UPDATE, 7:35 p.m. ET: According to ESPN’s Brett McMurphy, Mack Brown is “expected to resign by the end of the week.”
UPDATE, 6:46 p.m. ET: Mack Brown has refuted a report that he will step down as Texas head coach at the end of the season, according to ESPN.
Mack Brown has spent the better part of his coaching career at the University of Texas, but his 16-year reign as the program’s head man has come to an end.
Brown will be stepping down as the Longhorns’ head coach this week, according to OrangeBloods.com, ending the tenure of one of the school’s greatest coaches.
Brown, 62, spent time as the head coach at Appalachian State (1983), Tulane (1985-1987) and North Carolina (1988-1997) before taking over at Texas in 1998. He took over for John Mackovic, who lasted just six seasons in Austin before being reassigned within the Texas’ athletic department after a 4-7 finish in 1997.
The Longhorns made an immediate turn around under Brown, finished 9-3 in 1998 and going on to rout Mississippi State 38-11 in the Cotton Bowl. That was just the first of 12 consecutive bowl games that the Longhorns appeared in under Brown. He also led Texas to two BCS National Championship Games, defeating USC 41-38 to complete a perfect 13-0 season in 2005 and capture the program’s first national title since 1970. Texas lost the other national title appearance 37-21 against Alabama in 2009.
Brown finishes his career at Texas with a 158-47 record. He took the Longhorns to 15 bowl games in his 16 seasons, with a 5-7 finish in 2010 the only outlier, and went 10-5 in those games. Texas is expected to celebrate Brown’s storied career during the team’s end-of-year football banquet on Friday. He will likely coach his final game at Texas against Oregon in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Dec. 30.
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