The Neil Brown-Tom Herman Connection
Once upon a time, Tom Herman was in the running for a different job before he agreed to become the head coach at the University of Texas. Prior to Ed Orgeron taking the reigns for the LSU Tigers, Herman was slated to become the next coach after the 2016 season. The two jobs that were linked to Herman were the Texas and LSU.
He was the hot name after leading the Houston Cougars to a 13-1 record and defeated the No. 9 ranked FSU Seminoles in the Peach Bowl in the 2015 season. The next year the team was 9-3 before Herman agreed to head to Austin on Nov. 27, 2016. Orgeron would take the job as the head coach and that is where Neil Brown story comes in. As the head coach at Troy, his team headed into Baton Rouge, Louisiana to take on the Tigers.
Brown’s team forced four turnovers and his running back ran for 190 yards as they upset a ranked LSU squad as the road underdog. Fast forward three years and now he can upset the other half of this equation. As an unranked team and a road underdog, Brown leads the WVU Mountaineers into Austin. If he is able to pull it off again, he will have beaten both coaches who were in the running for the LSU job.
To beat Texas, that would mean yet another loss to an unranked opponent for Tom Herman’s squad. At Texas, Herman has seven of these losses. Go back to his first head coaching gig at Houston and you will find four more. That includes three in his second and final season as the Cougars head coach. Just another storyline to monitor.