He’s had it up to here [points to his forehead] of the appurtenant talk radio chatter that Mack is tired of the grind and wants to step aside.
He’s had quite enough of the cockamamie black helicopter nonsense about Nick Saban being in dire financial straits and wishing to get away from the pressure of coaching at Alabama. So much so, as the story goes, that he’s in line to replace the 14-year veteran head coach of the Texas Longhorns and take over a cushier, less pressure job in Austin.
How tired is the Texas athletic director of all this nonsense?
Dodds is extending Brown’s contract.
“I’m just tired of all the conversations (rumors about Brown’s retirement),” Dodds told the American-Statesman. “Continuity is of the essence. It’s more about stability than anything else.
“Mack’s comfortable with what he’s doing right now,” Dodds added. “I think he’s very comfortable. He’s enjoying it. I’ve been around him 14 years, and he seems to be into it. “Everything I know points to him being happy and wanting to do it for a while.”
That giant crunch you just heard was the sound of thousands of ankles breaking as rival fans jump off the “Saban leaving” bandwagon. Nick Saban’s not going anywhere. Mack Brown’s job is among the safest in the country. The seat’s so cold that Brown’s cheeks are turning blue and the faces of the famed insiders are turning red.
And the cockamamie stories about Saban’s finances and mental health are just so much bullshit, spread by people with a penchant for making things up as they go along and concocting stories so elaborate they’d have made Rube Goldberg blush in appreciation for their silliness.
Next up will be the clandestine connection between Saban, non-profit organizations and churches near Lake Burton, Georgia and how Saban will have to leave Tuscaloosa to cover his nefarious tracks. Why, this is so big that it’s too much for ordinary people to understand. Or something.
The DMN story is unfortunately behind the website’s paywall. But the documents themselves are not.
One of those documents provides compelling evidence that ESPN and Texas worked together and lobbied hard for the NCAA to provide a rules interpretation allowing the Longhorn Network to air high school games. One stunning revelation is that ESPN “threatened” Texas Tech.
Perhaps the most explosive allegation of all—ESPN was “pushing hard to help Texas recruit high school prospects.”
The document excerpted above is from an email from Texas A&M Athletic Director Bill Byrne. It is not clear who the recipient of the email was. Byrne also expresses deep concern over ESPN’s financial relationship with the NCAA and a too-cozy relationship between Texas Athletic Director Deloss Dodds and NCAA top brass. In fact, Byrne even says Dodds himself touted the relationship to NCAA brass.
The NCAA eventually concluded that the Longhorn Network would not be permitted to show high school football games, concluding that it would have provided a competitive advantage for Texas.
However, if Byrne’s conclusions are correct—that ESPN and Texas worked together to help Texas recruit high school prospects and lobby the NCAA for a favorable ruling—the implications are explosive. It suggests collusion at the highest level of a major university and ESPN executives, and Byrne was rightly concerned that the weight being thrown around might unduly influence the NCAA.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas and Notre Dame have agreed to a four-game series starting in 2015 that brings together two of the most successful and storied programs in college football.
The Longhorns are scheduled to play in South Bend on Sept. 5, 2015. The Fighting Irish are slated to play in Austin on Sept. 3, 2016, and again on Aug. 31, 2019.
The Longhorns return to South Bend on Sept. 12, 2020.
"We are so excited we were able to schedule a four-game series with Notre Dame," Texas coach Mack Brown said in a statement. "I love college football history and nobody has more historical programs than Texas and Notre Dame. The renewal of this rivalry should be a lot of fun to be a part of and something that college football fans across the country can really enjoy."
New Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly was equally happy.
"Starting a series with the Texas Longhorns is great not just for Notre Dame, but college football, and we couldn't be happier about it," he said in a statement. "When I look at the job Coach Brown has done at Texas in reviving a once proud tradition, I see many parallels to what our staff plans to do at Notre Dame. "The addition of Texas to our future schedules is just another example of the type of high-profile programs we plan on playing as an independent. We look forward to embracing our unique status within college football and continuing to schedule games against similar programs down the road."
