FOR BROWN, EVERYTHING IS IN PLACE AFTER YEARS OF CRITICISM, COACH HAS TEXAS IN 2ND STRAIGHT ROSE BOWL.

Byline: Ramona Shelburne  Staff Writer

AUSTIN, Texas - At first glance, everything inside Mack Brown's office seems perfectly placed. The giant cowhide rug is centered, his desk is neat, even the view from the leather couch where most visitors sit, is perfect, with a large, wide window that opens to Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium.

It's at second and third glance though, that you realize Brown isn't quite as square as you might've been led to believe from his nicely pressed pants and shirts and all those pitch-perfect, homespun quotes he so often regales the horde of media who cover his Texas football team with.

In the right-hand corner of the room, a cowboy hat, given to him by the cowboys who take care of Bevo, Texas' mascot, sits atop a mounted steer head. Beneath it is a giant Texas football helmet constructed with LEGOs. And on the left side of the room, a golf hole has been cut in the floor, with a flag given to Brown by Phil Mickelson.

``As you can tell, we're a little different,'' Brown joked. ``We're like a little museum, I guess.''

Even Brown has some surprises. On this day, he's wearing an orange pullover Texas jacket, jeans and tennis shoes with no socks. He hates socks, by the way.

This isn't the Mack Brown most Texas fans saw before this year. He always has been like this, of course, but it's amazing how quickly perceptions can change when you break a five-year losing streak to rival Oklahoma and make it to the national championship game. Texas plays USC on Wednesday in the Rose Bowl, the BCS title game.

The knock on Brown in his first seven years at Texas was that he was too nice. A great recruiter who couldn't win the big games. ``Mr. February'' they called him, in recognition of the top-tier recruiting classes he'd bring in, but which ended up being the highlight of the year when the Longhorns lost to OU and were relegated to the Holiday Bowl or the Cotton Bowl, left out of the Bowl Championship Series.

``I don't think it was ever true. But I think people get perceptions,'' Brown said. ``(USC coach) Pete Carroll smiles all the time and people say he's too nice too, but now that he's winning, now that we're winning, everybody says, `Boy, their kids love `em.' ''

That nice-guy image had become so pervasive that two of the top recruits in the state - Adrian Peterson of Palestine, Texas, and quarterback Rhett Bomar of Grand Prairie, Texas - cited it as a reason they chose Oklahoma over Texas.

It's hard to say when the perception of Mack Brown began to change, but it was long before Texas finally broke through and ended its five-game losing streak to Oklahoma this season.

Most people think it started near the end of last season, when Brown started campaigning for the Longhorns to make it into the BCS with their 10-1 record. At the time, the BCS had come under fire because one of the top three unbeaten teams in the country - Oklahoma, USC or Auburn - was going to be left out of the national title game, and another worthy team - California, Texas or Utah - was going to be left out of the BCS altogether.

Texas had drawn the short straw in that equation the year before, when Kansas State upset Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game, knocking the Longhorns out of the BCS and back to the Holiday Bowl, where they suffered an embarrassing loss to Washington State.

Brown didn't want that to happen again, and it didn't. Texas played in the Rose Bowl and beat Michigan with a stirring second-half comeback. Cal (then 10-1) was sent to the Holiday Bowl, and promptly lost to Texas Tech.

``Our team was having to answer questions, for a two-week period before the Texas A&M game, about (how,) `You're going to get left out again,' '' Brown said. ``So what I told them was, 'Quit answering that question. You beat A&M and you're 10-1 and I'll step up for you.' That's simply all I did. There was such a big hullabaloo made out of it, though.

``I didn't say anything about Cal, I didn't say anything about anybody else. In fact, I voted Cal in my top five or top six in the polls. I thought there was such an uproar about it, it was really foolish, because what an awful thing for a coach to speak well of his team after it just won its 10th game, and it's ranked in the top five.

``It's amazing that as I looked around this year every coach was standing up for their team and nobody thought anything about it. ... so maybe I helped. Maybe I've made it OK for a coach to stand up for his team.''

Beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl was Texas' first BCS victory and elevated the Longhorns' national reputation. Texas had ended on a high note, as a team to watch this season with a Heisman Trophy candidate in quarterback Vince Young. Their confidence swelled, as did Brown's. He seemed more assured, and not just because Texas gave him a 10-year, $26-million contract in December 2004.

His players have noticed a difference.

``He's like a totally different coach from when I first got here,'' junior defensive back Michael Griffin. ``This year, he's just so focused. He's more outspoken. There's a swagger to him.''

In other words, Brown was still nice, but not too nice.

No one seems to have benefited more from that change in attitude than Young, who just a year and a half ago was encouraged by one local columnist in Austin, Texas, to switch from quarterback to wide receiver after a bad game.

After that game, Brown and an assistant coach brought Young in and made him watch a highlight tape of himself in high school and some big plays he'd made at Texas. They reminded him what he was capable of and let him know they were sticking with him. The results of that pep talk speak for themselves.

``We were uptight,'' Young said. ``We had a lot of guys pointing fingers at each other after we got our butts whopped against OU, but after that, things started changing. We wanted to get it done for coach Brown. He put a lot out there for us and people thought it was his fault, but it wasn't. It was ours.''

The road back

For Brown, the fact that his ``niceness'' is even a topic of national discussion is the most gratifying part of this season, because it means the Longhorns are back in the national spotlight.

