If you watch the America’s Team Netflix series, the former Cowboy players opinion of Barry Switzer is very different from what most of us thought. Frankly I was surprised how much they respected him in retrospect. True everything went to crap under his leadership, but that can’t all be blamed on Barry and certainly the disfunction carried over to this day. Barry ceded almost all personnel issues to Jerry and the Front Office and that is where Jerry employed Fixers to try to keep his players out of trouble. And of course unlike Jimmy Johnson, Barry didn’t even try to challenge or have input on player move or draft picks. That was all Jerry from Jimmy’s departure to present.
Now we can agree almost unanimously his tenure at OU especially the later days in Norman might fit your take. They had so much crap occur on and off the field that violated NCAA rules that in totality made SMU’s look like parking tickets and they should’ve received the Death Penalty.