Mack Brown

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Mack Brown
George W. Bush (left) and Mack Brown (right) give the Hook 'em Horns at the White House with the 2005 Texas Longhorn football team
Title	Head coach
College	University of Texas at Austin
Sport	Football
Team Record	94-22
Born	August 27, 1951 (age 55)
Place of birth	Cookeville, Tennessee
Career Highlights
Overall	180-96-1
Coaching Stats
College Football DataWarehouse
Championships
2005 National Championship 2005 Big 12 Championship
Awards
2006 Paul "Bear" Bryant Award
Coaching positions
1998-present 1988-1997 1985-1987 1983	University of Texas at Austin University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tulane University Appalachian State University

Mack Brown (born August 27, 1951), is head coach of the University of Texas Longhorn football team. During the 2005 season, Coach Brown led the Longhorns to a Rose Bowl victory and a National Championship. With the 2006 season, Brown led his team to win 10 games or more for six straight years, which is the best current ten-win streak in the NCAA.

Prior to coaching at Texas, Brown coached at Appalachian State, Tulane, and North Carolina. Brown is credited with revitalizing the Texas and North Carolina football programs, and is well-known for being a successful recruiter. The Longhorns beat Michigan in the 2005 Rose Bowl, Ohio State at The Horseshoe in September 2005, and division rival Oklahoma in 2005 and 2006. The 2005 season was capped off by victories over Colorado and USC to win the Big 12 conference and national championships, respectively. In 2006 he was awarded the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award for "Coach of the Year".^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Coaching career 2.1 Early positions 2.2 University of North Carolina 2.2.1 Season records under Brown 2.3 University of Texas at Austin 2.3.1 Move to Texas 2.3.2 Season records under Brown 2.3.3 Early seasons 2.3.4 2004 season 2.3.5 2005 season 2.3.6 2006 season 2.4 Notable statistics and accomplishments 3 Outside of Football 4 Notes 5 External links

[edit] Early life

Brown was born in the middle of three children (brothers Mel,youngest,and Watson) on August 27, 1951 in Cookeville, Tennessee. During his teenage years, he attended Putnam County High School. He was the product of a disciplined home with an early curfew. It might also be said that he had football in his veins. His step-grandfather, Eddie Watson, was a legendary athlete at Tennessee Tech and coach at Cookeville High School for more than three decades. His father, Melvin Brown, was also a coach and an administrator. Mack's older brother Watson also caught the coaching bug, and is the current head football coach at Tennessee Tech.

Brown attended Vanderbilt University and later graduated from Florida State University in 1974, starting his coaching career as a student coach after an injury ended his playing career. He then received a graduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1976. During his undergraduate years, Brown was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

[edit] Coaching career

[edit] Early positions

Brown's first experience coaching came as a student coach of wide receivers at Florida State University, a position he held in 1973 and 1974. From 1975 to 1977 he was the Wide Receivers Coach at Southern Miss. This was followed by a one-year stint as Wide Receivers Coach at Memphis State. For the 1979 season, he joined the staff of Iowa State, again as a Wide Receivers Coach, before a promotion to Offensive Coordinator. In 1982, he moved to LSU as the Quarterbacks Coach.

Brown's first head coaching job came in 1983 when he led Appalachian State to a 6-5 record. After losing out to Bill Arnsparger for the vacant head coaching position at LSU, Brown then moved back to a supporting role, but for a much more illustrious program, as offensive coordinator for the Oklahoma Sooners during the 1984 season.

His second head coaching position came with Tulane in 1985. Despite a slow start (a 1-10 record in his first year), he helped turn around the program and led the Green Wave to a 4-7 in 1986 and, in 1987, to a 6-6 record and a trip to the Independence Bowl, Tulane's fifth bowl game in over 40 years.

[edit] University of North Carolina

In 1988, Brown took the head coaching job at North Carolina. Brown would ultimately lead the Tar Heels to a top five ranking in the polls. The improved performance of the Tar Heels under his leadership garnered Brown increased attention as a head coach, but his inability to win big games or conference championships resulted in increased criticism, including a "Mr. Football" moniker from then-Florida head coach Steve Spurrier.

[edit] Season records under Brown

His year-by-year records and bowl appearances while at North Carolina are as follows:

Year	Record	Bowl game attended
1988	1-10
1989	1-10
1990	6-4-1
1991	7-4
1992	9-3	Peach Bowl
1993	10-3	Gator Bowl
1994	8-4	Sun Bowl
1995	7-5	Carquest Bowl
1996	10-2	Gator Bowl
1997	10-1	'*Gator Bowl

'* See "Move to Texas" below.

[edit] University of Texas at Austin

[edit] Move to Texas

While Brown told his North Carolina team that he wasn't a candidate for the recently-vacated job at the University of Texas, he was soon identified by Longhorn Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds and the Texas search committee as one of only two men they were interested in hiring.

