1. As far as memorable press conferences go, this one has a chance to be remembered historically for a good while. If nothing else, I expect "Orangefans" jokes until there's no longer an Internet to make jokes about it on. More that this, it officially became the moment when Tom Herman first addressed his job security with specific language used to underscore the shadow of Urban Meyer in the process, and in doing so he gave everyone all sorts of one-liners for us to potentially recite in future years as inside jokes on this very Orangefans site.

2. While there was a lot to unpack from all that was said, make no mistake about it... the headline from the entire event was this: "Tom Herman Gives Himself a Vote of Confidence As Chris Del Conte's Unofficial Proxy."

Herman didn't specifically mention any of the great number of untruths that he has to battle every day because of the endless stream of "unnamed sourced" stories, which was kind of odd because there are apparently so many in existence, but indirectly he pointed to any notion that he doesn't have a great relationship with Chris Del Conte as nonsense.

In fact, Del Conte and Herman have such an amazing chemistry at the moment that Del Conte will hop on the phone and talk to any recruit that Herman needs him to speak with in the name of job support. And Herman doesn't care if his boss ghosts him in public because HE KNOWS!

Considering that Del Conte has gone out of his way to not speak on Herman's program at all in any public fashion outside of his occasional personal newsletter, that made for a fascinating statement from the head football coach. It practically begs for a follow-up question aimed at his boss, which is exactly the likely intended purpose of his comments in the first place.

3. Dear Chris Del Conte, the media covering the Texas football program is on line one...

4. In a way Herman is exactly right about the pain in the ass that the rumors about his job safety turn out to be in the world of recruiting. Once that genie is out of the bottle, getting it back in takes the kind of dynamic follow up on the field that rarely ever emerges anywhere across the country when these sorts of things happen. Unintentionally (or intentionally), in landing all of the jabs he wanted to land with his answers to Anwar's question, he opened the door to Pandora's Box when it comes to the biggest reason we might be past the point of no return with his job status.

The whys and the how comes rarely matter at this point.

5. That being said, if we're going to talk about the whys and the how comes, Herman wasn't honest in his depiction of his problems in recruiting. The truth of the matter is that the collective masses on this message board were planning on a 9-1 season as recent as a few months ago, while his problems in 2021 in-state recruiting trace back nearly 13 months.

Tommy Brockermeyer didn't skip out on going to Texas because of comments made by the fans after The Eyes of Texas fiasco was locked arm in arm with back to back losses to TCU and Oklahoma. The truth is that every big time recruit in Texas from the 2021 class has been sitting in a holding pattern on Texas ever since the Longhorns failed so badly on the field in 2019 that Herman had to fire 70-percent of his staff.

Don't blame Brockermeyer and the rest of the kids getting ready to sign in December on the Internet, Tom. That's not in any shape, form or fashion the truth.

Likewise, the 2022 recruiting class has also been in a holding pattern while it waits to see how Texas responded on the field this season after all of the changes and now it has been impacted by what's happening on the field, on the Internet and across all forms of communication (like word of mouth between prospect to prospect). There's a cross-section of runaway things colliding with each other, but is not a chicken or egg situation. We know what came first and that was the doubt from the 2021 class created by the failures on the field last season. Everything else that has occurred since that doubt was created is a byproduct of failure from the first three year's of Herman's tenure.

6. Herman weirdly believes that the media in Austin and the Internet universe that follows the Texas program is unique in the way that it follows the program and I just don't know what world he thinks exists. Does he not know how crazy Alabama fans are? Has he never heard Finebaum's show? Was he unfamiliar with the meltdowns on Bucknuts after Ohio State losses? Because I remember those people burning furniture in the streets when Texas beat them in 2005.

He seems to believe there's a magic place out there where coaches can lose game after game after game, while stumbling for a year in recruiting, and still receive universal support without any questions being asked or turmoil developing in the process. Oh, and he believes all of that should exist at a time when the fan-base is irate about off the about off-the-field issues involving the school song than any over anything I've ever seen.

Ok.

Maybe he should call Jim Harbaugh and ask him how easy the Michigan Internet sites are these days. Or USC's. That school is 2-0 and its coach is still the subject of national articles calling for a firing.

There's no magic universe out there.

7. The Orangefans jab was funny. It was funny when it happened. It's funny 24 hours later. Nice one, coach. That'll live forever.

8. Herman mentioned several times that the players "know the truth". I can only speculate about what he was referencing because he didn't specifically elaborate on any of this very vague gray area he kept stepping into, but it felt ominous from my vantage point.

9. It needs to be emphasized that Herman spoke loudly about a lot of generalities and almost zero specifics. I wish he'd have just come out and plainly said what he thinks has been incorrectly reported. In being unwilling to specifically call out what he was railing about, it undermines his attempt to undermine. Is he simply talking about his job status? Reports of Del Conte's disconnect with him? The Eyes of Texas stuff?

"unnamed sources and agendas masked as the truth"

I. WOULD. LOVE. TO. KNOW. WHAT. THAT. MEANT.

Honestly, what does that mean? I'm here for all of the conspiracy theories.

10. If we set the over and under at 18 for the number of days it takes for Del Conte to talk on the record and take questions from reporters in the form of a zoom call or some other gathering about Herman and the football program in general, which way are you leaning?

It feels like the answer to that question is the over and that Herman just unofficially called out Del Conte to come out and do it sooner.

Because if Del Conte truly has Herman's back, as Herman says he does, then why wouldn't Del Conte want to come out? If it's hurting recruiting, waiting only hurts it more, right? Herman said that he doesn't need public support from his boss, but if he needed had the public support, maybe he wouldn't need Del Conte to potentially make phone calls to recruits.

Maybe that was Herman's biggest message of all.

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