re: Mack Brown vs Charlie Strong

I think it depends on what you are looking for. The biggest question to me is if you are talking about MB going forward or MB when he was hired 16 years ago.

If it is going forward then Strong is the safer bet if for no other reason than Mack had run his course at Texas. He reminded me a lot of RC Slocum at the end, a great guy and good coach who had accomplished a ton but in the end he just had been bypassed by others with little hope of catching back up. Strong is a solid hire and someone different so that gives him the benefit of the doubt as an improvement.

If we are talking about MB when he was hired it is hard to take Strong over him. Mack turned around a flailing Texas program in short order and reeled off 10 win seasons for a decade. His recruiting in the '00s was ridiculous. He understood how to maximimize every advantage he had at Texas and expanded the brand in a way never seen before. His flaw was only winning on NC and 2 B12 Championships but mainly that was because he had so much trouble with OU and blew it in some B12 Championship games.

That is a VERY high bar for Strong to jump over, especially because Texas doesn't have some of the advantages it previously did exposure wise and A&M's SEC move has changed the game. He also isn't a fraction of the media guy that Mack was. So he has to get it all done on the field and that's easier said than done.

Strong is a very good coach. He's a guy I liked before we hired Sumlin. He's not without question marks though. His biggest accomplishment was that Sugar Bowl win which was great, but if there was ever a team that mailed it in at the end of the year it was UF last season (even the fans didn't show up). He also only won 1 Conference Title there in spite of playing in a very weak AAC/Big East. Many forget that Papa John has put a lot of cash into the Louisville program and the AAC is a freaking joke now. What Mack did at UNC was more impressive.