Longhorn Blitz

Official @247Sports Texas Longhorns podcast. A @Horns247 production. Available on @ApplePodcasts, @Spotify, @Stitcher and other podcast platforms.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

I'm joining tonight's @ontexasfootball Longhorn Livestream with @rodbabers and @CJVogel_OTF at 7:10.

Come chop it up with us in less than an hour!

🔗: https://t.co/195sY0wqGo

[Fanatic Perspective @Fan_Prspective]

Exciting times drinking coffee and sleuthing through the initial practice reports.

I recommend y'all check out @JeffHowe247 article this morning. There's some great big picture thoughts & things to keep an eye on for all of Spring ball.

https://t.co/5VuXxJW5io

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

How to watch, what to know about @TexasMBB and @BoilerBall duking it out in Milwaukee tonight with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line #HookEm #MarchMadness:

https://t.co/i4GPf3HZrQ

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

In Purdue, @TexasMBB has to deal with elite size, an @NBA lottery pick and an offensive machine. With that said, Chris Beard is confident in the #Longhorns

“I think there's some challenges on the other end. It goes both ways.” #HookEm #MarchMadness

https://t.co/z9DYDapmEG

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

On "a validation win” for @TexasMBB, the #MarchMadness heroes who’ve emerged entering today’s battle with Purdue and what the #Longhorns playing their best looks like to Chris Beard:

https://t.co/dn5EiOByfm

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

And, let’s be real, Texas isn’t the best place to be getting reacquainted with the nuances of being a head coach on the fly.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

I’ll add too that Sark is learning on the job, albeit in a different way than Strong and Herman did. His last full season as a HC was in 2014. Again, I’m not suggesting he’s destined to fail, but there’s a re-learning curve for him, one I underestimated.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

FWIW, I’m not advocating Texas should’ve kept Herman. That to me isn’t the issue. The issue is canning Herman and being forced to roll the dice. Maybe Sark works, maybe he doesn’t, but it’s another HC with a bigger task than he expected that’s going to take time to try and fix.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

As referenced in one of the articles I wrote at the time, I felt Tom Herman was close to getting it flipped. But when he was fired, and the strategy to go scorched earth and “rebuild” was put into play for the fourth time in a 10-year stretch, Texas, once again, started over.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

I’ll credit @Fan_Prspective and I agree: Texas is Tennessee. Texas is Nebraska. You’re a once-great program spinning your wheels because you’re constantly searching for a solution without really looking at the problem. And considering the resources, Texas’ fall is more egregious.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

I don’t have the answers on how to fix Texas, but it’s disingenuous to suggest the football program suddenly got plopped down into a bad situation. It’s been going on for 12 years.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

I don’t know if Sark is the right man for the job. But rather than forcing him to go to win-now mode, which results in hasty decisions that exacerbate existing issues, and firing him in 24 or so months, maybe Texas should try something different for a change and see if it works.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

Bottom line is Texas has never truly rebuilt from the 5-7 season in 2010. Each coach prior to Sark (Mack, Strong, Herman) tried putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds. There was never going to be a quick fix outside of hiring a home run coaching candidate (Saban or Meyer).

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

I just retweeted a lot of data I put together in the spring of 2020 to show attrition isn’t something that just magically popped up at Texas in 2021. It’s a problem that’s gone on for more than a decade and the big spikes are triggered by coaching changes/overhauls/reboots, etc.

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

… so low when it comes to player development in that window.

If you’re a Texas fan looking for good news, I wrote recently about how Tom Herman is on the cusp of reversing the trend:

https://t.co/f8v0q8x0NW

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

… Coaching changes essentially exacerbated the issues Texas and every other program in the country faces when it comes to attrition.

The bottom line is in a decade where Texas almost as many losing seasons (4) as bowl wins (5), it’s not hard to see why the Longhorns rank...

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

… Mack Brown overhauled the coaching staff after the 5-7 year in 2010, Charlie Strong took over for him in 2014 and Tom Herman took over for him in 2017.

The numbers back up that Texas suffered a ton of attrition during coaching changes/staff overhauls over the last decade...

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

… The 2008 class was the last class that had a 30% or better NFL hit rate until the 2015 haul (33.3).

At the same time, the following classes had absurdly high bust rates: 2009 (42.9), 2010 (37.5), 2013 (46.7) and 2016 (39.3)...

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

Go to the 2009 class (which produced a first-round pick in Kenny Vaccaro) and the bust rate skyrockets to 42.9 percent.

That’s nearly half of a recruiting class where transfers, dismissals and guys who simply failed to play enough to earn dominated the group…

[Jeff Howe @JeffHoweOTF]

@chris_hummer @247Sports @ButlerinAustin Six of Mack Brown’s first 11 recruiting classes had NFL hit rates above 30%: 2002 (32), 2003 (36.8), 2004 (31.6), 2005 (46.7), 2007 (37.5) and 2008 (33.3).

Likewise, only 2 classes had a 30% or higher bust rate: 1999 (36) and 2006 (32)...