Following a humiliating 41-20 loss to the BYU Cougars, in which the Longhorn’s defense gave up 550 total yards in rushing, Mack Brown and the University of Texas have decided to fire Manny Diaz from his position as defensive coordinator. Diaz had been under much scrutiny since his hiring in 2010 – and for good reason. According to ESPN, since the beginning of 2012, Texas’s defense had ranked almost dead last amongst FBS schools in run defense, yards per run, and yards per play. This should have come as no surprise to the Texas program, seeing as Brown had only served as a defensive coordinator for one year at Mississippi State (arguably one of the worst SEC programs), and had a background in sports journalism, not actually coaching.
To compensate for the lack of experience and total ineptitude from Diaz, Texas has stayed true to its conservative nature and hired Gary Robinson as its next defensive coordinator. Mack Brown had brought Robinson into the Texas program earlier this year as a program analyst. However, that is not the first experience Robinson has had with the UT program. In 2004, Robinson served as a co-defensive coordinator for the Texas football team that went on to win a Rose Bowl over the Michigan Wolverines. Things have not been so great for Robinson since then, however. After the 2004 season, Robinson became the head coach at Syracuse, where his record over the next 4 years was 10-37. Following his stay in New York, Robinson went to work for Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines, where he was promptly canned after two seasons.
So why does Texas think Robinson’s hire will solve all their dilemmas? All bets would be on the fact that Robinson has also served as a coach in the NFL for 14 seasons, 10 of which were as defensive coordinator – during which time he managed to help coach the Denver Broncos to 2 Super Bowl victories. Whatever the reason for the hire, the move hints at just how desperate Texas’s head coach Mack Brown has become. This is the first firing by Brown during the season since he began his tenure at Texas. Not only that, but Brown made a grandiose statement at the beginning of the 2013 season, saying that “We could win nine again and be disappointed, or we could win all of them.” If Brown hopes for Texas to fulfill the former half of that statement (since the latter half has already been proven wrong…), he better inspire Robinson to show more success than he has the previous 9 years.
Image via Facebook (It’s probably safe to say that Manny did not raise his fist in triumph upon hearing of his firing.)