When he took over the program in 1997, the Longhorns had just endured a 4-7 season under John Mackovic. Ticket sales had fallen to $8.7 million in 1997 (Texas netted $20.0 million in 2004), the alumni base had splintered and the Longhorns had fallen out of the top echelon of national programs.

Brown had just led North Carolina to a 10-1 record and a No. 7 national ranking. It wasn't easy to leave North Carolina. His wife, Sally, had built a successful real-estate business, his kids were in school and he'd just signed a stellar recruiting class.

At first, Brown wasn't interested in the Texas job, but when North Carolina balked at giving him a 10-year contract extension - and administrators told him to interview for the Texas job so they could match any offer - his thinking began to change.

Brown was among a handful of candidates who interviewed, but the search stopped after he met with the committee. Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds offered him the job right after his interview.

``Mack Brown completely blew the committee away. It was not a case of of one guy doing something wrong, it was simply that Mack was everything that was right,'' legendary Texas coach Darrell Royal, who was on the search committee, wrote in Brown's 2001 book, ``One Heartbeat.''

One of Brown's first tasks when he took over the program was to enlist Royal's help and make him more visible. Royal won three national titles between 1963 and 1970.

``I asked him, 'Help me with what's wrong? Why haven't you won for a while?' And he said, 'The University of Texas is the alums, the administration, the high school coaches, the media,'' Brown recalled.

``'It's like there's a big box of BBs and we've dropped the box and everybody scattered everywhere. If you can ever get all those BBs back in the box, you're going to be fine, because this can be a powerful place.' ''

Brown followed the advice to a T. He met with alumni groups, spoke at Longhorns functions, was accessible to the media, invited former players back and renewed relations with the state's 1,200 high school coaches.

According to Randy Quisenberry, football coach at Midland Lee High, the change from the previous staff to Brown's was startling.

``They opened everything up and I think it's opened a lot of doors for them in recruiting,'' Quisenberry said. ``He really won over all the high school coaches. They wanted you to feel like you could come up any time. When you go up there, you can get right down in the drills and ask as many questions as you want.

``Before, when I'd go up to UT, I almost felt that we were a nuisance and I think the other coaches did, too. Sometimes, with big-time programs like Texas, the high school coaches can feel like they're getting snubbed. Like, 'You can come out, but go stand over in the corner.' ... But it's not like that now. They've created an atmosphere where people feel like they really care about the high school coaches.''

Dipped and vaccinated

When recruits come to visit, they find new, state-of-the art facilities. The plans for the Moncrief-Neuhaus Athletics Center were drawn up during Mackovic's reign, but it was Brown, and his wife, who had the most influence over the final product.

One of the things Brown insisted on was building a trophy room to showcase all of the Longhorns' traditions and accomplishments. Earl Campbell's 1977 Heisman Trophy and Ricky Williams' 1998 Heisman Trophy are prominently displayed. Before, Campbell's Heisman was only accessible to be viewed by former lettermen.

Downstairs, the walls are lined by photos of great moments in Longhorns history and great players. Even riding in the elevator is an experience. It plays ``Eyes of Texas'' on the way down and the Texas fight song on the way up.

The locker room is 200 feet from the stadium. A huge set of longhorns are hung near the exit of the building, where players touch them for luck before they run onto the playing field.

``We really felt like an appreciation for past coaches and past players was important,'' Brown said. ``The place you take over is really molded by somebody else. The truth is, we're only visiting.''

Maybe so, but in the eyes of Royal, one of the most popular public figures in the state, Brown has earned the right to be called a Texan.

Early in his time at Texas, Royal gave Brown a ``T ring,'' an honor only attainable by Texas football lettermen.

Brown protested, saying he wasn't worthy of such an honor.

``I hadn't done a thing yet,'' Brown said.

When he first put it on, he put it on backward, with the ``T'' facing him, not outwards.

``He corrected me,'' Brown said. ``He said, `It's not for you, it's for everyone else. ... That meant a lot to me. It was like him saying, you're part of the family now. You've been dipped and vaccinated.''

The way Brown sees it, there are a handful of programs in college football that should be good every year and belong in the national spotlight.

`` 'SC should be a factor, they weren't for a while. Texas should be a factor, Ohio State should be a factor, Alabama, Michigan,'' Brown said. ``What I feel now is that we're back in the game. Texas should be in the game.''

Just then, Brown looks up and over his shoulder at the view of the stadium. He takes a momentary pause as if pondering some thought.

``You know, when you get older, you want to win every game, but you realize it's not only about that,'' he said. ``It's about the kids and the role models. All that's more important. I would want to win the game for the state and for the fans who are so obsessed with winning the national championship. And for the kids, because it would be a lifetime dream for them.''

Ramona Shelburne, [phone]

ramona.shelburne(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1) Mack Brown hoists roses after Texas' victory in last month's Big 12 championship game.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

(2) MATT LEINART/KEARY COLBERT

(3) DOMINIQUE BYRD 

(4) DWAYNE JARRETT 

Getty Images

(5) USC'S MANUEL WRIGHT and MATT GROOTEGOED

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer

(6) no caption (Dwayne Jarrett)

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(7) no caption (football player)

Kirby Lee/Special to the Daily News

Box:

(1) UT BY THE NUMBERS

(2) THE WIN STREAK