Here are excerpts from Texas football coach Mack Brown's press conference today, courtesy of Longhorns athletics. Brown discussed the future of college football, recruiting, coaching salaries and not returning text messages.
On the future of college football: I think the biggest change in the last 10 or 20 [years] would be the Internet changed a lot. I think it's helped protect against cheating because people have to be more careful now because kids are talking more and there's the danger that the kids aren't telling the truth all the time when they're talking. So there's stuff not out there that's not really accurate, more rumors. But we also have access to things that can counteract that if it's not true and stop it. At the same time coaches are being paid so much more than ever before. I don't know that that ever goes back. But coaches' salaries now in 1975 I was the receiver coach, recruiting coordinator at Southern Miss, made $13,500. When I left North Carolina 14 years ago I made $275,000. So things are just I mean, they're so different in 10 to 15 years, but who would have thought that. I hope that we're getting more control of the rules. It sounds like the NCAA is trying to simplify and change the book and get rid of a lot of those pages and get the rules just like the one I mentioned out of there, get them fixed, get the rules that if I text message somebody and I don't know who it is and it's a recruit, we can't recruit that recruit for a week. So I can't even answer text messages if there's not a name at the end. So I'm rude by not answering them, but I can't. If we bring in parents and they bring their two children outside of the recruit, two children can't eat. They have to stay in the hotel room. So there's a lot of things, I think, that it sounds like [NCAA] President Emmert will clean up, which I think will help. I think at the same time we've all heard about the basketball issues with AAU. I think we're headed that way with football very quickly. We have to step up and do a good job on it with seven-on-seven; with AllStar games, and we're getting a little bit out of control with some of that stuff. And in my estimation, I don't see that changing. I see everybody still having to produce money. I do see coaches being fired faster. I see assistant coaches being fired faster, because if they're not filling the stands you gotta have money. So it's going to be tougher for the athletic directors to keep the money up with what we're paying the ladies now, too.
On if college athletics will become privatized: No, we've had it 100 something years; I think in 100 something years we'll still have it. It's too important to people. You think about the influence the Final Four is going to have on Saturday night and Monday. I mean, it's huge. Women's sports, the Final Four in the women's, it's going to have a huge turnout. It's going to be packed and everybody's watching. And now they know the women's coaches' names and players by first names and that wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. So I think that college sports is at a better place publicly than it's been. And I also think that the problems that have occurred over the last year or two with major programs that people are taking strong stances against sends a message to us, you better act right and win and get all your kids to stay out of trouble and you can't break any rules and it's forcing everybody to do better. I had to put a security code on my phone so when I put it in my pocket it won't hit the wrong thing. Because even if I don't talk to the person and that call pops up in compliance, I've had a violation because I've had a call to that young man. So I think all of those things in my estimation will change. But we're already seeing coordinators being fired during the season for colleges and that never happened before. We're seeing colleges firing their coaches so much faster. [Former Kansas coach] Turner Gill gets fired in one year, two years, whatever it was, two years. And those things didn't happen 10 years ago. And I think all of those things will even accelerate now that everybody needs the money.
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