Texas football: Is Urban Meyer really the answer for Longhorns?

Urban Meyer would be at the top of the list for Tom Herman successors at Texas football.

Urban Meyer is available, but replacing Tom Herman at Texas football is not a forgone conclusion.

Herman’s first four years leading the Texas Longhorns has been frustrating at best. While the 2018 Longhorns got to 10 wins and defeated the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl, they are not any closer to winning a Big 12 Championship and reaching the College Football Playoff. In short, Texas is still not back under Herman and the university could be looking to move on from him.

Urban Meyer gets early returns, but is never long for any particular job

After falling at home to the Iowa State Cyclones, Texas stumbled to 5-3 on the season and will not be playing in the Big 12 Championship game. Players like offensive lineman Sam Cosmi and safety Caden Sterns opted out of the Longhorns’ final two conference games this season. Thus far, Herman has gone 30-18 in four years at Texas, including an unremarkable 21-13 in Big 12 play.

Though Texas should win its final two conference games over the Kansas State Wildcats and the Kansas Jayhawks to get to 7-3, that is not the mark the university was hoping for when it hired Herman back in 2017. In two years with the Houston Cougars, Herman went 22-4, including a 13-1 mark in 2015. Houston won The American, the Group of 5 bid and the Peach Bowl that season.

Ultimately, Texas should be getting to the Big 12 title bout annually and playing the arch rival Oklahoma Sooners for a College Football Playoff berth. Herman is not getting it done often enough, as teams like the Baylor Bears, the TCU Horned Frogs and very likely Iowa State have crashed their party to take their spot from them to go up against Oklahoma in Arlington.

If Texas were to part ways with Herman after four seasons, it would need to land an A-lister coach to make it worthwhile. The most obvious choice here would be Meyer, who last coached with the 2018 Ohio State Buckeyes before retiring for a second time. While he may love his new gig as a college football analyst with FOX, this is Texas and a blue-blood job that rarely becomes available.

In Meyer’s 17 seasons as a head coach in the 21st century, he went a combined 187-32 overall over four stops. Whether he was with the Bowling Green Falcons, the Utah Utes, the Florida Gators or the Ohio State Buckeyes, Meyer brought unprecedented success to all four programs. Texas fans are hoping he could do the same if he were to take over in Austin in 2021.

Naturally, the appeal is there for the Longhorns. Meyer would come into a traditional power program and would have Texas winning 11 or so games annually at this college football blue-blood. Still in his mid-50s, Meyer could coach in Austin for as long as he would want to before retiring for a third time. However, he has never stayed anywhere for longer than seven years.

Texas could win a national title before the end of the 2020s if Meyer were to replace his mentee Herman in Austin. However, him doing so would almost certainly burn that branch of his illustrious coaching tree. Also, Meyer has now retired twice for medical reasons, leaving Florida after the 2010 season and leaving Ohio State after the 2018 campaign. He is a quick fix and nothing more.

Meyer would make Texas better overnight, but he would only stay in Austin for a handful of years.

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