ATLANTA, Georgia – If there’s a person to be hugged in the immediate vicinity, Tom Herman is hugging them. He’s dishing out his share of high fives and handshakes too, but the prominent response is a big old bear hug. Family members, team officials, coaches, boosters, players, even volunteers, it doesn’t matter. Tom Herman has seemingly exhausted the words necessary to show emotion in this very moment and needs to transfer it through contact.
The Houston coach’s eyes are wild, jetting back and forth, and he can’t stand in one spot for more than a couple seconds at a time. Someone tries to corral him and bring him over to the makeshift stage that’s been erected on the field at the Georgia Dome.
“Are we singing the fight song?” Herman asks. “What are we doing?”
Herman’s Cougars just pulled off the upset (they were seven-point dogs) of Florida State in the Peach Bowl, 38-24, in a game they dominated. Sure, the typical laundry list of excuses are there for the favorite – not taking an opponent seriously enough, youth, “they wanted it more than we did,” this game being a letdown after playing for the Championship and in the Playoff the past two seasons, a quarterback getting hurt mid-game (although Sean Maguire came back in and reportedly played through an ankle fracture), and others. But Houston took on a team stacked with talent, on one of football’s biggest stages, and announced its presence to the world at large.
The #HTownTakeover is real, and as long as Tom Herman remains at Houston, it’s not going anywhere any time soon.
“I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention or at least implore the recruits out there and the high school football players,” Herman proclaims during the postgame press conference not just to the room, but to anyone that will listen, “that if you want to win championships and you want to win New Year’s Six bowl games and win 13 games and kiss trophies and get really big rings, and get a lot of nice things, better be coming with no strings, right — that you can certainly do it at one of the finest institutions in the country, and in my opinion, the greatest city in America.”
Drake lyrics included, the former Ohio State offensive coordinator chose his words extremely carefully as he’s done since his introductory press conference at Houston. He has never been shy about stating what he thinks this program is capable of, and from the first time he set foot on campus flashing the championship ring he got while coaching the Buckeyes, he set forth to make those things a reality.
From minor changes – like taking the white walls in the school’s practice facility and covering them up with more professional looking graphics – to landing highly-touted local recruits or Texas A&M transfer and former five-star quarterback Kyle Allen, Herman isn’t treating Houston like a stepping stone job or any other group of five school. Whether he ultimately leaves for a Texas or comparable program, it isn’t for lack of believing in what Houston – the city and the school – is capable of.
“I just have a lot of trust in Coach [Tom] Herman,” Allen told FOX Sports senior college football reporter Bruce Feldman. He had recruited me in high school [when Herman was at Ohio State]. I had gotten to know him extremely well. I know he can really help me grow as a man and get to the NFL.”
As both Alabama and Clemson get set to play for college football’s biggest prize, Houston already grabbed the second biggest win of bowl season when the Cougars kept Herman in Houston. The 40 year-old arguably could have had his pick of open jobs this year (although USC is debatable), including Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and others, but he stuck around for at least one more year and negotiated a nice raise in the process. The new deal doesn’t just bump up Herman’s pay, though, it includes some pay raises for assistants, and perhaps more telling is the clause that his buyout goes down by 25 percent if a new practice facility isn’t approved by the board of regents by the beginning of September.
Houston has everything going for it, aside from that critical Power Five tag. It’s in one of the biggest cities in the country, near downtown, in an area chock full of elite talent. Recruits get to admire the new and breathtaking TDECU Stadium, which boasts one of college football’s best panoramic views and was built with scalability in mind. And Herman’s dynamic presence speaks to both boosters and players alike. If he needs to get someone to make a big donation, Herman can cue up a speech on command. If he needs to get his program trending, well, he’ll just call the jewelry store and have Paul Wall make him a grill.
https://twitter.com/CoachTomHerman/status/681934176988303360
The Cougars won’t keep Herman around forever; the college football landscape doesn’t work that way. And for all its advantages, Houston at the present time is still in the American, which makes competing for the College Football Playoff a near impossibility. Had the team beaten UConn back on Nov. 21 and ultimately finished undefeated at the end of the regular season, Herman still wouldn’t have had a chance to play for a national championship.
The Peach Bowl is a heck of a consolation prize, and it’s a really nice thing, but if he wants another really big ring, Herman will eventually be off to a place where he feels he can win, and win consistently, at the highest level. In the meantime, he’s not treating Houston like a runner-up, and that’s what has kids (and fans) believing. While so many play The Game of Life with the college coaching profession, Herman stuck around, and seemingly everyone is benefitting in the process. Houston gets to keep its coach, the players get some ever elusive continuity, and Herman – assuming Houston has another successful season in 2016 – will only see his star shine even brighter.
The Houston Frontiersmen look like they’re straight out of a John Wayne movie, complete with cowboy hats, dusters, and boots, and they’re responsible for taking care of the giant State of Texas flag, as well as participating in student events and rallies. They take their jobs very seriously, and they can be found on the sideline at every game, stoically cheering on the Cougars.
Roman, one of the Frontiersmen, calls his experience with the group the most memorable thing about his collegiate experience, and with Houston closing out Florida State on New Year’s Eve, even he can’t help himself from doing a minor fist pump after the team gets a late stop and seals the victory. He admits the coaching carousel was stressful for not just his group, but the entire Houston community, and now he can relax a bit knowing Herman will return for at least one more year to try and follow up on the Peach Bowl win.
“He obviously deserved all the attention he got and that three million dollars he’s getting now,” Roman says. “But it’s great to know he’ll be back. He’s just so great for this program and for the University of Houston in general.”
Just a few minutes later, confetti cannons are loaded and spray red, white, and blue shards into the air when the clock strikes 0:00. Houston’s mascot Shasta holds up a sign reading “Another One,” a reference to DJ Khaled’s perplexingly poetic and all together strange Snapchat account, and stops to do confetti angels on the turf with the Chick-Fil-A cow.
Houston belongs on this stage, and Tom Herman has the Cougars acting like it.
