Things aren’t going well for the mighty University of Texas and boosters may be on the verge of cleaning house. Some reports indicate that the jobs of the athletic director and the football, basketball and baseball coaches are all on the line.

When the Longhorns aren’t doing well in football (1-2 after three games this season and 2-4 in the last six games), the Texas power brokers aren’t happy. They’re upset and angry that they’re not dominating every team in sight, hungry for blood.Tom-Jurich-Happy

Forgive us if we gloat. But Texas, remember, is the school with the athletic director, DeLoss Dodds, who dangled the possibility of an invitation to the Big 12 Conference in the face of the University of Louisville for months. Encouraged, teased and all but invited UofL but never delivered in the end.  Choosing West Virginia University over UofL.

Next to hiring Tom Jurich as its athletic director, the snub may have turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Louisville, which is becoming  a full-fledged member of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014. If the Big Ten hadn’t plucked Maryland from the ACC, Louisville athletics would be mired in Never Never Land.

Imagine a school just having won an NCAA championship in basketball, a BCS bowl in football, and a College World Series appearance in baseball, as well as a national runner-up in women’s basketball still on the outside looking in. Texas wasn’t going to allow the Big XII to expand unless it could get Notre Dame, then maybe, just maybe, Louisville.

So it’s comical that Dodds is denying reports that he has been asked to step aside after three decades and assume a consulting role. The vast empire he built could be turning its back on him, kicking him upstairs to an advisory position. What’s really ironic, however, is that the leading candidates to succeed are said to be Big XII Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, Florida AD Jeremy Foley and UofL’s Tom Jurich.

Jurich has said he gets letters all the time about possible jobs, adding that he doesn’t look at them because he’s so happy at Louisville.

Just for fun, however, TJ might want to entertain an offer from Texas. Leak word to the media about the offer,  whisper that he is interested in the job to some insiders in Louisville and Texas d. Leave them hanging, just long enough to everyone conclude that he’s gone. Schedule a press conference to make the big announcement.

Shocking the disbelieving Texans, he announces that he’s staying at the University of Louisville, reaffirming that he already has the best AD job in America, that he still has things he wants to accomplish here.  He wouldn’t be proving anything at Texas anyway, just building on another person’s legacy while constantly dealing with some massive and insatiable egos.

Louisville over Texas. That would be delivering a large dose of humble pie for the Lone Star State, and still another incredible boost for the program that Jurich built.

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By Charlie Springer

Charlie Springer is a former Louisville editor and sportswriter, a public affairs consultant, a UofL grad and longtime fan.