Why do the Horns stink?
The kneejerks would say that Greg Davis' tiny brain is the culprit, but it's more systematic than that. All of the revenue sports' teams are lackluster. It is a combination of factors, but if you have to point to a single person, he is Rick Barnes.
After Luke Axtell got Tom Penders fired, Barnes came in and with his Mack Brown sweet southern drawl we were saved from those yankee college coaches, Penders and Mackovic. Barnes and Brown were able to recruit the top tier athletes that up until then were going to the pros in basketball and to non-academic football institutions like Oklahoma. They promised recruits that UT was the best avenue to the pros, and they delivered. There are now more Texas exes in the pros than ever before.
The problem is that winning teams became an afterthought, and things like quality backup QBs evaporated.
Allowing underclassmen in the NFL and forcing prep hoopsters to do time in the NCAA just exacerbated the problem. The teams that are senior loaded like Duke b-ball and Boise State football began to rise to the top and the Texas/Florida/Michigan pro mills are floundering.
Longhorns of old used to live to beat OU. It was all they talked about. Today's pitstop prima donnas focus primarily on video games and their per diem checks.
The straw that broke the camel's back was the introduction of general studies degrees. Now UT could compete for the dunces. Guys that in the past would be forced to go the juco route, or lower like OU, could now go straight to UT! This did nothing to help build winning teams, but it did help ding-a-lings like Sergio Kindle climb the stairs to the NFL.
Firing Rick Barnes, who couldn't coach his way out of game against the Washington Generals, would be a start, but things probably won't get better until the guy behind all the underachieving, past and present, retires -- DeLoss Dodds. Until then go to Shaggy Bevo to lift your spirits
