Report: Bill Powers pushed Mack Brown out at Texas

We may never know exactly what happened with Mack Brown and Texas, but the latest report says he was pushed out by university president Bill Powers, who previously was one of his biggest supporters.

If you remember correctly, a report from OrangeBloods.com said Brown would resign before week’s end the week of Dec. 9. At that time, there was speculation about Nick Saban taking the Texas job. But when Saban agreed to an extension with Alabama, a new report said Brown would remain as Texas coach. Then the very next day, Brown announced he was resigning.

So what transpired?

Yahoo! Sports’ Pat Forde says Brown had a meeting with AD Steve Patterson on Saturday morning, the day Brown’s resignation was eventually announced. Things went well at that meeting and the two talked about Brown’s future as the program’s coach. An hour later, however, Patterson called Brown again to set up another meeting between them, one where Brown was informed he needed to resign.

From Forde’s report:

The source told Yahoo Sports that Patterson arrived at the football building with a jarring change of heart for Brown: You need to resign. That was the decision of University of Texas president Bill Powers, and Patterson was the apologetic messenger. The source said Powers, a longtime friend and supporter of the football coach, abruptly yanked the rug out from beneath Brown after supporting his continued tenure the previous two days.

What led Powers to change his mind? Forde’s source (who may be Brown’s agent) speculates that the Texas regents may have ordered Powers to force out Brown at the threat of being removed as university president. Forde says Patterson actually supported Brown staying, and that Mack could have saved his job by beating Baylor in his last regular-season game. They were defeated 30-10 instead.

Believe whatever you want, but if you actually think Patterson and Powers backed Brown until Powers’ job was threatened, then this story actually makes sense. It also would explain why the reports seemed to flip-flop on a daily basis until Brown eventually resigned. Here’s the thing: we all knew Brown wouldn’t be back for one simple reason — he didn’t win enough.