Texas Assembles Committee for Coaching Search

Now that Mack Brown has stepped down as head coach and Nick Saban has officially turned them down, the University of Texas has decided to assemble a committee to decide who's going to be their next head coach.

The eight person committee will include current regents, but shockinglyy, not a single former Longhorn athlete.

Here is the list:

• Regent Steve Hicks
• Regent Robert Stillwell,
• Former Regent Robert Rowling
• University of Texas professor Michael Clement
• US federal judge Ricardo Hinojosa
• Former Exxon Mobil vice president Charles Matthews
• Capital Royalty chairman Charles Tate
• Pamela Willeford, former ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein and former chair of the Texas Higher Education Coordinator Board

I wonder why UT didn't put any former athletes on the committee like Heisman Trophy winners Ricky Williams or Earl Campbell. Who would know better what kind of coach would fit this program than the players who actually played the game?

This list sounds less like a football committee and more like a bunch of oil barons from the cast of Dallas with a few faces from the ivory tower sprinked in there for good measure.

It appears clear that they're going to tell new athletic director Steve Patterson who they think he should hire. At least, according to this reporter from the San Antonio News-Express, he'll see some familiar faces:

And so much for university president Bill Powers saying this will be Patterson's hire.

It remains to be seen if this episode will be as much of a circus as the athletic director search was, but it's got all the makings for the same sort of show.