On some level, you have to understand where Texas was coming from. When your program is stuck in neutral and the second-best coach of his generation tells you he's interested, well, you've got to chase that rabbit all the way down the hole. This is how fans want their ADs to pursue dream candidates, to "make them say no."
Now Urban Meyer has said no, and Texas has no clear path forward.
All along, indications were Texas could retain Tom Herman in the event Meyer turned them down, but that dish seemed a lot easier to stomach when it was assumed Herman would beat Iowa State and at least force a rematch with Oklahoma for the Big 12 championship. Instead, Texas lost to Iowa State, a defeat that served as a metaphor for all the reasons UT has underachieved in Herman's four seasons.
Texas began floating trial balloons that Herman could return over the weekend, but there's no pretending these past few weeks never happened. The noise grew so loud even Herman himself acknowledged it. "I tell our team all the time, ‘Control what you can control’ and I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t do the same," Herman said after UT's 69-31 win over Kansas State on Saturday.
Even setting the fans aside -- and that's impossible given we know for a fact a sizable contingent has checked out on Herman -- a more important contingent has already voted with their feet on the current Texas regime. The Longhorns' 2021 recruiting class ranks 17th in the country according to the 247Sports composite rankings, after finishing eighth in 2020 and third in both 2018 and '19. Four years in, Texas can no longer sell playing time and new-car smell to elite recruits; results will have to do. And as a consequence, Texas has a commitment from just one of the state's top 10 (they're in the running for a second) and two of the state's top 25. That's fewer than Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Alabama, and LSU. Herman missed on Tommy Brockermeyer, the state's top player whose dad was an All-American at Texas, whose parents met at UT, whose grandfather went to UT, and whose older brother is on the team right now. In 2022, Texas obtained and then lost the commitment of No. 1 quarterback Quinn Ewers, who grew up a Longhorns fan. Five-star wide receiver Caleb Burton, from the Austin area, has since followed Ewers by committing to Ohio State.
All this to say: the reasons that forced Texas to pursue Meyer in the first place are still there. Oklahoma isn't going anywhere; in fact, the program is arguably on stronger footing now than in 2017, when the Sooners were a breath away from the national title game. Texas A&M is a legitimate College Football Playoff contender. The state's high schools are still open for business to the Ohio States, the Alabamas, the LSUs.
But all the urgency in the world doesn't necessarily make the job attractive to any other candidates, and it doesn't make the candidates themselves any better. That's another reason why Texas chased so hard after Meyer -- there's no slam-dunk candidate for Texas in the candidate pool of active coaches.
Oregon's Mario Cristobal is 3-2 with consecutive losses to Oregon State and Cal.
Penn State's James Franklin is 1-5 this season.
And even if those two were a combined 11-0, it remains to be seen if Chris Del Conte could marshal the funds necessary to buy out the $15 million necessary to buy out Herman for anyone that's not on the A++ list.
Dan Mullen? Brian Kelly?
You'd be asking them to leave to do at Texas what they've already done at their current gigs. Even if Texas can out-bid their current employers, both Notre Dame and Florida have enough funds to get close enough where leaving isn't worth their while. And in the unlikely event they are interested, the December signing period begins next Wednesday, while both coaches will be waist-deep in preparations for their respective conference championship games with Playoff bids on the line.
Iowa State's Matt Campbell is another name that's been mentioned, but: A) he's lived his entire life in the Midwest, B) there's a greater than zero chance Michigan comes open soon, and C) he's used his "five-star culture" to beat Texas's "five-star talent" two years in a row. You could understand why he might think he's got it better in Ames than in Austin, which is an incredible statement to consider.
This is the part of the column where the author typically sums up the situation into one grand solution, but there isn't one here. There is no daylight in between the rock and hard place the Texas football program finds itself, only more rocks.
And with Meyer now off the board, the eyes of Texas are now locked squarely on AD Chris Del Conte.