The 5 worst coaching hires in Longhorns history

While Texas football is one of the most storied and traditionally successful college football programs of all time, the past decade has cast mostly dark clouds over the forty acres. The 2010s and early 2020s were not the kindest to the Texas program.

Based on decade records, the Longhorns had two of the three worst winning percentages in program history in the 2010s and so far into the 2020s. The only decade worse than the 2010s for the Longhorns in terms of winning percentage (71-57 overall record, .555 win%) was the 1930s (47-44 overall record, .517 win%).

Texas had some coaching missteps in the 2010s, so player development suffered. It looks like it will be a while before the Longhorns bounce back to the mid-2020s under the current administration of head coach Steve Sarkisian.

Sark appears to have the program headed in the right direction heading into his third season with the Longhorns, improving the team’s record by three wins since 2022 (5-7-8-5).

Of course, it would be great to see Sark bring the Longhorns back to the national prominence that Forty Acres fans have become accustomed to over the past few decades. But he needs to avoid making some of the mistakes some recent coaches made that put the program in a hole he’s still digging out of.

Worst head coach salaries in Texas football history

Here’s a look at the Longhorns’ five worst coaching hires of all time.

5. Ed Price (1951-1956)

Record: 33-27 (.549 winning percentage)

The Texas football era under head coach Ed Price consisted of two very different sagas. Price’s first half as head coach at Texas (1951-1953) was highly successful as he led the program to three consecutive winning seasons in the early 1950s.

Price and the Longhorns got off to a good start as the program entered a new era in the 1951 season after Blair Cherry’s 40-year coaching tenure ended. Texas defeated three ranked opponents, including the No. 11 Oklahoma Sooners in Red River, in the 1951 season to finish with a 7-3 record (3-3 SWC).

Texas built on that success in 1952, Price’s most successful season as the program’s head coach. He led Texas to a 9-2 record (6-0 SWC) and won his first and only conference championship with the Longhorns. The 1952 campaign ended with a bang as the Longhorns convincingly knocked off the No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers by a score of 16-0.

And while the 1953 campaign was not as successful for the Longhorns as the previous year, Texas was still one of the best teams in the Southwest Conference. It wasn’t until the 1954 season that Price’s teams began to contend strongly.

From 1954-56, Texas had two losing seasons and one .500 record. Price’s worst season came in his final year as a 40-year-old in 1956, when Texas finished with a record of just 1-9. It was the Longhorns’ first losing season in over a decade.

After three consecutive seasons in which the Longhorns posted a losing or .500 record, Price tendered his resignation at the end of the 1956 season.

Price’s six-year tenure as Texas’ head coach was a tale of two sagas. He found success in his first three years as head coach after being promoted from Cherry’s staff in the early 1950s. Texas also had three consecutive teams in the early 1950s ranked in the top 10 in the nation in the Simple Rating System (From Sports Reference).

Unfortunately, however, he was unable to sustain this success in the mid-1950s. This led to one of the worst three-year stretches in program history, as Texas posted a 10-19-1 record (.333 winning percentage) from 1954-1956.