re: What is the Most Mismanaged Football Program in the SEC?

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Alabama, SMU and Texas fans can tell you what happens when boosters run the football program.

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Texas doesn't have a booster problem. Texas has had a coaching and administrative problem. It was boosters that brought in Mack Brown, and it's boosters that tried to bring in Nick Saban rather than Charlie Strong but were cock blocked by AD Deloss Dodds and Mack Brown.

It's different now with Eltife as the chairman of the board of regents and Del Conte as AD. They're in lockstep and have everything moving in the same direction. We'll see what happens when someone takes Eltife's place. It's been helpful to have a grad as the governor, since he makes all the appointments.

It becomes an issue when the governor is either neutral to UT success, or actively opposed to it. That was part of the problem in the 80s and 90s.

Saying it's a booster issue at Texas has always been a lazy 5 second excuse for talking heads and fans of other programs to throw out there without knowing anything about how Texas actually works.

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I'll get worked up when and where I please if it's alright with you sir

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Lol. Fair!

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Texas doesn't have a booster problem. Texas has had a coaching and administrative problem. It was boosters that brought in Mack Brown, and it's boosters that tried to bring in Nick Saban rather than Charlie Strong but were cock blocked by AD Deloss Dodds and Mack Brown.

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Yes, you had boosters trying to run the football program. And THAT is a booster problem. Whether what they wanted was good or bad, it is a problem. Texas had a shitty leadership problem compounded by a booster problem. That is exactly the problem at Auburn. You have bad decision makers inside the program. Outside the program there are multiple people trying to lead the program in different directions. And some, if they don’t get their way, sabotage the others out of spite.

No, what Texas had was an administration problem with the administration not placing a value on having a strong football program.

It's not a booster problem if the boosters want to win at football but the administration doesn't care as much about that. It's an administration problem.

You simply don't know what you're talking about. You have no idea who the powerful people are within the Texas decision making structure, how they got there, what their agenda is, or how it changes through the years. You're throwing out there, "it's a booster problem!" but you don't even know who you're even referring to. It's this nebulous blob, this amorphous force running things behind the scenes. That's not how it actually works.

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If you have boosters trying to run the football program differently than the athletic administration is it absolutely is a problem.

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But that hasn't been the problem at Texas.

The problem at Texas is the administration didn't want Texas to win at football at a high level. The athletic department created job security through fundraising. As long as they could raise more money year over year through the greater commercialization of the department, their jobs were secure regardless of how the football program did.

There was also a power base wedded to women's athletics that resented the attention and resources given to the football program. This was exacerbated by a settlement - through a lawsuit practically instigated by the former women's athletic director, Donna Lopiano - that mandated huge resource allocations to women's athletics via court order. The most stringent Title IX mandates in the country that still makes an impact today.

What kept Texas football down wasn't the boosters. It was an indifferent to hostile board of regents appointed by a series of governors who had no desire to see Texas succeed, an academic administration and a faculty that found football distasteful. An athletic department who found a way to job security that didn't involve winning in football, and a women's department that actively tried to derail football by siphoning off resources for their own success.

Texas' problem has never been boosters. Deloss Dodds was plenty strong enough to tell boosters anything he wanted. He purposefully divorced himself from the decision making processes involving football so he couldn't be blamed when things went sour.

It's not a matter of the head coaches being strong enough or not. They weren't any good. Fred Akers failed at Purdue. David McWilliams retired from coaching altogether. John Mackovic failed at Arizona. Mack Brown failed at North Carolina. Charlie Strong failed at USF. Tom Herman failed at Florida Atlantic. Several of those were spectacular failures with player revolts, coaches driving successful programs into the ground in short order, or embarrassing the administration with their antics they were fired abruptly after taking the job.

It's like saying if only Mike Shula had been strong enough to tell off the Alabama boosters he would have been fine.

They were bad hires to start with (well, Mack Brown was a great hire, but he stayed on too long).

That's not a booster issue. That's a hiring issue.

I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. You've decided you know what the issue is without any clue whatsoever what has actually gone down. It's an easy solution for you and helps you feel better about your own program.

Nonetheless you have no idea what you're talking about, no matter how much you insist you're right.

Now with Eltife as the chairman of the board of regents and Del Conte as the AD, there's an alignment that hasn't been present before. Eltife has been instrumental in any number of ways for UT's football success, including approving investment in infrastructure, keying the hiring process for Sarkisian in the first place, and navigating the perils of leaving the Big 12 to join the SEC. Having him as the chairman of the board of regents has been key to UT's football success. You could easily argue HE'S a booster, since he received his appointment because of political and financial support for Greg Abbott.

In any case, boosters have never been the problem at Texas.

BTW, boosters have been instrumental in leading the NIL era while facing stiff opposition from the administration. A lot of the success Texas has experienced via NIL can be laid at the feet of a grassroots movement to take advantage of Alston v NCAA in a way other schools were slow to react to.

Auburn. Without a doubt

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Auburn

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A$M, Florida and the piglets are up there, but Auburn is the only possible answer.