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Texas AD Chris Del Conte


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Does our AD really value winning as much as he says he does? I am glad he has raised a lot of money for facilities upgrade but he needs to understand that winning makes fundraising much easier. Just look at Alabama, LSU, and the like. When you win Daytona 500, you don't have to go begging for sponsorships.

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Just now, ShowMeALoss said:

Does our AD really value winning as much as he says he does? I am glad he has raised a lot of money for facilities upgrade but he needs to understand that winning makes fundraising much easier. Just look at Alabama, LSU, and the like. When you win Daytona 500, you don't have to go begging for sponsorships.

No, he hates winning.

For fucks sake, none of our revenue coaches has had a fireable tenure yet except probably Shaka last year, and its not like our donors love splashing cash on basketball, especially with new arena fundraising going on. That should get rectified this year, and if Pierce and Herman have meh years they'll be gone too, and we can really judge CDC's hiring bona fides.

The guy's done his job on a foundational level (which UT has lacked for years), now we'll see how he does on an HR/program management level.

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8 minutes ago, texifornia said:

No, he hates winning.

For fucks sake, none of our revenue coaches has had a fireable tenure yet except probably Shaka last year, and its not like our donors love splashing cash on basketball, especially with new arena fundraising going on. That should get rectified this year, and if Pierce and Herman have meh years they'll be gone too, and we can really judge CDC's hiring bona fides.

The guy's done his job on a foundational level (which UT has lacked for years), now we'll see how he does on an HR/program management level.

I am not saying he hates winning but that does not mean he is good at hiring coaches or knowing when to fire them. If history taught us anything, our athletic department sucks at the latter. He has been on record praising Shaka Smart on multiple occasions. If memory serves me right, in one of his earlier press conferences he called Shaka an "unbelievable coach" and that we were lucky to have him. We continue to suck in baseball and women's basketball too. There is not a single bright spot in our revenue sports.

It makes me wonder if we need co-athletic directors - one in charge of coaching development and another in charge of facilities upgrade because we can't seem to get one person good at both.

Edited by ShowMeALoss
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1 minute ago, ShowMeALoss said:

I am not saying he hates winning but that does not mean he is good at hiring coaches or knowing when to fire them. If history taught us anything, our athletic department sucks at the latter. He has been on record praising Shaka Smart on multiple occasions. If memory serves me right, in one of his earlier press conferences he called Shaka an "unbelievable coach" and that we were lucky to have him. We continue to suck in baseball and women's volleyball too. There is not a single bright spot in our revenue sports.

What AD is going to publicly shit talk a sitting coach? Shaka's gone after this year. So's Pierce if he messes up again.

His coaching hires so far (Floreal and the softball guy) have been great. Let's see how he does for basketball (and potentially baseball).

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1 minute ago, texifornia said:

What AD is going to publicly shit talk a sitting coach? Shaka's gone after this year. So's Pierce if he messes up again.

His coaching hires so far (Floreal and the softball guy) have been great. Let's see how he does for basketball (and potentially baseball).

I agree with this but he praised Shaka unprompted in an introductory press conference to highlight the types of coaches Texas can hire, which kinda threw me off. I have a feeling that he is unwilling to backtrack from that position and that may lead him to give Shaka more time to prove his initial stance right.

Bad coaches use facilities as an excuse to buy themselves some time. The AD needs to be relentless in his pursuit of building top revenue programs and that starts with great coaches that are also relentless and facilities upgrades will follow. It's all about the culture of the athletic department and what they value the most.

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If he doesn't fire Shaka after this season, he's a bad AD.  Period.

Same if baseball sucks again and he doesn't fire Pierce.  All the other stuff (e.g., fundraising, gameday bullshit) is secondary.  

We suck and have sucked in the 3 major sports due to bad coaching.  The #1 job of the AD is to fix this.  

Edited by bschoolprof
Edit: good thing our administration didn't needlessly extend his contract as they always do . . .
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18 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

If he doesn't fire Shaka after this season, he's a bad AD.  Period.

Same if baseball sucks again and he doesn't fire Pierce.  All the other stuff (e.g., fundraising, gameday bullshit) is secondary.  

We suck and have sucked in the 3 major sports due to bad coaching.  The #1 job of the AD is to fix this.  

I think we can all agree on that.

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2 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

It would really speak well about our athletic department if the AD was going around saying that our basketball coach sucked balls, but we just can't fire him yet.