On December 2, 1997, Brown was contacted while at the ACC's football banquet in Atlanta. He agreed to meet with the hiring committee, which included Dodds, Texas coaching legend Darrell Royal, several former Texas players, and several important boosters, most notably Tom Hicks (owner of the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers), who donated time, energy and the use of his private jet corps to the coaching search that also included an exploratory meeting with Northwestern's Gary Barnett in Chicago.

Brown met the committee on December 3 in the Four Seasons hotel in Atlanta.

The committee was impressed with Brown and Dodds offered him the job on the spot. The offer included a sizeable pay raise to about $750,000 a year (which could climb to as high as $1 million with incentives), and a similar amount to recruit assistants who loved the game, were familiar with college football, and could fit in at Texas.

Brown tentatively accepted, but went back home with his wife Sally to ponder the decision and meet with his coaching staff. After thinking about it, he met with his players and promised them that his future was at North Carolina. UNC officials countered with a longer, more lucrative contract than Texas had offered, but Brown changed his mind and stuck by his decision to go to Texas. The players found out later that day about Brown's decision to leave via a press conference.

That Thursday night, Brown flew to Austin. He was introduced to an enthusiastic Longhorn crowd on Friday.

As a consequence of taking the Texas post, Brown was not on the sidelines during the Tarheel 42-3 rout of Virginia Tech in the 1998 Gator Bowl, having been replaced as head coach by assistant Carl Torbush.

[edit] Season records under Brown

Brown's year-by-year records as head coach of the Texas Longhorns (with bowl appearances) are as follows:

Year	Record	Bowl game attended
1998	9-3	Cotton Bowl
1999	9-5	Cotton Bowl
2000	9-3	Holiday Bowl
2001	11-2	Holiday Bowl
2002	11-2	Cotton Bowl
2003	10-3	Holiday Bowl
2004	12-1	Rose Bowl
2005	13-0	2006 Rose Bowl; BCS National Championship
2006	10-3	2006 Alamo Bowl

[edit] Early seasons

In his early years at UT, Mack Brown was sometimes referred to as "Coach February", a nickname that indicated he performed well during the important recruiting season, but failed to follow up with equally impressive wins on the field. His detractors felt that with all the resources at his disposal at Texas, combined with the talent he was recruiting from high school programs, that he should have more to show for it than appearances in the Holiday Bowl or Cotton Bowl. They felt that he should be playing for Big 12 titles or even National Championships instead.

In five of the eight seasons under Brown, the Longhorns have been all but eliminated from either of these two goals due to losses in October to Big 12 rival Oklahoma. Since the two teams play in the same division of the Big 12, a loss by Texas to Oklahoma means that Texas cannot win the south half of the conference unless Oklahoma loses at least two conference games. That single loss can easily leave the Longhorns in third or fourth place in the conference, behind the North and South division winners. 2001 was an exception that did little to ease the criticism. In that year's campaign, the Longhorns lost to the Sooners but were given another chance when the Sooners lost to both Nebraska and Oklahoma State. Texas made it to the Big 12 Conference Championship Game, losing to Colorado, a school they had beaten by a substantial margin earlier in the year. A similar opportunity presented itself in 2002. After Oklahoma beat Texas, they lost to Texas A&M and Oklahoma State. However, Texas had sufferred a heart-breaking loss to Texas Tech so they did not make the championship game.

Although Brown consistently led the Longhorns to a bowl game to cap off each season, his first six years he was not able to lead them to a Bowl Championship Series game, having to settle each year for the Holiday Bowl or Cotton Bowl. His record in these games was 3 and 3, with two of the 3 losses coming at the hands of supposedly inferior teams as judged by the rankings headed into the games.

[edit] 2004 season

Main article: 2004 Texas Longhorn football team

In 2004, the Longhorns began the season with a #7 ranking nationally and started out with a 65-0 blowout of North Texas, setting several UT school records in the process. This was followed by a narrow 22-20 win against unranked Arkansas. They defeated Rice and Baylor 35-13 and 44-14 respectively.

This left them ranked fifth coming into the annual matchup with then #2 Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout. Oklahoma shut-out the Longhorns 12-0. Texas dropped to #9, before rebounding with wins over #24 Missouri 28-20, at #24 Texas Tech 51-21, and at Colorado 31-7.

Then Texas set a record for the largest come from-behind-win in school history, beating #19 Oklahoma State 56-35 after falling behind 7-35. After this performance, Texas again fell behind against Kansas but squeaked out a win 27-23. Kansas head coach Mark Mangino stirred up controversy by claiming that the officials were biased in favor of Texas.

