Just when I thought my alma mater couldn’t screw things up any more than they have, Texas State has somehow outdone themselves. On Sunday afternoon, literally minutes after the Bobcats won the Sun Belt volleyball conference tournament in triumphant fashion, Texas State announced that they had fired football head coach Everett Withers.

Withers was not the most beloved coach that Texas State has ever had with the fans and the media, and, under normal conditions, a firing of this nature would’ve made only a few ripples among a beaten down fanbase.

But Texas State University does not constitute “normal conditions.” Right out of the gate, the school has done everything they possibly can to screw up the handling of this situation.

First off, there’s the issue of Everett Withers being fired before embattled Athletic Director Larry Teis. Although opinions on social media remain divided about whether Withers should’ve had another year to prove his vision of building his program, the prevailing sentiment among the rank and file was almost universal that Teis cannot be trusted to make another football hire and that he needed to go before Withers did.

It’s not just the fans that thought Teis didn’t deserve another hire, either. Former players, Sun Belt beat writers, and Texas-centric football outlets said the same.

With that being said though, iff Teis stays and Withers goes, there will mever be a complete txst football team, either good on the field ad questionable elsewhere or the reverse — Easy Anyama (@InEasyWeTrust) November 18, 2018

Right. Texas State shouldn't let Teis anywhere near that search. — Adam Hunsucker (@Adam_Hunsucker) November 18, 2018

Each of Teis’s football hires’ winning percentages have been worse than the last, but more importantly his athletics administration has been stagnant for years and his fanbase has completely lost what little confidence they had left in his “leadership” on marketing, outreach, donor relations, and public presence.

If Withers is out, the job is not done. You cannot let the current athletic administration make the next hire. — SWC Round-Up (@swcroundup) November 18, 2018

Although I don’t agree with the idea that you “can’t” fire an AD and a head coach at the same time (plenty of schools have done it and have been better for it), it’s clear that given the choice between the two, Withers was far less of a liability to the long term health and growth of Texas State athletics than Teis. After all, Withers wasn’t the one getting booed on the jumbotron by the tens of fans left watching games in Bobcat Stadium, nor was he the one with a banner urging his firing on homecoming.

@ESPNMcGee

LSU's banner was featured on the SEC network, TXST fans are hoping theirs will get anyone to pay attention to our struggle even if it's just #Bottom10lobbying #FireTeishttps://t.co/yVAkXFA7bc pic.twitter.com/744klygttV — BOBCATJosh (@TXST4Life) October 27, 2018

Yes, changes were needed. A 7-28 record in 3 seasons isn’t going to inspire confidence in anyone, and having as many turnovers as points at Troy (7) was ghastly. There were also plenty of reasons to question whether Withers could ever build an FBS-caliber offensive line and run game, show a coherent understanding of momentum and game management, or ever improve his clock management skills to where anyone besides Les Miles could understand them.

But Withers did at least have tangible evidence of improvement on defense and had Texas State right at about the same level of S/P+ rankings this year (104th) that previous head coach Dennis Franchione hovered at despite the former having a considerably worse record.

One could at least in good faith make the case that given another year–and an offensive coordinator that didn’t have a bizarre fixation on running QB draws out of his own end zone and/or forcing bubble screens on a team whose strength was throwing it downfield–Withers might’ve put together a winning season in 2019.

Teis, however, hit his ceiling years ago, and that ceiling is as an academics and NCAA compliance adviser at an FCS school. Unless there’s something that happened behind the scenes that made Withers’ continued leadership of the program truly untenable (and no, I don’t consider him pushing back at Larry Teis’s bumbling decision making as qualifying here), Texas State President Denise Trauth has allegedly made the wrong choice in who to fire first.

Also heard the firing came down directly from President Trauth. #TXST https://t.co/8pt748RcsW — Keff Ciardello (@Keff_C) November 18, 2018

Add that to an already traumatized fanbase that’s been gaslighted by the constant stream of excuses, goalpost moving, fanbase bashing, and beyond out of touch behavior belched out by Teis and Trauth’s administration over the course of 15 years, and you have a common prevailing belief that this move was done entirely to distract from the #FireTeis movement by dangling a relatively unpopular Withers as a sacrificial lamb.

That would be considered an outlandish conspiracy theory at most schools, but, again, Texas State isn’t most schools.

It's better than my current favorite: pic.twitter.com/hlWYBQhhL3 — Flint (@TheRevSWT) November 19, 2018

Another problem with how this has been handled is the timing. Some people may think it’s not important and that if Texas State wants to be proactive, they should make the move as soon as possible. While it is nice that the school chose to not just sit back and let everything happen to it as it usually does, they’ve still handled this situation as poorly as possible, and yes, that matters for several reasons.

It was incredibly odd timing. Only positive is jumping into coaching search early but everything else about it is off. https://t.co/n1gMmH0mIK — Keff Ciardello (@Keff_C) November 18, 2018

First, there are only two ways to interpret the school letting the announcement go public right after the conclusion of the Sun Belt volleyball tournament: It was either a deliberate, calculated act to use the volleyball team as pawns, or Trauth/Teis didn’t think (or care) about the optics. It’s hard to say which is worse.

Stealing the volleyball team’s shine is utterly disrespectful to the players and head coach Karen Chisum. They deserved a full day in the sun being celebrated by Bobcat fans and alumni desperate for something—anything—to cheer. Instead, their success was immediately overshadowed.

If you’re a non-football athlete or coach, exactly how much school spirit are you gonna be feeling inside if your administration shows they’re willing to throw you on top of a football coach firing grenade immediately following a conference title during your best season in school history?

Oh, and if you think it’s just the non-football athletes that should sleep with one eye open when it comes to how their administration treats them, don’t worry: the football players got screwed over too.

Just got word that many #TXST football players found out…..over Twitter about the firing/resignation of HC Withers. — Andrew Zimmel (@Andrew_Zimmel) November 18, 2018

As a sidenote, given that the few Teis defenders left made a stink about my series critical of his accomplishments in revenue sports supposedly not adequately accounting for him running an entire athletic “DEPARTMENT,” how hypocritical is it for Teis and his people to turn around and treat one of our most consistently successful programs like they’re second rate?

@barrick4heisman this was surprisingly easy to find. Blacked out her name just so I don’t get accused of harassment or anything pic.twitter.com/g2WdI8fQ9k — Señor Bailey (@TravelingLawMan) October 12, 2018

But really, fellow Texas State diehards, are we surprised by this? Let’s just admit what we all believe deep down: it’d be just like this administration to believe that they could sneak in the announcement of the firing of a football coach at a Texas FBS school right after one of their best programs wins a conference title and not have it instantly become the main story.

There really are no good excuses for even the most hardcore Teis apologists here. Withers was let go either as soon as the Troy game finished on Saturday or during the following morning.

Firing happened this morning but news didn’t break until this afternoon, during the #SunBelt championship in which #TXST won. https://t.co/URm9IAKd2z — Keff Ciardello (@Keff_C) November 18, 2018

That means the official announcement didn’t come out until anywhere from 6-18 hours after the decision was made. Although you can castigate Larry Teis and his athletic department for many, many mistakes and misdeeds, untimely leaks have rarely been one of them.

If they’d really wanted to, they could’ve waited to fire Withers until Monday. Yes, they would’ve gotten all sorts of coverage and chatter by inserting the story into the Monday news cycle. But why would that be something to fear? There was plenty of Sunday chatter about how the Texas State job could be a sneaky good one with all the untapped resources it has at its disposal.

Charlotte and Texas State are two jobs people feel have a ton of potential. — Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) November 18, 2018

Releasing the news of Withers’ firing on Monday would’ve only amplified that effect. A proactive, confident athletic director (such as the one 45 minutes north of San Marcos) would’ve taken the opportunity to trumpet to the media how one of the G5’s best potential jobs came open and that this move shows that Texas State is getting serious about football.

