He's embarrassed himself during this fall season of coach courting. He's been sent to the kiddie table. If you think that's on the money or the powers that be, who are all pretty fucking bright, I don't know what to tell you.
Steve Patterson leveraged the Saban debacle, where the BMDs ran their mouths to too many people and enabled Mack Brown, his buddy Powers, and their faction to fuck the deal up by telegraphing everything. With that fuck-up staring everyone in the face, the money was silenced for a hot minute and we somehow wound up hiring a fucking executive search firm and landed Chuckles, thanks to Patterson's effort. That process, to some/many talking heads and HR people, looks perfectly normal. How did that work out?
It's crazy to me that you've been cheering for UT athletics for as long as you have and the fact that the AD isn't alone in the hiring process of revenue-driving sports is foreign to you. Athletic Departments are run by one of five things:
1) The Athletic Director - small schools without an overbearing donor type; a couple of places with their shit together for glimpses like OU in which an AD had been around so long that they're uniformly trusted; a couple of fucked up places, like USC and Tennessee, where the dysfunction is so rampant that it's hard to fathom even as a UT fan.
2) The President/Chancellor - Cal, for one; USC allegedly right now due to item 1
3) The Money - Giants with huge revenue and media coverage - Texas, Michigan, Auburn, UGa, Ohio State, FSU, etc
4) The Coach - Bama currently, in which the AD has to ask to get on Saban's calendar for meetings; Clemson is trending this way; PSU under JoePa
5) Other - The Catholic Church at ND; the academies; Nike at Oregon and UnderArmour at Maryland
Any single one of these scenarios can be fucked up in its own right. If all things are equal, give me the one that provides the most flexibility and options - The Money. The fact that Texas can't get out of its own way at times with the Athletic Department is because of weak ADs who can't step up and help focus The Money and The Power. CC was flat-footed this fall and showed up thinking little - we couldn't get the money for UM; we needed to go after James Franklin or Sonny fucking Dykes. He (and you, apparently) was surprised he wasn't going to get to say whatever, do what he thought was best, and have everyone simply trust him because, you know, he made that softball and women's BB hire and people loved him for those.
He's weak until proven otherwise from here. He's hired one FB coach in his career. He's worked to avoid firing Herman. He soft-pedaled firing Plonsky. He's proven that he can watch coaching contracts expire and not renew them, but he's not shown that he can even straight-up fire someone.
This dude was entrusted to lead the work. He shit himself and whined to the press. Guys used to being in charge don't need to see that movie twice.
I don't remember feeling this way. Not saying I didn't say that, but you might be thinking of someone else. I've heard Herman is a fake and many guys see through the act and don't enjoy being around him or playing for him.