Thankful for Patterson, Chris Del Conte, and the Rest

It's hard to find any positives after a 4-8 season. Even with Jason Verrett being named co-Defensive Player of the Year today, there isn't much beyond that to be happy about, but there is at least one more thing.

As I was driving home from Fort Worth yesterday, an interesting conversation was being had on The Ticket surrounding the Mack Brown/Nick Saban situation at Texas.

Of course, as we all have heard by now, Chip Brown over at Orangebloods.com first reported that Mack Brown would be announcing his retirement later this week. Apparently that was news to Mack Brown, who was currently recruiting a running back in Florida when the story broke.

It seems as if the story made its way to Chip Brown a little to soon (but, let's be honest, Chip Brown has been totally wrong on multiple occasions).

So, now Mack Brown is saying he isn't stepping down. Other reports say he'll be gone by the end of the week. Nick Saban says he isn't going to Texas, but he has yet to actually put pen to paper on his nice contract extension at Alabama.

Let's speculate for a second. Obviously when a coach gets fired, there are several conversations that happen before hand so everyone can get their ducks in a row. The Athletic Director, President of the schools, and other folks are probably in the room having that conversation.And, for a coach of Mack Brown's stature, they probably aren't discussing firing him as much as they are discussing convincing him to step down, or saying, "please don't make us fire you, just retire."

That conversation didn't lead to a discussion with Mack Brown before it made it to the press however, and that's why Texas is now in the situation they're in. It is, in my mind, a huge disrespect to Mack Brown to let that information get out before speaking to him.

Sure, it was assumed he'd be gone at the end of the year, but the guy is the second winningest coach in Texas history. Don't kick him to the curb without his consent. It's not in good taste. Looking beyond this singular event though to the recent past for Texas' administration and athletic departments, it falls right in line with a series of events that make us wonder how it got this way for the Horns.

And all of it has me incredibly thankful for the administration at TCU. Could we ever see Chris Del Conte doing something like that to Gary Patterson? And we're coming off of an 11-14 record the past two seasons.

Could we imagine Victor Boschini coming in and telling CDC that they were had to ask Patterson to step down? It could have happened after the drug bust in 2012, but it didn't.

Why? Because they have some semblance of respect for each other, and the pressure they're all under.

Sure, things will still leak out, like the Meacham hire (which still hasn't been made official, but we'll let you know when it is), because there are a lot of hands in the cookie jar, but I take comfort in the fact that if it ever came to this with Gary, the situation would be handed much differently.