Yep. Probably a couple years to late. He did himself and the program no favors at the end. He was excellent before that. From what I understand second hand, he got cocky and lazy about recruiting towards the end and thought he could keep the same level of talent with minimal effort. Happens to many good men. The result of prolonged success and growing arrogance. Human nature for many.
Mack Brown is squarely to blame for demise of the Texas football program.
For some reason, Mack lost his mind after the narrow loss to Bama in the BCS Title game. Colt McCoy (the winningest QB in college football history) was injured on a freak play early in the game. Playing with a true Frosh Qb, who had almost no snaps for the year, Texas STILL had a chance to win the game late in the 4th quarter. It wans’t a ‘bad loss’. But, it was enough to convince Mack that Texas needed to be a running team, like Bama.
Mack was so convinced, he fired his LONG-TIME close friend, Offensive coordinator Greg Williams. At that time, William’s offenses had scored the MOST points of any team in the country over the previous 10 years.
I didn’t understand, or agree with his logic then. Years later, it has been nothing but DISASTER.