Superhero movies have been a growing trend in Hollywood the past decade. Some of the more popular franchises — Batman, Superman and Spiderman — have recently been rebooted; furnished with a fresh cast of actors, writers and directors to give the fans the best experience possible.
This offseason, Texas went through a similar process with its coaching staff. Seven new faces will join head coach Mack Brown on the sidelines next year. They will work to reboot a team that went 5-7 and to re-energize a fan base that wasn’t used to watching such mediocrity.
“I told the players that I’d never been more excited and that I was starting over,” Brown said during a press conference Monday. “Thirteen years ago, I didn’t know what I was doing, and now I’ve got 13 years of experience with new energy and a restart.”
Brown said he didn’t know what went wrong last season, only that it was his responsibility.
“I do know that I felt like I had a hangover after the national championship game,” he said. “And I don’t know if I’ve ever taken a loss as hard. I think part of it was Colt McCoy, part of it was it’s just too hard to get there. I just pouted for a while, and when you’re pouting at 13-1, that’s pretty stupid.”
Recruits sticking with Texas
Wednesday is national signing day, when high school recruits finalize their decisions on where to play. Texas already has one of the top-rated recruiting classes, and three of the top-five rated recruits in the nation have yet to decide where to play. The Longhorns were able to hold on to most of their prospects amid the offseason turmoil that saw much turnover in the football program.
“For all those recruits to hang in there with the media and opposing coaches calling them, talking about all the negatives of staff change — they’ve hung in there for Texas,” Brown said. “They trusted my staff and I to hire the right guys, and most of them didn’t even waiver.”
Brown focused solely on 2011
Texas had an awful year in 2010, but it’s now 2011 and in order to look forward it cannot look to its past.
“We’re not going to continue to talk about 2005, when we won the national championship,” Brown said. “We’re not going to talk about 2008, when we were third or 2009, when we were second. So we’re sure not going to talk about 2010. We are moving forward like it’s our first day.”
