Extension for Brown has Longhorns all a twitter

Wow. Winning a Holiday Bowl sure pays off these days. Texas coach Mack Brown is about to receive a contract extension through the 2020 season. Brown was already contracted through 2016, and the extension wouldn't be a huge raise. A source told the Austin American-Statesman it would merely continue Brown's annual 100,000 raises on a contract that currently pays him 5.2 million a year. Brown is entrenched at Texas. He's won a national title there, rakes in a top-rated recruiting class every year and is a skilled fundraiser. He's got more job security than just about anyone not named Nick Saban. Now he has that security in writing through the start of the next decade. For that, he can thank Twitter. At the end of last season, a couple of blips in the twitterverse apparently sent shockwaves through the Texas solar system. First, a little-known sports radio host in Topeka, Kansas tweeted that a coaching source told him Brown would retire at the end of the regular season. Then a popular sports blogger followed up with his own tweet citing multiple sources that Brown would likely be forced out. Brown laughed off the rumors, saying that when he does retire, it won't come from a twit in Topeka. We assume he's merely unfamiliar with Twitter terms. But the rumors persisted until Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds addressed them and emphatically said Brown wasn't going anywhere. Maybe the rumors were bits of negative recruiting that leaked to the media. Maybe a booster who underestimated his amount of influence, as well as his liquor intake, popped off to a reporter. Who knows? When you turn 60, as Brown did last year, the clock begins ticking on your career. Opponents and other enemies will gladly count those ticks out loud to recruits. No high school player wants to sign with a coach who will be gone within a year or two. It didn't help that Brown has recently steered Texas into a dip on an otherwise soaring line graph of success. He's 141-39 in 14 seasons at Texas and is just 26 wins from matching the legendary Darrell Royal. Going 5-7 two seasons ago created some cracks in his Texas resume, cracks just big enough for his naysayers to being prying at. The Longhorns rebounded to 8-5 last season, including that Holiday Bowl win over Cal. However, the Longhorns don't appear quite ready to contend for a national title next season, which is the standard at Texas no matter who the coach is. Texas will stay that way until a long-term solution at quarterback emerges. If Brown can't get the Longhorns back to competing for Big 12 titles and beating Oklahoma, the new contract extension doesn't guarantee he will keep his job. According to the report in the Statesman, the extension includes a 3.5 million buyout with six month's notice. With the kind of money Texas has, plus more guaranteed millions pouring in from its Longhorn Network deal, buying out Brown would be no problem. Ironically, it was Brown's success on the field and as a fundraiser that puts Texas in a position to pay him off and hire an expensive successor without batting an eye. That's not likely to happen, of course. Thanks to the extension, it's even less likely now that Brown can tell today's recruits he will be coaching at Texas after their first NFL contracts expire. In the meantime, Brown might want to look into re-activating his Twitter account. Follow Keith Whitmire on Twitter: @Keith_Whitmire