Brock on Coach and Company today.. re: Texas

Preface: I never listen to sports radio. Like ever. I got totally burned out on it in the 90's. But, I happened to scan through channels on my XM in my car on the way home from work, and I hit the Coach and Company show on ESPN (I think that's what the text said) and I heard Brock Huard's voice and stopped to listen.

He told a really interesting story about Texas, that I had never heard before. It really says a lot, and this can be Seahawks related if you really start thinking deeply on this subject and think about a couple of players the Hawks have had (that are NOT Earl Thomas).

Brock said that he had called a game in Texas, and he met up with a former NFL GM and they sat down and had a talk. I believe he said they had lunch or something. This GM told him flat out that he was FORBIDDEN by his owner at the time from drafting ANY player from Texas. Just a flat out, doesn't matter how highly ranked they are or if they dropped to them. Every player from Texas was 100% off of their draft board, and they weren't to be taken under any circumstance.

The owner said to the GM that he had seen too many players come through that program that had a sense of entitlement, and had not grown or improved in their college days, and were not worth wasting their time on. The entitlement was the major issue. Brock repeated "entitlement" about five times, and it really set off some bells for me, because Texas is typically STACKED with 4 and 5 star players, and frequently "wins" the overall recruiting total for average star players, but won their championship when Vince Young literally carried them to victory in a crazy fashion (and very impressive fashion).

Apparently Brock told this story to some folks in Texas who were supporters (I believe from the way he talked, that they were boosters). He said they got extremely angry with him for what he said (seems like a totally entitled response really), but he told them he wasn't making up the news, just reporting it.

He did go on to add that Mack Brown has done everything in his power to break that, but he just thinks that he swung for the fences in firing Manny Diaz in a last gasp to let everybody in the program know that they had to cut it out and play to their potential. Every coach he has brought in has worked tirelessly to break that whole ideology, but it seems from my POV that the boosters have too much influence and make these kids feel bigger than the team. It is the inmates running the asylum I think (players doing what they want, and boosters having more influence on what happens than coaches).

I think back on Marcus Tubbs, and I wonder.... this is nothing with his injury issues, which were VERY real and VERY well documented. Marcus was a fantastic player when he was 'on', and the team was infinitely better against the run when Marcus was playing. But there was also the flip-side where he was missing practices from day 1, constantly had "personal issues", wouldn't be a full go in camp, would have to take time to deal with family stuff. His weight would balloon up every off-season, etc. It really was interesting, because Tubbs was a monster in college. He was by all rights going to be an amazing DT. But it just never quite clicked all around. I thought he'd become a holy terror like the Tez with his speed, size, strength. And no doubt he was a GOOD NFL player. But were the injuries the issue? Or did his lack of conditioning and lack of interest in practice (or it being a secondary priority due to other concerns that were overwhelming to him, such as the health of family... which I TOTALLY get, but also have had to put out of my own mind and show up at my sub six figure job every single day whether somebody is dying or not), and so on the reason for his ultimate early demise? Was he "entitled"?

Did the Seahawks put a squash on the drafting of Texas players under Ruskell by order of Paul Allen (seems unlikely as I can't see Paul saying not to draft anybody from a specific school anymore, but we did seem to focus on a core subset of schools... SEC and ACC mainly)? Or was he talking to Polian and he wasn't allowed to go after Texas players? I figure he was probably close with Ruskell and Polian due to his ties to the Colts and Seahawks, but I may be narrowing in on two "obvious" guys, when it is likely that Brock has many more close connections throughout the NFL. I believe he said he was having lunch with the guy though, so it makes me think it was somebody who was a friend and they planned to meet, and this person was in town working as a high level scout (which I believe Ruskell was doing for the Bears a couple of years ago, or Brock had met with a 'friend' that was a former GM and asked his thoughts on Texas since he was going to be calling a Texas game that week).

Interesting stuff, and I just made a lot of connections and realized that this is a big issue in college football and why it is actually becoming less interesting to me. It is turning into major league baseball with the separation between haves and have nots, but even the haves like Texas seem to be flaming out in a major way. They got trounced by BYU of all programs. BYU? I went to BYU, I love BYU, I support BYU, and I mock BYU endlessly because of my close connection to the University, its athletic programs, and the smallish (at least by NFL standards) white guys like me who were considered good athletes at that school. While they have had many fine players, and NFL players over the years (even hall of famers), I can tell you that this particular team has no business putting up 550 yards on the ground on anybody, especially not Texas of all teams.

Brock Huard is a smart guy, and it was cool to listen him today. I may have to give sports radio another chance.

I don't know about the current regime, but I know that Holmgren refused to draft players from Clemson for the exact same reasons until Ruskell talked him into Leroy Hill. Sweeney at Clemson has been fighting that same battle with the entitled players and boosters and has really made some headway. It took him a lot less time than Mack Brown has had and it just took him being a radical over the top disciplinarian for a couple years, got guys that wanted to play hard and now they are a respectable program.

You are either coaching it or allowing it to happen, and Mack Brown has had over a decade to change the culture and hasn't. I do recognize that he's not only fighting the boosters but he's also fighting the whole texas football mentality that goes down through the high schools where the players are worshipped when they don't even have their drivers license yet.