There's a galaxy between saying he sucks balls and excusing his failures as bad luck. He could and should say something like "the program hasn't met our expectations but we hope he'll turn it around very soon."

Edited by Hookah Horns
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3 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Lol... so everyone on here has pretty much turned on CDC over the last 72 hrs? Jfc guys

I haven't turned on him.  I'm still in "show me" mode.  These next 4-5 months will be critical in revealing just what kind of AD we actually have.  So far the results have been mixed.  

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Listening to the comments from the townhall, reading some of the weekly missives, and talking with a few folks I know, I sense exasperation coming from CDC. Maybe not rip up a  copy of the SOTU address exasperation, but exasperation nonetheless. Flash back 13 months after winning the Sugar Bowl, CDC had just completed his first year and everything appeared to be going the way it should. The balance of 2019 however was a disaster, some might say of epic proportions. The biggest men's athletic programs are underachieving and you could argue some of the women's (basketball anyone?). Meanwhile, the state's other P5 programs (except aggy of course)  is achieving heights they haven't ever seen. Tech getting to the NCAA championship game (which Texas has never done) and to the CWS in the same season. Baylor currently being ranked #1 in both mens and women's basketball off of a NYE6 bowl appearance in football. You get the picture. CDC is hearing it from all ends and quite frankly is potentially staring at having to replace all of the major men's sports head coaches during calendar 2020. At the end of year 2, the job wasn't as fun as it was after year 1 and comments like "Goliath" perhaps show some of the cracks in the dam. 

CDC has done a lot to clean up the back of the house so to speak. If you don't think the gameday experience has improved from what it was 5 or more years ago, you haven't been paying attention. Fundraising for projects is getting done and CDC managed to backbench Plonsky and some of the other "cancers" in the department. However, the front of the house can't be shit or no one cares about all of the back of the house improvements. CDC is finding that, although it isn't a mess of his own making, there is a lot more clean up to be done than what he expected. How that gets done will be of great interest to all of us, but even if he butchers the clean up (i.e. hiring the wrong replacements on the first go around), he'll probably get a longer rope. Deloss did and eventually he had things humming during the "aughts", though the bridge from Akers to Mack in football was painful. Unlike Herman, CDC has a lot more support amongst the important people which is why he'll be given the benefit of the doubt.

And just because......F Steve Patterson. Can't the University revoke his degree or something?
 

 

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2 hours ago, Hookah Horns said:

There's a galaxy between saying he sucks balls and excusing his failures as bad luck. He could and should say something like "the program hasn't met our expectations but we hope he'll turn it around very soon."

So much this! You need to publicly set the tone for what's acceptable at Texas. It puts pressure on the coaches and the players to strive to do better. They are in the entertainment business, so either perform to the level you are expected to or GTFO. Don't make excuses for losers and perpetuate a culture of underperformance and become a national joke.

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There's a galaxy between saying he sucks balls and excusing his failures as bad luck. He could and should say something like "the program hasn't met our expectations but we hope he'll turn it around very soon."

I prefer to look at it as the vote of confidence coaches get that really means you better start looking for another job
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2 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:


I prefer to look at it as the vote of confidence coaches get that really means you better start looking for another job

Yeah, like what SoCar's AD said about Muschamp this year was fucking crippling to everything they're trying to do. We even poached his good LB coach because it was clearly an even ricketier ship than ours.

There's a way to make things sound positive but mean the opposite.

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11 hours ago, texifornia said:

No, he hates winning.

For fucks sake, none of our revenue coaches has had a fireable tenure yet except probably Shaka last year, and its not like our donors love splashing cash on basketball, especially with new arena fundraising going on. That should get rectified this year, and if Pierce and Herman have meh years they'll be gone too, and we can really judge CDC's hiring bona fides.

The guy's done his job on a foundational level (which UT has lacked for years), now we'll see how he does on an HR/program management level.

Shaka is a probably?  Uh....no. He’s definitely in need of firing. 4 years and zero tournament wins. That’s fucking pathetic.  Losing conference records too. 
 

 Pierce finished last on the b12 last year. He’s on the hot seat. 

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8 hours ago, pepper brooks said:

Shaka is a probably?  Uh....no. He’s definitely in need of firing. 4 years and zero tournament wins. That’s fucking pathetic.  Losing conference records too. 
 

 Pierce finished last on the b12 last year. He’s on the hot seat. 

