1. Denial. Denial is the initial stage of grief that occurs when a Longhorn football coach proves to be an incompetent loser. A defense mechanism, the denial stage may last months or years. In this stage, you refuse to believe that the Savior of the Program is, in fact, a flawed person whose track record as a coach and a human being was littered with red flags from the beginning.
It can't be Coach's fault! He's The One! Coach is going to Bring Texas Back. I've never been so sure of anything in my life.
He just needs a few things. Like new players. 85 of them, to be exact. Each of our current players is a talentless fraud. Every recruiting service, high school coach, and rival program uniformly overrates recruits that will eventually commit to Texas by an average of 4.5 stars. That. Is. A. Fact.
And we need to fix the culture of the program for him. Our program culture is rotten. All of it! Except for the team colors, of course. And the logo. And the fight song, the school song, the various gameday traditions, the rivalries, the cheerleaders, the pom girls, the cannon, the trademark hand sign, the live mascot, and the inordinate devotion of resources to a sport at the expense of educational investment. And of course Coach himself and anything Coach does that can be considered cultural. All of that stuff can stay. But everything else about our culture is 100% rotten and has to go.
And don't get me started on the city of Austin. It's too weird, there are too many distractions, alcohol and drugs are sold within its confines, temptresses reside here, there's traffic, that one guy was throwing bricks at people on I-35 for a while a couple years ago, a monocled cobra died crossing the street here, etc., etc.
If only we replaced the whole roster, the entire culture of our program except for pretty much everything that makes up that culture, and the surrounding city of nearly 1 million people, then Coach would finally have the basic components he needs to win football games here!
2. Anger. After a year or two of denial, you become angry. The results have not changed. COACH MUST GO! It's all his fault! It's always been his fault! These scoundrels arguing on-line that it's the players or the culture or OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY OF AUSTIN for Christ's sake are sinister agents of pro-Coach propaganda and always have been. How can they not recognize the obvious truth staring them squarely in the face? A truth I have always known because I am consistent and objective and hope that none of you are proficient in this message board's search feature. (Note that the Anger stage includes a sub-stage: "Denial that you were ever in denial.")
3. Bargaining. When the anger subsides, you coolly begin to seek ways to bargain the program out of the mess Coach created. Hey guys: Urban Meyer is available! Jon Gruden, too. What's the buyout? $34 million? That's pocket change for our wealthy donors!
Surely they're rallying at South Fork as we speak, smoking cigars and drinking bourbon in a wood-paneled room full of leather couches and cowhide rugs, one by one dropping giant bags of cash into an oversized cowboy hat that one of them will toss to Sark as he is unceremoniously kicked out of a late-model American-made land yacht with a genuine longhorn hood ornament into the dusty desert night. Or maybe they'll toss him out of a helicopter!
That's actually happening, right? If not, surely someone here knows one of these bigwigs, these veritable Gods Amongst Men. These Kings of the Program! Give your contact a call and let them know that they alone have the power to save us!
What about Chip Kelly? Saban? Saban's realtor?
4. Depression. At this stage, the truth sinks in: Urban Meyer is not coming. Neither is Chip Kelly. Or Saban, Gruden, or Stoops. Or even Chris Peterson.
You must now face the fact that the program sucks. Just fundamentally sucks, in every conceivable way. Nobody wants to coach here. Nobody wants to play here. Maybe it's cursed. Maybe it's run by incompetent boobs. (What kind of idiot thinks he knows anything about football just because he has a pile of oil money and a giant sedan with longhorns glued to the grill? Who died and made that archetype I probably concocted in my own imagination King of the Program, anyway?!?)
Whatever the case, you now admit to yourself that you spend an inordinate amount of time and money supporting a mediocre football team. What happened to your life? You once had enthusiasm. Promise. Ambition. Now you just mope around drunk, declining food and sex after the orange team humiliates themselves on national TV, which is a weekly occurrence. "You sicken me," you spit through gritted teeth at your haphazardly-lipsticked face in the mirror.
5. Unbridled Optimism About the New Guy. The final stage of grief for the failed Longhorn coach commences immediately upon the hiring of the New Guy. The New Guy is a perfect fit. He's a hidden gem. He checks all the boxes. He will optimize the talent on hand. He will immediately improve recruiting. He will not botch talent evaluation like The Last Guy or The Guy Before That. He knows how to schmooze the boosters. He tells it like it is.
Yep, one thing is for sure, you proudly inform any distant relative or acquaintance fortunate enough to be standing nearby and too polite to interrupt your sermon on the Good News of the New Guy: The New Guy is going to Bring Texas Back.
I've never been so sure of anything in my life.