The Texas Longhorns faithful fans couldn’t be any more at odds at this point in time.
The football team finds themselves at 5-2 (4-2) after seven games and in the middle of a Big 12 Championship race with Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Iowa State and the Oklahoma Sooners. As long as they defeat the Wildcats, Cyclones and the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday they should be playing in Arlington, Texas. It would mark their second Big 12 title game appearance under Tom Herman and the third since 2009.
Recently the team has been suffering in recruiting. It has been talked about ad nauseum regarding the Brockermeyer twins, Jalen Milroe, Billy Bowman, Quinn Ewers and Phaizon Wilson. Herman recently spoke to the media and blamed the rumors and reports for their failings in history. Not everyone, media included buy into that theory.
When asked how to combat public questions about his job, Tom Herman said it’s hard in recruiting because teams use it to negatively recruit against #Texas & “16-year-old kids are very impressionable.” #Longhorns lost 3 commits in October in the weeks following loses to TCU & OU
— Taylor Gaspar Estes (@TaylorEstes247) November 16, 2020
Inconsistent, underwhelming results on the field speak louder than an ‘unnamed source’ ever could. https://t.co/mHmFdZK4Ul
— Cami Griffin (@CamiAnnG) November 16, 2020
Herman was asked about the perception of the program after losing the No. 1 recruit. He spoke about baseless reporting and unnamed sources.
Meanwhile Billy Bowman stated he wanted to be around coaches that know what they are doing.
FWIW
— Patrick (@PatSportsGuy) November 16, 2020
It isn’t just the media, the fan base themselves are having an inner battle on where they lie. On one side part of the group wants the Longhorns to have success. Pulling for the Longhorns to win out and get a Big 12 Championship for the first time since Colt McCoy led them to the BCS title game in 2009.
On the other hand you have the portion of fans that want chaos. At length they have spoken about getting Herman out of here, the only sure way for that to occur is to lose one or more of their final three games. Rooting for your team to fail.
I won’t speak to if that makes you a bad fan or not. With the rumors revolving around Urban Meyer potentially coming to Texas, that is a serious upgrade at the head coaching position. The area that the Longhorns need the most help. They have the athletes, the facilities but have been at a head coach deficit this year.
The idea of Herman failing and that resulting in Urban Meyer as the head coach is the dream. So should the fan base root for this? Well the answer is two-part answer. What if they do remove Herman but that doesn’t result in Meyer? It could very well happen but Herman has been guilty of coaching malpractice on more than one occasion.
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The kicker here is rooting for failure. Failure results in a less attractive bowl game berth. That has financial implications. Unlike the NFL, you can’t be rewarded for a poor season. Teams that fail don’t get better like the NFL Draft, you aren’t rewarded top recruits if you have one of the worst teams. In fact being bad actually hurts recruiting.
The point is that you should to continue to root for the Texas Longhorns and let the cards play out. If you are just being critical of the team, do that. You shouldn’t accept things just because you wear burnt orange on Saturdays.
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