The case for Tom Herman as HC (Please don't merge)

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Zach Kittley is a young Coach I been talking about on here since he was Houston Baptist, if we were smart enough to snatch him from WKU he’d would absolutely DESTROY the ACC as an OC!

And I’m right there with you, I absolutely think we should get an Air Raid OC, not the Leach style Air Raid but the Riley, Heupel, Lebby, Briles etc adapted Air Raid, that would make our offense elite. & would have us beating the teams we’re clearly more talented than in the Coastal.

It would be money in the bank if he were the OC. I knew I saw his name on the board pop up before, lol.
 
I just re-examined Herman’s resume at Texas & the worst loss he had was in year 1 vs TCU by 21 & that was with nothing but Charlie Strong’s roster...

But in terms of point deferential 17 of the 18 losses he had in 4 years at Texas, literally none of them were more than 14 points. In 2018 after beating Oklahoma in the regular season they lost in the rematch to Okla in the Big XII title game by 12 points, but then beat a top 10 ranked UGA in Alamo Bowl. But the rest of the losses that season were a combined 9 points in 3 games. That means that season Texas literally lost 3 games off one possession in year 2 of Herman’s tenure.

Then the following year they had a 7 point loss to LSU, another 7 point loss to Oklahoma, 10 point loss to TCU, 2 point loss to Iowa St & a 14 point loss to Baylor. But then finished the year with a another Alamo bowl victory vs Utah.

Then last year in the truncated Covid season, had a two point loss to TCU, an 8 point loss in a 4OT game vs Oklahoma & 3 point loss to Iowa St, followed by another Alamo bowl win lol.

Also had the #3 ranked class Nationally in 2018 (Herman’s first class), #3 ranked class in 2019, #8 ranked class for 2020 & you could argue he also built most Texas’s 2021 class considering he was fired in January of 2021 & most of their class was signed in December of 2020.

So what I take from all that is, Herman had really good offenses at Texas but struggled in 3 years finding the proper DC to settle the tide of having to play in the high impact offensive league of the Big XII, which to be fair there really aren’t any good Defenses in the conference. But with that said, he finished 32-18, but his biggest issue was beating Oklahoma & having closes losses vs TCU. You could argue that he really didn’t deserve to be fired, but that will really only be a point to be made in comparison to how Sark does by year 4 as well.

Herman is 3rd on my list in terms of coaches I think would fit well here mainly because of his offensive acuity & if you compare resumes he had more success within his first 4 years than Stoops & did so at a much more pressure packed program in Texas, the only difference is he didn’t have the job security that Stoops had especially considering Stoops didn’t actually have a winning season until year 6 of his tenure. I didn’t do a comparison with Cristobal at Oregon because IMO the PAC-12 is the easiest/worst P5 conference & with USC & Washington being down their record is skewered to look better than it actually is, the degree of difficulty is less than IMO.

I’m 100% certain Miami will not & would never hire Herman, but I fully expect him to get hired at a vacancy that opens up for next year & it’ll be interesting to see what kind of job he takes & if his reputation has been scarred too much from his Texas to overcome.

Appreciate the write up. I agree there are a lot of interesting things about Herman, but I think there are some additional concerns as well as posted before.

4-10 record against Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Christian.
1-4 Out of conference vs P5 opponents.
0-4 Against the spread as double digit favorite.
42.7% Against the spread as a favorite.
Lost to Maryland in season openers in back to back years as -12 and -19 point favorites.
His practice style has been widely derided by people around the Texas program. Take it with a grain of salt.

I LOVE the idea of Kittley as an OC at the U. I'm sure whoever TTU hires as Coach, Kittley will definitely get a serious look as OC, he may even be in line for even bigger jobs.

Not sure what Jeff Grimes is making at Baylor, but he would be outstanding at Miami. A former O-Line guy who recruited NFL linemen in the SEC, who had a first round QB last year, and has turned around Baylor offense in 1 season after the Fedora debacle.
 
100%, Todd Orlando’s Defenses have been bad since his days back at FIU with Butch.

That’s what stuck out to me in taking a deeper dive at Herman’s tenure at UT, even with how awful his Defenses were he literally never got blown out one time in 4 years.

Now that might seem trivial in a way, but IMO that matters a great deal because in comparison, Manuel Diaz’s have gotten blown out routinely literally every year he’s been here. Like we’ve had games where it looked like our Defense had never even played Football before.

The fact Herman basically had 17 one possession game losses in contrast to 32 wins plus 5-0 in Bowl games showed me that as a Coach he understood how to stabilize drastic moments in games & not allow for his teams to be overwhelmed by being down by a few scores & having to come back.

He’s not the perfect coach in terms of some of his idiosyncrasies, but he has a lot more substance as a play caller & X’s & O’s guy than just being a bluster-full showman, which IMO is what we really need. I prefer we get a guy who doesn’t give AF about winning press conferences or having home run quotes, but just a pure lab technician who will scheme up up TD’s in his sleep & utilize the skill players we have to their strengths.
Would this indicate Herman would need a DC ‘highly recommended’ for him?

Although I doubt Miami would offer Herman unless there is a sesmic shakeup in the athletic department and financial will.
 
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There aint a case. If he couldn't win at Texas of all places with all their money, connections and ability to hold rhe ncaa at bay wtf is he going to do here under their microscope and with far less resources?
 
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There aint a case. If he couldn't win at Texas of all places with all their money, connections and ability to hold rhe ncaa at bay wtf is he going to do here under their microscope and with far less resources?

He will do the same thing he did in Houston w/o the know it all BOT butting in.
 
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Talk to anybody in the know in Austin — known cokehead and wild-animal swinger with his wife.

Probably a fun dude to hang out with, but this is literally the last guy who should be anywhere where South Beach and the University of Miami. He couldn't even handle the rigors of Austin's night life.

Hard, hard, hard pass.
Kiffin's wife left him for cheating on her. So by your logic, we need to stop the Kiffin talk too.
 
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