After an ugly bidding war between two college football powerhouses, Tom Herman is the new head football coach at the University of Texas, spurning LSU when it seemed like they were closing in on the big hire.
The chaos started a week earlier when Texas lost to Kansas. Reports erupted saying the Longhorns would fire Charlie Strong and that the University of Houston's Herman was their top choice to replace him. On Thursday, the Tom Herman sweepstakes took a turn when new reports said he was close to a deal with LSU, only to have Texas swoop in and steal Herman early Saturday morning.
Herman is now drawing a lot of criticism for how the situation was handled.
According to Ross Dellenger of the New Orleans Advocate, rumors were circulating that Herman's agent actually sparked the LSU reports by feeding information about the negotiations to either Texas officials or directly to media that covers the Texas football program. Those reports broke as LSU was playing Texas A&M on Thanksgiving night and said a deal between LSU and Herman was close and could be finalized by Saturday.
Then, on Friday, prior to Houston's game against Memphis, Herman was asked about the reports that he might leave Houston and that "multiple teams" were interested in hiring him.
"Honestly, don't believe anything that you read," Herman told ESPN.
When pressed further to confirm that the reports were false, Herman said, "absolutely, sure."
The next day, Herman was the coach at Texas, meaning, at best, Herman was playing semantics with his answers. At worst, he was flat out lying.
On Tuesday, Herman confirmed to "The Dan Patrick Show" that he finalized a deal with Texas hours after the game against Memphis, at approximately 4:00 a.m. Saturday morning.
Herman was then asked if he was being sincere with his comments prior to the Memphis game.
"Every single report that was floating out at that time was inaccurate," Herman told Patrick. "I was not lying. I feel very comfortable saying that."
But when Herman was asked if LSU had reached out to him, he quickly slammed the brakes and did the Texas 2-step. He danced around the question and refused to give a straight answer.
"Yeah, you know, not to skirt the question, I just don't know that how we got here is relevant," Herman said. "What's really relevant is that we're here now, Dan, and excited about moving forward, excited about the kids in the locker room, excited getting on the road recruiting. There's a lot of things that happened, that have been reported, that did or didn't happen. At the end of the day, I don't know how any of that is relevant."
Was Herman close to signing with LSU or Texas prior to the Memphis game? Maybe not. But it seems safe to assume that negotiations and/or conversations had taken place prior to Herman saying "every single report" was "inaccurate."
At the end of the day, Herman has left Houston and is now at the helm of one of the most powerful football programs in the country and his former players are forced to either honor their commitment to Houston or sit out a year at another school.
You can see Herman's comments here:
