Tom Herman says he doesn’t have time to worry about ex-boss Urban Meyer’s criticism

In Tom Herman’s first game coaching Texas, his Longhorns let Maryland drop half-a-hundred points on them and lost by 10. Afterward, Herman said this about the team he inherited from Charlie Strong, who went sub-.500 three years in a row:

So I told our guys to never get used to this feeling, but that if we all thought that we were going to come in here and in nine months, sprinkle some fairy dust on this team and think that we’ve arrived, then we’re wrong.

Despite poor results under his predecessor, Herman’s team started the year ranked No. 23 in the country. Strong left him the 13th-most talented roster in the country, according to his players’ recruiting rankings. The cupboard is not bare.

”C’mon man,” he told CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. “I don’t know where that came from. It’s like a new generation of excuse. ‘I can’t rub pixie dust on this thing.’ He got a dose of reality. Maryland just scored 51 points on you.”

Maryland hadn’t scored 51 points against an FBS opponent since matching that total against East Carolina in 2010. The Terps got 50 against Purdue last year, which is not the kind of thing that makes Texas look any better here. At any rate, it was bad.

”Players read that,” Meyer told Dodd.

For what it’s worth, Herman said before getting beaten by Maryland that Texas wasn’t a top-25 team coming into this season.

“No,” he said. “We’re a 5-7 team. You are what your record says you are. We haven’t played a game yet. We’ll pay attention to those as we head down the stretch, but right now it’s just a bunch of people guessing, right?”

“I don’t have any,” he said. “I don’t have time to worry about comments made by somebody else about their program. I’m worried about our program and winning a game. Anybody that’s been around me and our staff for the last nine months knows that we’ve never disparaged the previous staff or our current players.”

A reporter followed up, “So you don’t feel like you threw guys under the bus after a game?” And Herman replied, “Next question.”

Meyer had similar criticism for now-South Carolina coach Will Muschamp. He was Meyer’s successor at Florida, about which Muschamp had previously told Dodd:

“[We] changed the culture of the program that was labeled by the previous head coach [Meyer] as ‘broken.’ He said it. I didn’t.”

So the idea of blaming the previous coach for the current roster has been on Meyer’s mind for a while. Meyer’s extended remarks on “blaming players,” via Dodd:

“That’s like, when I got here, everybody wanted me to say Jim Tressel left the cupboard bare,” Meyer continued. “If I heard any assistant coach [say that], they’d be gone. You’re done.

”Those are your players. I hear TV guys [say], ‘Wait until they get their own players in there.’ They’re our players. What do you mean ‘their players?’ The minute you sign a contract, they’re your players.

”You didn’t choose me, I chose you. You’re mine, absolutely. I love you, and I’m going to kick the shit out of you, and we’re going to do it right …

“[Blaming players] drives me insane.”

And maybe you disagree with Meyer’s interpretation. But Meyer has a point.

Two important things to remember:

When college coaches come across as blaming their players after one game together, it’s a bad look. Whether that’s how Herman intended to sound doesn’t really matter.