The series of victories brought Texas back up to #5 in the rankings as they welcomed arch-rival Texas A&M to Austin and won 26-13. However, Oklahoma stood undefeated, which meant the Sooners would represent the Big 12 South in the Championship game against a much lower ranked team from the North Division. Once again, the loss to Oklahoma had kept Texas out of playing for a National or Conference Title, and had seemingly destined them to non-Bowl Championship Series bowl as well.

However, Brown began lobbying the voters in the two polls based on human voters (one on college football coaches, the other on Associated Press writers) to place the Longhorns high enough in the rankings to ensure they received a Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowl-bid. The arcane rules of the BCS were such that Texas might get left out of the 8 chosen teams even though they ranked 5th nationally. A lackluster win by Cal over Southern Miss gave the Longhorns the sufficient swing votes they needed to make it into the Rose Bowl, one of the four BCS bowls. This lobbying effort and ensuing result led to criticism of Brown for playing politics to get his team into a top bowl. Thus, he was no longer criticized for failing to get into a top bowl, he was criticized for doing so.

The appearance in the "Grand-daddy" of all bowl games was the first visit by the Longhorns, due mainly to the fact that the Rose Bowl traditionally pitted the winner of the Pac 10 against the winner of the Big Ten. Texas' opponent was Michigan, whom Texas was playing for the very first time. Texas won the game 38-37 on a last second field goal kick by Longhorn Dusty Mangum in what had been called one of the greatest Rose Bowl games of all time.

Ironically, Brown followed up a strong 2004 season on the field with a less successful 2005 recruiting season. Brown, who long had been criticized for recruiting top talent but not achieving the highest possible results, began to receive criticism for missing out on top recruits, especially for missing out on quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, who ended up not following through on his verbal commitment to sign with Texas.

Despite the success of the 2004 season, Coach Brown's resume was still lacking a conference championship, let alone a national championship. The 2005 season offered an opportunity to add those credentials.

[edit] 2005 season

Main article: 2005 Texas Longhorn football team

Save for redshirt Junior Quarterback Vince Young, many of Texas' key players from the previous season, including running back Cedric Benson, linebacker Derrick Johnson and tight end Bo Scaife, did not return for the 2005 season. However, Texas was given a pre-season #2 ranking (behind defending National Champions University of Southern California) by Sports Illustrated magazine, and was also ranked second in the AP and USA Today coaches pre-season polls.

* Rankings are from the Associated Press poll released prior to each game.
† First national championship since 1970 (BCS, AP).

Texas scored a decisive 45-12 victory over Oklahoma, which tied the biggest margin of victory for the Longhorns in the 100 game history of the matchup. That marked the 6th time the Longhorns have entered the contest ranked 2nd nationally, and they have won all six times. With the win, Texas started the season 5-0 for the first time since 1983. That was the last time UT had national title hopes, ending the regular season 11-0 before losing to Georgia in the Cotton Bowl.

After the win over previously undefeated Texas Tech, Texas moved into first place in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings for the first time since their creation. The BCS formula, which takes into account strength of schedule, allowed Texas to advance in the rankings since they defeated a previously unbeaten team, while University of Southern California beat Washington, a 1-6 team.

Texas' place at the top of the BCS rankings lasted only one week. On October 29, Texas beat an Oklahoma State University Cowboys team that has struggled so far this season. Despite OSU's 0-5 start to conference play, Texas found themselves behind early in the game and for the third straight year, Texas found themselves trailing a lower-ranked Oklahoma State team at half-time. For the third straight year, Texas came from behind to win by a sizable margin. Vince Young set a school record for rushing yards in a game by a quarterback with 267, and accounted for 506 total yards of offense to lead the team to victory. Over the past 3 meetings between the two schools, the Longhorns outscored the Cowboys by a combined second-half score of 118 to 0.

Texas retained the top spot in the computer rankings, but not by enough to stay ahead of USC overall..^[2] After both teams won all their remaining games, USC and Texas were ranked 1 and 2, respectively; Texas then defeated USC 41-38 in the Rose Bowl, winning the National Championship.

One of Brown's quirks is always answering journalists' with their first name. For example, on a 2006 ABC telecast, host John Saunders asked a question: "Coach, how do you ..." Brown responded: "Well, John, I think ..."

But, perhaps it is the "LIVE THE DREAM 2006" campaign that excites the Longhorn community throughout Austin, Texas that sums up Coach Mack Brown's post Rose Bowl words to the BCS National Champions:

"Don't let this be the best thing that ever happens in your life....Maybe it'll be the best sports event, but don't let it be the best thing. Make sure you're a better father than this today. Make sure you're a better husband than this today. Because this goes away.... It's a game."

