Gone: Longhorn AD DeLoss Dodds

The University of Texas athletic director is expected to announce tomorrow that he will step down next August.

Well, this only ups the speculation on Mack Brown's future, which I blogged about recently.

Will he bow out (as of the end of this season), or not? And if he does, when does he announce?

I still say, per that earlier blog post, that he should announce now, and try to fire the team up for the Oklahoma game.

And, yes, he should leave. When UT legend Earl Campbell says you should be fired, it's time to go.

Back to Dodds, though. The Chron's story touts how much he built up UT as an athletic powerhouse. Let's not forget that he wrecked the original incarnation of the Big XII through his refusal to revenue-share the Longhorn Network's money.

Tis true that the Aggies might have bolted anyway, but I think Mizzou and Colorado could have been kept on board if he had been less arrogant sooner. Add TCU, as the league did, and you're still at 12 teams and very solid in football.

Having seen him thus wreck one of the nation's top football rivalries, and definitely one of the top hoops rivalries, in Kansas-Mizzou, I'm not quite so impressed by Dodds.

The Chron also doesn't tell how Dodds got his comeuppance from the Pac 10 (later 12), who told him, "No revenue sharing, then no joining."

Update, Oct 11: The assumption around Longhorn Land has always been that, when Dodds stepped down as athletic director, Mack  would move up to take his place. And might be encouraged to do so.

Well, if UT is hiring an outside search firm to look for Dodds' replacement, that might not be so true.

Of course, spending the money on the search firm, and possibly having to buy Mack out if he won't retire and they won't name him AD, while cutting 500 jobs, shows the ridiculousness of the power of college football.