Tom Herman is a disciple of Urban Meyer, and point one on the Ten Commandments of Urban reads that the head coach must have total control of what messages go in and out of the program.
As Herman makes his rounds meeting the various constituents he'll lead as the new head coach at Texas, the Longhorns hosted a luncheon on Monday with parents of the current players. Selling parents on the vision of his program is almost as important for Herman as winning over the players themselves, because when the culture starts changing and rough moments inevitably arrive a parent can be the difference between a transfer and a player that submits himself fully to Herman's vision for the program.
"The price of a championship exists and it's really high. It's never going to change. It's never going to come down to our level -- ever. It's there, and it's really high, and it's really hard, and it hurts, and it's painful, it's inconvenient, it's time-consuming, and it takes so much self-sacrifice it's not even funny, but it's there and it's never coming down," Herman told the group. "Moms, dads, I need your support. Say, 'Son, trust them. Trust them.'"
Part of that vision, Herman said, is keeping the team's laundry out of the media.
"Our business is our business. If your son tells you something, it's expected to stay within the family because that's family business. And we need your support. We need positivity," he said. "Your sons are going to be better husbands, better fathers, better employees having been through our program and the love that we will share with them. And they will also win a whole lot of games by doing it our way."
Of course, that message was then taken to the media, as shown by this wonderfully ironic tweet.
There's likely a middle ground here between Herman's quote and the tweet above. Would Herman mind if, say, Malik Jefferson's mother told a reporter about a childhood obstacle her son overcame to reach Austin? That's hard to imagine. Herman was asking parents not to tell a reporter that -- hypothetically speaking -- Jefferson was unhappy with his role in the Longhorns' new defensive scheme. Family business stuff. Still, that tweet -- which spent Monday bouncing around social media -- was likely a pointed counterpoint to Herman's message.
The Tom Herman-Texas marriage comes with a learning curve for everyone -- for players, for their parents, and for Herman himself.