WILL MACK BE BACK?
Ex-UT coach Brown talks playoff, Herman and possible sideline return
Mack Brown is fine with the makeup of the upcoming College Football Playoff — Alabama vs. Washington and Clemson vs. Ohio State — but he thinks Alabama’s only true competition for the national championship is, well, Alabama.
Brown, who is wrapping up another year in the studio for ESPN and ABC (and preparing to come back in 2017), said Alabama’s depth and its ability to overcome injuries make the Crimson Tide prohibitive favorites.
“They have one of the best defenses that you’ve seen, going back to Bobby Bowden’s defenses at Florida State in the late 1990s,” Brown said. “They’re stopping the run and forcing turnovers and scoring on defense and in the kicking game.
“Unless somebody catches them on a down day or they start turning the ball over, I don’t see them losing. They run the ball, they throw smart passes and they are not taking many risks on offense.”
While he’s OK with the final four, Brown said he would prefer a sixteam bracket, which presumably this year would have included Penn State, Michigan or Oklahoma, even though it would require scheduling adjustments and a first-round bye for two teams.
“I think it’s something that could work,” he said. “What you’re seeing is that for a team like Oklahoma that lost early and gets hot at the end of the year, it’s not like basketball or baseball. If you lose a game early, you’re probably out.”
Brown now moves on to his bowl assignments, and he expects to be back at ESPN next season even though he won’t rule out a return to coaching.
“I’m not looking for a job,” he said. “I interviewed for a couple last year, and they weren’t of interest to me. I don’t think that when you’ve coached your whole life you never say you’re through, because the time you do, somebody will call and make you an offer and you’ll get excited.
“I feel established in TV, and ESPN and ABC are treating me well. I couldn’t ask for anything better. It’s been a great transition for me. … Life is good right now, and it would take something special in a place Sally (his wife) and I would want to live before we would consider coaching again.”
Brown on Tom Herman, Longhorns
Mack Brown gave Tom Herman one of his first jobs in coaching as a graduate assistant at the University of Texas in the late 1990s, and Brown almost hired him again to replace Greg Davis as the Longhorns’ offensive coordinator.
Instead, Brown subsequently recommended that Urban Meyer hire Herman at Ohio State. Meyer did so, and Herman now is the man who replaced the man, Charlie Strong, who replaced Brown as the Longhorns’ head coach.
“Tom and Greg were very close,” Brown said. “I would have hired him