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Chris Del Conte says Texas knew Rodney Terry was 'our guy' since December

ns_headshot_2024-clearby:Nick Schultz•03/28/23•

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Rodney Terry (Photo by Adam Davis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

In December, Rodney Terry took over as interim head coach at Texas after the suspension of Chris Beard. Since then, he took the Longhorns to a 22-8 record since taking over, a Big 12 Tournament title and an Elite Eight appearance — and that earned him the full-time head coaching job.

Throughout the year, fans called on Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte to take the interim tag away from Terry and give him the full-time position after the job he did. But Del Conte opted to wait until the season ended, and the announcement came one day after the Longhorns fell to Miami in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

However, Del Conte said he had a feeling Terry was Texas’ “guy” back in December during a conversation with UT Board of Regents chairman Kevin Eltife. However, Del Conte made it clear a decision wasn’t going to come during the season.

“Chairman Eltife goes, ‘I was thinking, Del Conte, you know he’s our guy,'” Del Conte said during Tuesday’s introductory press conference. “I go, ‘Yeah, but we don’t make a decision until the end of the year.’ He goes, ‘You know he’s our guy.’ I go, ‘Yes sir, we know he’s our guy.’ It was Dec. 13. But after the Rice game, I said can we just wait? I want to wait and watch what he does.

“Not to take a reference to the movie [Finding] Nemo, but you know when the little turtle comes out and goes, ‘Hey, let’s see what he can do.’ And, boy, what he can do was we knew right then and there he was the right man. I needed each and everyone of us to know he was the right man. I needed our team to know he was the right man.”

Rodney Terry had quite the journey to becoming Texas’ head coach

Rodney Terry signed a five-year deal with Texas worth $3 million per year, CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein reported. It caps an interesting journey during his second stint in Austin.

After previously serving as an assistant at Texas from 2002-11, Terry returned to the Longhorns in 2021 after three years as the head coach at UTEP. Then, he took over as interim head coach following Beards’ suspension — and eventual firing — after his arrest for allegations of domestic violence. The charges were later dropped and Beard has since been named the head coach at Ole Miss.