I think
@selmaborntidefan can probably echo this point but Texas doesn’t care as much about NC’s as they let on. They care about beating Oklahoma and promoting Texas superiority more than anything else. To me they are like Michigan in that they care about something that really amounts to shooting for the Silver instead of the Gold.
If Sark can own the City of Dallas (RRR and BIG XII CCG) then Texas will view him as a savior of Texas and proclaim Texas is back.
There's a LOT of truth to this.
Texas really is the "Michigan of Southern football" in almost every way possible.
You know what you're getting at Alabama - it's national title or bust. At Mississippi State, it's "let's win 9 or 10 games, beat Ole Miss, and go to a really good bowl game." Texas falls somewhere between these two "extremes of acceptability," and if you were to give the average Texas fan sodium pentothal with a polygraph, the TEXpectations are:
a) beat Oklahoma
b) win the conference title
c) be the superior team within the borders of the state of Texas
The one thing that separates Michigan from Texas is the fact that Michigan doesn't have a bunch of oil millionaires all trying to micro-manage the program. But I figured Michigan out way back in 1993, when they lost a close early season game to Notre Dame. They'd lost the game - a big rivalry back then - and they were calm and docile about the defeat. Why? Well, because (and I'm generically quoting SEVERAL of their players) - "since it wasn't a conference game, we can still go to the Rose Bowl".
I just rolled my eyes at that one. "Hey, we're up against it on the national title in week 2, but WE CAN STILL GO TO THE ROSE BOWL, which is why I came to Michigan." And their playing for a tie in November 1992 against Illinois was when I laughed as Beano Cook lambasted Lee Corso with, "That's why the Big 10 is a mediocre conference, they think the Rose Bowl is the Holy Grail". In context, the fact was Michigan at the time was ranked #3, undefeated (with a tie), and played for a tie against Illinois with a chance to win.
That's basically Texas right there. Texas pulled the same thing in 1984, when they went for a field goal and an intentional tie against Oklahoma while ranked #1 in the country.
I figure Sark is going to run into the same problems every other coach has confronted at Texas. The ONE GUY who succeeded (Mack Brown) did so largely because he confronted the problem of racism in recruiting. Prior to Mack, MANY HS coaches of prominent black high schools in TX wanted nothing to do with UT football. So for all the bashing he has received here (almost all of it 100% justified), he did confront a major reality, which is why UT won the 2005 national title.
But Sark is going to run into the problem of "you have to play my boy because I'm a prominent donor to the school." You see, the big thing with that is every single one of these ninnies thinks "my boy" (not necessarily a child - maybe a prominent player from a HS the donor knows) should be in the NFL and you should give him this chance.
For those who don't recall - the Chris Sims/Major Applewhite tiff in 2001 is a prime example of one case of what is a constant thing at TX but that one broke into the news because it was part of the Chris Sims strategy.
I suspect Sark will "succeed" in winning more games than Herman or Strong did but fail in the larger picture and come back to Alabama in four years as an OC and implied "head coach in waiting."