Texas State is a low-key terrific job. Not hard to sell recruits on San Marcos. Just needs the right coach. — Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) November 18, 2018

I thought Withers might get another year. The right hire at Texas State is scary for the rest of the Sun Belt. https://t.co/IuEfTjyS4v — Adam Hunsucker (@Adam_Hunsucker) November 18, 2018

Instead, I think we all know that if Teis even agrees to a public interview, he’ll instead spend it on the defensive and making up red herring and strawman arguments to avoid answering any tough questions and paint all his critics with a broad brush that makes them look as dumb as possible in one fell swoop.

See his most recent triumph of excuse-making and responsibility deflection in his October 10th KTSW interview as an example. Teis is nothing if not consistent.

As a result of their incompetence, President Trauth and Teis have severely damaged their chance to create a positive narrative about the job opening and in the process re-energized a #FireTeis movement that had been losing some steam.

To provide some opinion: If #TXST thought this would quell the movement seeking to fire AD Larry Teis then it has miscalculated. — Nick Castillo (@Nick_Castillo74) November 18, 2018

As Teis has accurately yet clumsily railed about in the past, prospective coaches and recruits do monitor social media for fan sentiment. So why create a distraction of your own making?

At this point, the trifecta of falling donations, angry social media sentiment, and a gatdamn airplane banner flying over your 1/10th full stadium must make it abundantly clear that athletics leadership has completely lost credibility with the fans and that their previous condescending attitude of “shut up and trust us (and keep giving us your money), morons” is no longer viable.

But this is Texas State Athletics, where the definition of insanity is standard operating procedure.

If you’re a prospective head coach and a fanbase at war with its administration is the first thing you see, not to mention their firing of Withers three years after they embarrassingly slobbered over him at his introductory press conference, why would you even stick around to find out that your assistant coaching salary pool is going to consist of some HEB gift cards and a 1989 Ford Pinto for the entire staff to cram into, clown car style?

We intrigued a lot of folks last time… until they saw the HC salary and assist pool $. https://t.co/CCxcDfwbmk — Jim Bob Breazeale (@jbbreazeale) November 18, 2018

This is an even BIGGER story. Texas State has done a poor job paying Coaches. So much so that I've heard confirmed reports that assistants turn down jobs in SM based just on pay. https://t.co/SQxLaCGWtN — Andrew Zimmel (@Andrew_Zimmel) November 18, 2018

Oh wait, I know why.

Texas State fires football coach Everett Withers. He will be owed a buyout of about $800,000 (50% of remaining pay due through Jan. 5, 2021). Withers' contract says he has no duty to mitigate by finding another job, and there will be no offset of the buyout if he does. — Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) November 18, 2018

Jumpin’ Jim Wacker, Drs. Trauth and Teis. Did either of you think to put your six combined degrees together and realize it might be a good idea to consult with a contract lawyer before drawing this gem up? Or did you just give our SID a fancy briefcase and dub him Rick Poulter, esquire?

By comparison, Teis’s buyout would’ve been one year of salary, or $329,000. For a university that constantly cries poverty to prospective coaches, this level of hypocrisy is so incredible that it would make a politician shed tears of admiration.

Incredibly, despite the ongoing university-wide public relations dumpster fire that Texas State has become since 2015, there’s still time for President Trauth to make this right. But there is only one route left for her to salvage her athletics legacy: find an athletic director that Texas State fans can rally behind before Teis is allowed to screw up yet another football hire.

.@swcroundup describes my current stance perfectly. pic.twitter.com/Q4jZ0pcjRK — assistant to the regional assistant antifa manager (@barrick4heisman) November 18, 2018

But given her almost servile annual performance reviews of Teis, does anyone really believe that’s going to happen? I sure as hell wouldn’t count on it.

Get it together, Texas State, or the only fan left in Bobcat Stadium will be Tom Madden. And Tom’s too good of a fan to sit there without someone to share a drink with.