I meant he probably should have been gone last year. Likely was saved by the basketball donors putting their money towards the new arena instead of his buyout. This year, definitely gone. 

Edited by texifornia
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3 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Shaka WILL be fired in a month



Pierce (depending on how the next two seasons shake out) COULD be fired in less than 18 months



Herman (depending on if we totally shit the bed next year or not) COULD be fired in less than a year



The next 18 months could be very exciting

beed1148b0938a2d315a302179480fd5.gif


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

and this is a microcosm of our programs.  The potential for excitement is the fact that all 3 major sports may possibly need ANOTHER rebuild within the next 18 months.  good lord.  we suck.  at everything.  

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20 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

I haven't turned on him.  I'm still in "show me" mode.  These next 4-5 months will be critical in revealing just what kind of AD we actually have.  So far the results have been mixed.  

This is where I am, too. As it pertains to Texas athletics, I've had the default setting of optimistic flag-waver beaten out of me. 

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On 2/5/2020 at 10:31 PM, Bevo VIII said:

I always thought the pierce hire was a weird hire for our baseball program.

Pierce was somewhere around the 10th choice to be the coach.  Perrin got played by pretty much every agent representing a college baseball coach of any significance and the HC from Tulane was the only one truly biting.  The whole thing was ridiculous.

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12 minutes ago, Stampeder said:

Pierce was somewhere around the 10th choice to be the coach.  Perrin got played by pretty much every agent representing a college baseball coach of any significance and the HC from Tulane was the only one truly biting.  The whole thing was ridiculous.

I'm sure Perrin didn't handle it well because in the end he was an amateur AD.

It is distressing that we weren't able to land at least a big name coach.  The timing was bad, for one thing.  For another, we actually have to compete for recruits in the state of Texas now.  Our facilities and player-training tech were way behind.  I don't think there were that many coaches anxious to follow Garrido's and Gus' footsteps in a program that had fallen behind in many ways.

Late-stage Dodds-Plonsky syndrome, followed by a couple of years of NBA leadership, really, really fucked us in the ass.

CDC has probably done about as well as could be expected so far, because he really inherited a mess.  Hopefully, he has us in a sort of steady state from which he can be a real AD, not a triage specialist, and get us back to winning.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm sure Perrin didn't handle it well because in the end he was an amateur AD.

It is distressing that we weren't able to land at least a big name coach.  The timing was bad, for one thing.  For another, we actually have to compete for recruits in the state of Texas now.  Our facilities and player-training tech were way behind.  I don't think there were that many coaches anxious to follow Garrido's and Gus' footsteps in a program that had fallen behind in many ways.

Late-stage Dodds-Plonsky syndrome, followed by a couple of years of NBA leadership, really, really fucked us in the ass.

CDC has probably done about as well as could be expected so far, because he really inherited a mess.  Hopefully, he has us in a sort of steady state from which he can be a real AD, not a triage specialist, and get us back to winning.

Agreed.  At least moving forward we have an above average AD who should be able to execute a proper coaching search should the need arise.  No clue if Pierce will turn it around this year or not, but if not and a change needs to be made I don't think it'll be the same debacle as last time.  As for Shaka, that one seems done and will soon be another data point in addition to Floreal and M. White in terms of CDCs coach/hiring acumen.  So far, so good with the first two.

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On 2/5/2020 at 10:49 AM, ShowMeALoss said:

I agree with this but he praised Shaka unprompted in an introductory press conference to highlight the types of coaches Texas can hire, which kinda threw me off. I have a feeling that he is unwilling to backtrack from that position and that may lead him to give Shaka more time to prove his initial stance right.

Bad coaches use facilities as an excuse to buy themselves some time. The AD needs to be relentless in his pursuit of building top revenue programs and that starts with great coaches that are also relentless and facilities upgrades will follow. It's all about the culture of the athletic department and what they value the most.

His comments were weird, but there’s a litany of coaches who find themselves unemployed after their employer said nice things about them the previous 6 months. Shaka should’ve been fired last year, but a $13+ million buyout is insane for basketball and CDC is at at fault for that.

Getting worked up over his public comments is silly. The only thing that matters is whether he actually fired Shaka after this season. 

On 2/5/2020 at 11:07 AM, bschoolprof said:

If he doesn't fire Shaka after this season, he's a bad AD.  Period.

Same if baseball sucks again and he doesn't fire Pierce.  All the other stuff (e.g., fundraising, gameday bullshit) is secondary.  

