Tom Herman reflects on his desire to ‘fight the man’ at previous coaching stops

Tom Herman reflected on his previous coaching stops as he heads into the 2023 season as the head coach of Florida Atlantic, a fresh start.

He had the urge to “fight the man” at other stops, most recently at Texas. Herman didn’t name the Longhorns in that quote directly, but there’s no question he had an interesting tenure in Austin.

Herman opened up on what he learned at other stops now that he’s in a new place in his coaching career.

“I think having reset my priorities and you know, maintaining a better work life balance just aside from the actual job, I think I’d become much, much better at organizing those priorities,” Herman said on ESPN’s College GameDay Podcast. “”And then I think just man, I just wanted to fight the man and you never win. When you fight the man, you know, the man always wins. “

There’s an old saying that I had forgotten to be honest with you and that’s you got to do business the way business is done. And I can buck, cry, scream, punch the air, the whole nine but I’m not going to change college football alone. And I’m not going to change administrations, conferences, donors. And so you kind of have to learn how to play by their rules. And I think I’ve done a much better job of that this time.”

During his time as a head coach, Herman amassed a record of 54-22 (22-4 at Houston, 32-18 at Texas) and has four bowl victories to his name, including a Sugar Bowl win with the Longhorns.

The 48-year-old coach spent some time as an analyst for the Chicago Bears in 2021 and had a year off last season. But Florida Atlantic might be ripe to have a good season.

The Owls had a nice stint under Lane Kiffin before he left for Ole Miss. The outgoing Willie Taggart did not succeed.

It will help that Herman gets his old quarterback, Casey Thompson. Thompson played under Herman at Texas before he transferred to Nebraska.

Now that Thompson left Lincoln, he came down to Boca Raton.

During one year as the primary starter at Texas, Thompson crossed the 2,000-yard threshold while throwing 24 touchdowns to nine interceptions. He also averaged more than eight yards per pass attempt, which isn’t too shabby. 

Then in one year as the primary starter for the Huskers, Thompson tossed for 2,400 yards, 17 touchdowns, 10 picks and once again averaged more than eight yards per attempt.

Can Herman and Thompson turn it into big success at Florida Atlantic? There’s certainly a chance.