abuse and neglect and the need for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) volunteers.
Later in the pilot, the real Mack Brown plays the role of a local football booster quizzing high-school coach Eric Taylor on his pre-game preparation.
