Comments on: Royal, Akers & Brown: Trends of A Decade

By: Grab bag from the Big 12 blogosphere … | Northeast Kansans for Nebraska

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:37:59 +0000

[...] Barking Carnival.com looks at the coaching careers of Mack Brown, Darrell Royal and Fred Akers — the only three coaches in Texas school history to last 10 years or more at their job. [...]

By: srr50

srr50 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:32:02 +0000

"Quick example of what I mentioned above…in 1957 Darrell Royal’s team finished 6-4-1 and finished #11 in the polls. In 2003 10-3 only got Mack Brown #14"

That's more because the polls came out before, rather than after bowl games. But again, Texas played four Top 10 teams in 1957, and only one Top Ten team in 2003. And no I don't buy your theory that the talent is so much better distributed today as to make a relative difference between Top Ten teams of the era. Maybe at the bottom (21-25) but everyone was playing by the same rules back in the 50's 60's and since it was basically single platoon football, the talent was spread out more in terms of no specialization.

"Side note: 1957 National Champs…10-0 Auburn University."

True That. Of course Auburn won the AP national title while Ohio State won the UPI coaches vote. Seems Auburn was ineligible for a bowl game that year because they were on probation for paying a couple of HS recruits. :)

By: utstudboy

utstudboy — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:54:51 +0000

The difference between Mack Brown and Fred Akers is that Mack made all the right calls in his big chance. he put the right players on the field and let them play. You can’t say the same for Fred.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:12:01 +0000

Quick example of what I mentioned above…in 1957 Darrell Royal’s team finished 6-4-1 and finished #11 in the polls. In 2003 10-3 only got Mack Brown #14. In fact, UT has won 10 or more games 21 times, 1/3 of those (7) have been by Mack Brown. (yes, I know they play more games now, but it’s still a significant achievement).

Side note: 1957 National Champs…10-0 Auburn University.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:59:30 +0000

I’m an Auburn fan that randomly stumbled across this. I think comparing the records is interesting, but comparing the eras is not very fair to Mack Brown. Sure, he’s stumbled against OU, but I believe there are more competitive teams, more importantly, more elite players spread around to the teams, that makes Mack’s era much more competitive as a whole. I would say the overall quality of your typical # 8 team in the 50’s and 60’s was not as good as the typical # 8 team of the 2000’s….meaning the difference these days between #1 and #15 is not as much as it used to be (just look at all the upsets last year).

Just to stir it up, if Mack Brown could borrow Tommy Tuberville’s record against top 10 teams in the last 6 years (15-6), UT would have had a couple more titles in his 10 years.

Good luck this year guys, hope you beat OU!

By: srr50

srr50 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:31:55 +0000

Thanks ‘Wulf. I believe Royal added the Longhorn logo on the helmet in 1961.

By: beowulf

beowulf — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:20:25 +0000

Great read, Steve.

When did the Longhorn logo become the distinguishing symbol on our helmets? Did Royal initiate that? Anyone?

By: Beergut

Beergut — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:30:17 +0000

I hate it when the media says something like, “They only beat one (or two or three or X number) team that ended up ranked at the end of the season” when the team they played and beat was ranked at the time the game was played. If the team in question had lost the game to the ranked team, they would still be ranked. Same goes for saying someone only played X number of teams who finished with a winning record, when some of those teams would have finished over .500 had they beat that someone in their game.

Hope that makes some sense.Basically, if you beat a team that ended the season 5-7, I don’t thin they should criticize you for beating a team that finished under .500, when if that team had beaten you, they would be a .500 team.

By: TaylorTRoom

TaylorTRoom — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:23:42 +0000

Cali, you’re absolutely right about game results skewing the stats. Would it be better to use Sagarins, or some least squares ranker that doesn’t weigh the games at the end of the season more heavily than those at the beginning?

I remember hating the stat about Chris Simms’ record against top 10 teams. He led the Horns to a gutsy win at KSU one time, when he had noting in the way of a running game. The ‘cats weren’t top 10 at the time, but I think they finished top 10. He got no credit for a very difficult win.

By: California Horn

California Horn — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:20:41 +0000

Thinking about it some more, the same was true for the 2000 Holiday Bowl. #8 Oregon finished top 10 by beating us, and would have finished outside the top 10 if they had lost to us.