The Confidential

Mack Brown: Just BEGGING to be Fired, Hires Greg Robinson

Have you ever heard of the phrase “suicide by police“?   This is where a person “intentionally acts in a menacing way toward law enforcement officials in order to provoke the use of deadly force.”  In other words, you want to commit suicide, but do not have the “courage” (for lack of a better word) to do it yourself and instead force a police officer to be scarred for life in having to do it for you.  Not a fan.  On a far less serious note, it would appear that Mack Brown is committing the professional equivalent of “suicide by police” by hiring Greg Robinson.  Anyone disagree?  Did not think so.

Let’s just take a look at the Greg Robinson resume, courtesy of Wikipedia and just plain raw memories:

• Hired by Michigan to take the place of fired Scott Shafer, who had the audacity to drop Michigan to 9th in the Big 10 in defense.  Shafer goes on to eventually become head coach of Syracuse, after leading the Orange defense to bowl games twice in his four years.  Under Robinson, Michigan plunges to 11th in the Big 10 in defense and 110th out of 120.  A football “king” with the 11th worst defense in all of college football.  Yep.  The next year got worse.  The end result… Rich Rodriguez (and Robinson) were let go by Michigan.  Oh, and then the Michigan defense got better.  See how it works?
• Before that, he took a Syracuse Orange team that had struggled to a roughly .500 record for four season and went 10-37.  In the four seasons since Robinson, Syracuse has been a roughly .500 team.  You can do the math.
• In 2004, he was the defensive coordinator for Texas.  The next year, they won the National Championship.  Oh well, at least he did not get fired.

Before that, he was fired a couple of times as defensive coordinator.

Other than the Texas gig, his claim to fame is certainly his two Super Bowl rings as Denver’s defensive coordinator.  Not that John Elway and Terrell Davis did the heavy lifting or anything.  So those accomplishments are bit asterisky.  Look, Greg Robinson is a good guy.  For that reason, we will not make fun of the dumbish things he said.  And “football analyst” is pretty much the Peter Principle working in reverse–trying to find the job moving downward where failure is not inevitable.

But dontcha, kinda get the feeling that Mack Brown just does not want the job anymore?   Mack Brown’s teams have not exactly been world beaters lately.  Despite having the best revenue in college sports, sitting in a high school football paradise, Texas has been 22-16 the past three years.  By comparison, Syracuse–the program that Greg Robinson took from mediocre to embarrassing–has been 21-17 the past three years, with exactly none of the advantages that Texas has.  Mack Brown should be embarrassed.

Syracuse fans thought Greg Robinson could not make it any worse… and were woefully mistaken.  Michigan fans thought that the Michigan defense could not get any worse under Greg Robinson… and were woefully mistaken.  Mack Brown got lucky once, but he is playing with fire.

Well, if this does not work, Mack Brown always has one final way to get himself canned from Texas.  New sideline gear:

Unless TV has lied to us, this is a great way to get fired.