Football has a special place in the state of Texas. Texas is a sports-mad state in general, with nine major league sports franchises, more than a dozen minor league teams, and even a Formula One racetrack under construction in Austin, but football is king. From sold-out high school games to rabid Cowboys fans in the new one billion Texas Stadium, folks in Texas take their football seriously.
Furthermore, for Texas football fans it is not just about playing football, it is about winning football. And Texas football teams have for the most part a remarkable record of doing just that. Year after year numerous Texas football programs like the University of Texas Longhorns and the TCU Horned Frogs and the Dallas Cowboys produce successful seasons and compete for top honors in their respective leagues.
But no football program, or group of programs, can be successful every year, and 2010 was definitely a down year for Texas football fans. With the exception of the magical undefeated 13-0 season of the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, all of the other major Texas football teams had disappointing seasons.
The Longhorn Debacle
The Texas Longhorns sell more Longhorns and UT-related t-shirts, caps, cups, pennants, balls, shoes, books, towels, and other marketing paraphernalia than any other college program in Texas by a wide margin, and Longhorn fans are both legion and rabid in Texas. That said, they are used to winning, and especially used to winning since Mack Brown took over, and while a season with no bowl appearance is a bitter disappointment, a season with a losing record is simply unacceptable and heads had to roll in Austin. And while Coach Brown himself is untouchable, a disastrous season like this one, especially just two years after a berth in the national championship game, inevitably led to major changes in the coaching staff.
The Longhorns entered the season with high hopes, and did manage to win the first three games of the season. But after that disaster struck and they lost five of the next seven, including to both big rivals Oklahoma and Texas A&M, to end the season at 5-7. Coach Brown fired five assistant coaches in an attempt to shake things up and is in the process of making the new hires.
The Cowboy CollapseThe Dallas Cowboys also have a proud tradition of success in the NFL, and after advancing to the playoffs the year before, the Cowboys entered 2010 with high hopes of ending the season playing in Super Bowl XLV in Cowboys Stadium. But that was not to be as the Cowboys stumbled badly out the gate, losing their first two games and seven out of their first eight. The seventh loss, a 45-7 drubbing by Green Bay, was enough for Jerry Jones and he fired Coach Wade Phillips. The team responded well to interim coach Jason Garrett, and won two games in a row and five out of their last eight. But that was only enough to salvage a 6-10 season and still leave the sour taste of wasted season in the mouths of Cowboys fans. Jerry Jones is still evaluating permanent head coaches but Jason Garrett is thought to be a shoe in.
More Texan Mediocrity
Texas's other professional football team, the Houston Texans, also finished at 6-10 this year, capping another year of frustration and mediocrity at the franchise. The Texans actually started out well, winning their first two games, but it went downhill from there. The offense was actually reasonably good statistically, but the defense stank and just seemed to get worse as the season moved along. The Texan defense ended up 30th, dead last, statistically in the NFL. Not surprisingly, coach Gary Kubiak fired the entire defensive staff including coordinator Frank Bush and said the team is "…looking to go in another direction defensively."
More from Associated Content from Yahoo!:
Preview of 2011 BCS Championship Game - Auburn Vs Oregon
*Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.
