Mac Engel: Rodney Terry's timeline at Texas was inevitable; why it will end soon, or march on

Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Mar 10, 2025

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Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte had no choice but to hire Rodney Terry, and now the inevitable ramifications of the decision has hit the 40 acres.

It’s never good when the most compelling detail to a season is whether the head coach will be fired immediately after its conclusion, which is exactly where Terry and UT reside.

Texas lost its regular-season finale on Saturday in Austin, 76-72, to an equally meh Oklahoma team. The win snapped OU’s eight-game losing streak in a game that had far more meaning on the bottom of the SEC standings than the top. The Horns are 17-14, and finished 6-12 in its first SEC season.

There are four reasons why Texas will keep Terry:

— It’s basketball.

All basketball coaches in this state enjoy the unwritten Texas Coaches’ Protection Plan that ensures job security a longer than in other parts of the country. In exchange for coaching a sport that resides in football’s perpetual shadow, the coach gets another year.

— It’s expensive, even for this economy.

Terry has three years remaining on a contract that pays him $3 million a season. The buyout is reportedly $5.8 million.

Consider the price to hire a new coach/staff as well as that person’s potential buyout at his previous school, and the total cost of this move could be in the neighborhood of $18 million. Texas has enough money to build a 20-lane bridge from Austin to Anchorage, but $18 million to hire a new basketball coach is right on the line of excessive.

— May as well just say it - Race.

Texas has 21 head coaching jobs, and Terry is the lone Black coach. Even in a state that celebrated as it took a flame thrower to the letters “D-E-I” not having a single Black head coach on your roster is a bad look for any athletic department.

— He’s earned another year.

As average as his team has played for most of the season, Terry’s prior work at UT will warrant a conversation whether moving on from him right now is the wise move.

No one could have handled the impossible situation Terry was pushed into when his boss, Chris Beard, was fired for domestic assault charges in Jan. of 2023. That ordeal would have ended most teams regardless of their coach.

Terry was the immediate leader and adult in the room who was real with his players about the situation, and everyone involved responded admirably. The team went 22-8 under Terry, and reached the NCAA’s regional final.

He is a good leader for young men, and solid ambassador for his university.

Last season, the team finished .500 in its final Big 12 season, reached the NCAA Tournament and nearly upset second-seeded Tennessee in the Round of 32.

All of the signs, however, of a team sliding were there in 2024, which leads us to:

There are four reasons why Texas will dump Terry:

— He should never have been given the job in the first place.

Terry resigned from his previous two head coaching jobs, at Fresno State in 2018, and from UTEP in 2021. He left El Paso to accept the assistant coaching job at Texas under Beard.

There was zero on Terry’s resume that said Texas would hire a coach with his record under any circumstance other than the one that all parties involved fell into because of Beard.

— Football is king, but basketball has to be in the royal family.

With football at Texas finally rolling in the direction towards a national title, the “need” for basketball to carry the morale in the athletic department is low.

But, in an athletic departments like UT, there are standards for every team and the men’s basketball program is trending towards irrelevant. No one at UT expects the Horns to be the UConn Huskies, but you can’t lose to South Carolina.

Poor crowds at UT home games coupled with embarrassing losses all over its SEC schedule has created an uncomfortable atmosphere for a team that is not put together well, some of which falls on GM, Chris Ogden.

— At Texas, money isn’t actually real.

Dumping Terry and hiring a new replacement is pricey, but this is an athletic department that shops at Neiman Marcus for toilet paper. This is a department that said “Sure” on spending millions to replace its baseball coach.

Last spring, Texas ate more than $1 million to fire successful baseball coach David Pierce. Then it had to spend well north of $1 million to buyout Jim Schlossnagle’s contract at Texas A&M, and then handed him a 7-year, $15.4 million deal.

That was for baseball.

— It’s inevitable.

All coaches are hired to be fired, and some just last longer than others; Terry did a great job cleaning up Beard’s mess, but the overall record is consistent with what he did at Fresno State and UTEP.

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