When Brown was introduced as the new head football coach at University of Texas at Austin, it was said to begin "The Brown Era" at The Burnt Orange University. On January 11, 2006 the Brown Era became legend as Coach Mack Brown was named the Paul "Bear" Bryant College Football Coach of the Year.^[1] Not since Darrell Royal's victory in 1963 has a coach from The University of Texas at Austin been given this honor. Voted by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, this award not only affirms the talent, skills and vision of Coach Mack Brown but strengthens the athletic and academic record achieved during his UT tenure. Eighteen players on the 2006 Rose Bowl roster entered the game with the coursework for their college degree complete.

[edit] 2006 season

Main article: 2006 Texas Longhorn football team

[edit] Notable statistics and accomplishments

• 2005 NCAA Football National Championship (game played in January, 2006)
• 2005 Big 12 Conference Championship
• 16 consecutive winning seasons
• 14 consecutive bowl game appearances
• Big 12 Conference record 21 consecutive conference wins from 2004-2006.
• Player awards at Texas under Brown include a Heisman Trophy winner (Ricky Williams), two Maxwell Award winners (Ricky Williams, Vince Young), a Davey O'Brien Award Winner, two Doak Walker Award winners, a Butkus Award winner, two Thorpe Award winners and four national player of the year honors. Texas has also had 23 All-Americans, 37 first-team All-Big 12 selections, two Big 12 Offensive Players of the Year, two Big 12 Conference Defensive Players of the Year and seven Big 12 Freshman of the Year honorees.
• UT has posted back-to-back 11-win seasons, five consecutive 10-win seasons and eight consecutive nine (or more) win campaigns for the first time in school history, though it must be noted that seasons are generally longer than they had been in the past
• The Longhorns have featured the only 3,000-yard passer, the only 2,000-yard rusher, the only 1,000-yard receivers and the only 1,000-yard passer/rusher in UT history.
• Brown is one of only three head coaches in NCAA Division I-A history who has coached players that recorded a 2,000-yard rushing season, a 1,000-yard receiving season and a 3,000-yard passing season. Also, Vince Young stands as the first player in NCAA history to rush for 1,000 yards (1,050) and throw for 2,500 yards (3,036) in a single season.
• Under Brown's tenure, only two players have left the Texas team for the NFL Draft with any eligibility remaining: Kwame Cavil,^[3] and Vince Young, who was drafted third overall in the 2006 NFL Draft.
• From 2001 through 2006, Brown has won 10 or more games each year. This is the longest active streak of seasons with 10+ wins in the nation.
• The Longhorns under Brown have posted a record of 18-9 against their three main rivals-Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech.
• The Longhorns are 6-3 in Bowl game under Brown.

[edit] Outside of Football

Mack Brown is married to his wife, Sally. They have 4 children: Matt, Katherine, Barbara, and Chris.

"In Austin, the Browns continue to be active in community affairs, serving as honorary co-chairpersons of the Capital Campaign for the Helping Hands of Austin. The Brown's have been instrumental in the opening of The Rise School of Austin (an early childhood education program that integrates children who have disabilities with their typically developing peers) and serve on the schools Board of Directors. They lent their name along with legendary UT QB James Street to the First Annual James Street/Mack Brown Golf Tournament benefiting The Rise School.

The Browns' have endorsed [a] new Texas license plate, which is designed to raise public awareness for child abuse and neglect and the need for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) volunteers. After the Aggie Bonfire tragedy at Texas A&M in 1999, the couple initiated a blood drive on the UT campus that attracted more than 250 blood donors."^[4]

In October 2006, Mack Brown made a cameo appearance in the television pilot for Friday Night Lights. Early in the show, a resident is heard to say "Who does he think he is? He ain't no Mack Brown." Later in the pilot, the real Mack Brown plays the role of a local football booster quizzing high-school coach Eric Taylor on his pre-game preparation.^[5][6][7]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• The official website of UT Longhorn Football
• Austin American Statesman on UT sports

Preceded by Wally English	Tulane University Head Football Coach 1985– 1987	Succeeded by Greg Davis
Preceded by Dick Crum	University of North Carolina Head Football Coach 1988– 1997	Succeeded by Carl Torbush
Preceded by John Mackovic	University of Texas at Austin Head Football Coach 1998–	Succeeded by Current
Preceded by Tommy Tuberville	Paul "Bear" Bryant Award 2005	Succeeded by Chris Petersen

Big 12 Conference Head Football Coaches
North Division: Dan Hawkins (Colorado) • Gene Chizik (Iowa State) • Mark Mangino (Kansas) • Ron Prince (Kansas State) • Gary Pinkel (Missouri) • Bill Callahan (Nebraska) South Division: Guy Morriss (Baylor) • Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) • Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) • Mack Brown (Texas) • Dennis Franchione (Texas A&M) • Mike Leach (Texas Tech)