Tom Herman has finally chosen a big-time program in Texas. But we still haven’t forgotten about the madness that led to Herman heading to Austin.
With Herman’s decision made and more people willing to talk about the past few weeks’ craziness, we are starting to get more details into the days leading up to the former Houston coach taking the job at Texas.
According to the New Orleans Advocate, Herman’s agent might have been the person that set off the reports this past Thursday that he was close to becoming the next LSU coach.
We even saw ESPN’s Laura Rutledge climb all the way up to the visiting athletic director’s box at Texas A&M on Thursday night, only to get a “no comment” from LSU AD Joe Allevia.
Sources told the New Orleans Advocate that as a result of Herman’s agent floating the information out there, those in Austin ended up catching word and were the ones behind the reports coming out.
This was just one attempt at throwing fire into this whole situation. The day following the report of Herman getting closer to Baton Rouge, he flat out denied that he would be leaving the Cougars, saying “Honestly, don’t believe anything that you read.”
By the time those words had been taken seriously, Texas had fired Charlie Strong and brought in Herman.
While Herman’s agent has been quiet, the new head of the Longhorns was on The Dan Patrick Show to talk about his new gig:
Even with it being revealed that Herman was ready for Austin just hours after Houston’s final game, he still claims that all of the reports prior to his departure are false.
To make things better, Herman then completely avoided the LSU connection:
“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.”
This is not the first — nor will it be the last — of Herman’s awkward encounters with the media. He got upset over the summer about rumors surrounding his interest in the Baylor job. Herman got angry again while on a Houston radio show.
While Herman is taking up the majority of the headlines, his actions aren’t that strange. Coaches lie about this sort of stuff all the time. However, Herman might want to calm down with the media a little bit now that he will face way more scrutiny in Austin than in Houston.
What is really amazing here is his agent’s ability to manipulate the process. If he did indeed start the rumor about Herman going to LSU, he set off a major storm. With those sort of skills, he should start a fake news site.
