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Page 6/The Battalion/Wednesday, January 8, 1986
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Former UT coach bitter
it COULPM'T &
over ‘sacrificial’ firing
Associated Press
t I
Oilers will trim prospect list
before naming new coach
Associated Press
HOUSTON — The Houston Oil
ers won’t offer the vacant head
coaching job to anyone until the list
of prospects has been reduced to
three and those applicants re-inter
viewed, General Manager Ladd
Herzeg said Tuesday.
“Everyone we’ve talked to so far,
wants the job," Herzeg said. “We’re
going to keep talking until the list of
everyone we’re interested in has
been exhausted.”
Herzeg declined to name any of
the prospective coaches but the Oil
ers reportedly have interviewed for
mer Cleveland Coach Sam Rutig-
liano, San Francisco assistant coach
Paul Hackett and United States
Football League coaches Dick Coury
of Portland and Jacksonville’s Lindy
Infante.
Nebraska’s Tom Osborne also has
been mentioned in connection with
the Oilers.
A Houston Chronicle source said
Osborne was offered the job last
week but that he had decided to re
main with the Cornhuskers.
Osborne told Houston Radio Sta
tion KIKK early Tuesday “It’s not
true,” when asked if he’d been of
fered the head coachingjob.
In a later interview, Osborne said
he was happy at Nebraska and
planned to be there next season, but
added he would neither confirm nor
deny rumors concerning the Oilers.
“I am the coach at Nebraska and
plan to be here next year,” Osborne
said.
“I have a five-year contract and,
God willing, I’ll be here another five
years from now. It’s the only job
right now that I’m interested in.”
Herzeg fired head coach Hugh
Campbell with two games remaining
in the 1985 season and named de
fensive coordinator Jerry Glanville
as interim coach.
Glanville remains a candidate for
the full-time position because he
thinks the Oilers have the personnel
to have a winning season in 1986.
Herzeg started his search looking
for a coach who believes the Oilers
can win next season.
“Basically, all the people I’ve
talked to say we’ve done an out
standing job of providing the per
sonnel here,” Herzeg said. “The re
ception has been very good.”
Herzeg said he would not rush
into naming a coach prior to the Se
nior Bowl at Mobile, Ala., Jan. 18.
where unemployed coaches often
find new jobs.
PORT ARTHUR — Former Uni
versity of Texas assistant football
coach Ronnie Thompson said four
years of frustration — of having to
bite his tongue, of seeing players
misused, of seeing suggestions ig
nored — poured out after head
coach Fred Akers fired him and
three others last week.
He said that he was shattered that
his loyalty meant nothing and that
Akers would use him and the other
dismissed coaches as a sacrificial of
fering for his own shortcomings.
The former head coach of Port Ar
thur Jefferson High School decided
to fight back.
Thompson’s verbal broadside af
ter the sackings last Friday probably
ranks as the upset of the year in col
lege football, bigger than Texas-El
Paso beating Brigham Young.
Fired coaches who speak out in
anger after being fired generally
have their comments dismissed as
sour grapes. Then they find them
selves olackballed.
Thompson, who coached the run
ning backs at Texas, said he under
stands all that. Nonetheless, he has
no qualms about saying that Akers
lied to him, that Akers made his as
sistants the scapegoats for a disap
pointing season, and that Akers lim
ited the input of his assistants.
“Fred
can only fire me once,”
Thompson said. “And how’s he
going to recommend me to anybody
now that he’s done that? Besides,
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since this has happened, I’ve learned
Fred is bitterly disliked by an awful
lot of people. So maybe it won’t hurt
me. Anyway, I have no regrets.”
It is possible in this particular case
Thompson’s taken the right ap
proach. Many think Fred Akers is
neither well liked nor respected by
many football people across the
state.
Akers was in Japan and could not
be reached for comment.
Ever since former UT football
coach Darrell Royal took away Ak
ers’ offensive responsibilities and re
placed him with a high school coach
named Emory Bellard back in 1968,
Akers has been obsessed with prov
ing Royal made a mistake, Thomp
son said.
“One of the things that really
killed us this year,” Thompson said,
“was our inability to score touch
downs from inside the 20. We
usually settled for field goals. Fred
called approximately 82 percent of
the plays inside the 20. I know be
cause I kept the charts.”
Ron Toman, as Texas’ offensive
coordinator, was little more than a
Figurehead, Thompson said.
“Ron and I got to call a lot of plays
on third-and-8, but on first and sec
ond down it was a real circus,”
Thompson said. “We’d be working
off the game plan charts and call
what had been discussed for down
and distance. Fred was always de
viating from it.
“What we’d wind up with on game
day was a grab bag offense that
idn’t have any rhyme or reason.
di
Sometimes I wondered why we even
prepared a game plan. We wouldn’t
stick with anything in a game long
enough for it to be successful.”
Before he was officially a member
of the Texas coaching staff, Thomp
son said, he sat with Toman in the
press box during the Longhorns’
1982 Cotton Bowl game against Ala
bama.
With Texas trailing late in the
game, he heard Toman recommend
a quarterback draw. Three plays
later Longhorn signal caller Robert
Brewer scored the winning touch
down on a quarterback draw.
Thompson, on his way to the
dressing room, bumped into a
sportswriter acquaintance, who
asked him who made the all.
Thompson said it was Toman.
Meanwhile, in the dressing room,
Akers was taking full credit, Thomp
son said. It didn’t sit well with Akers
when he learned his new assistant
was Quoted as saying Toman sug
gested the decisive play, Thompson
added.
“I was new and just didn’t under
stand how things worked,” Thomp
son recalls. "Dating back to wha
happened with Darrell, Fred has a
terrible complex about his offensive
knowledge. He’s still trying to prove
Darrell made a mistake. Anything
that worked needed to come off as
Fred’s idea.”
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