We suck and have sucked in the 3 major sports due to bad coaching.  The #1 job of the AD is to fix this.  

Overall And long-term, yeah we’ve sucked, but we’ve also had a 10 win season with a Sugar Bowl in football and a CWS appearance in baseball in the last two years, so it’s not like all of the Big 3 have been so bad under CDC’s tenure that he should’ve blown all 3 up by now. 
 

Ultimately, I’m with you and others that there hasn’t been much to go off of either way, but we could have a ton more data points in the next 12 months. 

On 2/5/2020 at 2:04 PM, Hookah Horns said:

There's a galaxy between saying he sucks balls and excusing his failures as bad luck. He could and should say something like "the program hasn't met our expectations but we hope he'll turn it around very soon."

That still undercuts the program and isn’t helpful in any way.
Fans always do this shit. There’s no reason to say things that publicly undercut the programs, other than fan service, which isn’t a good reason. If he’s doing his job, then he’s telling the coaches they’re not meeting the expected standard behind closed doors and supporting the programs publicly. There’s no reason for him to reveal his true thoughts about any of the coaches publicly during the season. 

3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm sure Perrin didn't handle it well because in the end he was an amateur AD.

It is distressing that we weren't able to land at least a big name coach.  The timing was bad, for one thing.  For another, we actually have to compete for recruits in the state of Texas now.  Our facilities and player-training tech were way behind.  I don't think there were that many coaches anxious to follow Garrido's and Gus' footsteps in a program that had fallen behind in many ways.

 

I don’t think there’s much to take from the baseball HC search. Everyone was being required to consider the position without knowing who their actual boss would be. Having a real AD likely would’ve made a massive difference in the coaching search. 

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5 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm sure Perrin didn't handle it well because in the end he was an amateur AD.

It is distressing that we weren't able to land at least a big name coach.  The timing was bad, for one thing.  For another, we actually have to compete for recruits in the state of Texas now.  Our facilities and player-training tech were way behind.  I don't think there were that many coaches anxious to follow Garrido's and Gus' footsteps in a program that had fallen behind in many ways.

Late-stage Dodds-Plonsky syndrome, followed by a couple of years of NBA leadership, really, really fucked us in the ass.

CDC has probably done about as well as could be expected so far, because he really inherited a mess.  Hopefully, he has us in a sort of steady state from which he can be a real AD, not a triage specialist, and get us back to winning.

Excellent points all.

May I add that it was reported that Perrin heavily relied on the input of Don Reese,  fellow BMD, on the Pierce hire.   I would hope that he also received input from former players and others but do not think that was the case.

Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt, reportedly was interested but had just lost a player to an accidental drowning and could not leave under those circumstances.   Having an interim AD,  following a legend,  and inheriting needed upgrades may have affected others like Kevin O'Sullivan (Florida) and Pat Casey (Oregon St).

But the significant mistake by Perrin, imo, was not informally screening for  viable candidates prior to releasing Augie.    Augie had only 1 year left on his contract and it was known in March/April a change was needed.

Hopefully, CDC keeps in mind future coaches for vacant positions.    He did well on the Track hire, Coach Floreal.

 

 

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6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm sure Perrin didn't handle it well because in the end he was an amateur AD.

It is distressing that we weren't able to land at least a big name coach.  The timing was bad, for one thing.  For another, we actually have to compete for recruits in the state of Texas now.  Our facilities and player-training tech were way behind.  I don't think there were that many coaches anxious to follow Garrido's and Gus' footsteps in a program that had fallen behind in many ways.

Late-stage Dodds-Plonsky syndrome, followed by a couple of years of NBA leadership, really, really fucked us in the ass.

CDC has probably done about as well as could be expected so far, because he really inherited a mess.  Hopefully, he has us in a sort of steady state from which he can be a real AD, not a triage specialist, and get us back to winning.

Good points but we'd have been lucky and happy if Patterson's reign was just "NBA leadership" level.   Instead, he was a lying, disingenuous snake-in-the-grass piece of shit.   The most despised and loathed person ever associated with Texas athletics.   And, yes, that includes Polonsky.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I got a little worried after listening to CDC on the podcast with fuck chip brown as he said he wouldn't be fair to have herman on the hot seat even if he has a "meh" season this year? Now they never said a win total as the floor as I assume if herman shit the bed and won 6 games he's gone but what got me worried was CDC didn't just brush off the question he went in full detail of what herman inherited and it's only year 4 and how hard it was for him to let go of his lifelong buddies(cue up the timey violin). Like I had a completely different view of CDC and maybe he can turn into a hard ass behind closed doors but if Texas win 8 games next year i'd want to see us go Hire a Urban Meyer and i'm afraid CDC would keep herman another year.

 

Anyone else listen to his interview?

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8 minutes ago, Rockethorn1978 said:

So I got a little worried after listening to CDC on the podcast with fuck chip brown as he said he wouldn't be fair to have herman on the hot seat even if he has a "meh" season this year? Now they never said a win total as the floor as I assume if herman shit the bed and won 6 games he's gone but what got me worried was CDC didn't just brush off the question he went in full detail of what herman inherited and it's only year 4 and how hard it was for him to let go of his lifelong buddies(cue up the timey violin). Like I had a completely different view of CDC and maybe he can turn into a hard ass behind closed doors but if Texas win 8 games next year i'd want to see us go Hire a Urban Meyer and i'm afraid CDC would keep herman another year.

 

Anyone else listen to his interview?

I haven’t heard it, but there’s absolutely no reason for him to say anything publicly other than that he believes Herman is the guy, and he’ll have a long leash here.

Anything else would really undercut our recruiting and player retention efforts and would only hurt the program with no benefit coming from it. 
 

I wouldn’t put any significance on his comments. He said nice things in Shaka’s defense just a couple weeks ago and people freaked out about that, yet it’s looking more and more like Shaka will he fired by the day. 

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29 minutes ago, Rockethorn1978 said:

So I got a little worried after listening to CDC on the podcast with fuck chip brown as he said he wouldn't be fair to have herman on the hot seat even if he has a "meh" season this year? Now they never said a win total as the floor as I assume if herman shit the bed and won 6 games he's gone but what got me worried was CDC didn't just brush off the question he went in full detail of what herman inherited and it's only year 4 and how hard it was for him to let go of his lifelong buddies(cue up the timey violin). Like I had a completely different view of CDC and maybe he can turn into a hard ass behind closed doors but if Texas win 8 games next year i'd want to see us go Hire a Urban Meyer and i'm afraid CDC would keep herman another year.

 

Anyone else listen to his interview?

i wouldn't expect anything but a diplomatic answer at this point

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40 minutes ago, Rockethorn1978 said:

So I got a little worried after listening to CDC on the podcast with fuck chip brown as he said he wouldn't be fair to have herman on the hot seat even if he has a "meh" season this year? Now they never said a win total as the floor as I assume if herman shit the bed and won 6 games he's gone but what got me worried was CDC didn't just brush off the question he went in full detail of what herman inherited and it's only year 4 and how hard it was for him to let go of his lifelong buddies(cue up the timey violin). Like I had a completely different view of CDC and maybe he can turn into a hard ass behind closed doors but if Texas win 8 games next year i'd want to see us go Hire a Urban Meyer and i'm afraid CDC would keep herman another year.

 

Anyone else listen to his interview?

I listened and here's link if folks want to hear...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flagship-university-texas-ad-chris-del-conte-joins/id1279981104?i=1000465486664 

Assuming the team chemistry improves and program stays clean, Mensa probably returns for 2021 season with an 8-4 regular season record or better...

 

Edited by LTtxfan
Damn Autocorrect
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1 hour ago, pacman said:

i wouldn't expect anything but a diplomatic answer at this point

But I also wouldn't expect a full blown defense of Herman either and he went way into saying Herman inherited Charlie's shit and we need to have perspective and went overboard about herman letting his bros go and this is his first season with a new staff? You expect THAT much? I don't expect him to be all surly but I do expect maybe a "Tom knows he has a opportunity to right the ship and that's our plan and at The University of Texas the bar is high and this is a prestigious job and we all are approaching it that way every day". 

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7 minutes ago, Rockethorn1978 said:

But I also wouldn't expect a full blown defense of Herman either and he went way into saying Herman inherited Charlie's shit and we need to have perspective and went overboard about herman letting his bros go and this is his first season with a new staff? You expect THAT much? I don't expect him to be all surly but I do expect maybe a "Tom knows he has a opportunity to right the ship and that's our plan and at The University of Texas the bar is high and this is a prestigious job and we all are approaching it that way every day". 

Any hint of a hot seat from the AD in public is bad for the program. Especially ahead of a season where, if it goes well, things could be totally fine. No reason to torpedo recruiting.

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