Already an iconic coaching figure in college football, Mack Brown will continue to be so at Texas at least until 2020.

Brown, who is going into his 15th season as the head coach of the Texas Longhorns, inked a four-year contract extension that looks to keep him in Austin for the long-term and send a message of stability as the program continues its rebuilding process.

The University of Texas regents unanimously approved the extension that will keep Brown’s salary at $5.2 million per year with $100,000 raises stipulated in his previous contract.

In 14 seasons with the Longhorns, Brown is 141-39 with just a single losing season in 2010 when his team went 5-7, prompting an overhaul of the program that included six new assistant coaches.

Credit Given Where Due

Brown has taken a ton of heat over the course of the past two seasons, and deservedly so. After a string of 12 seasons with at least nine wins, and nine straight campaigns with at least 10 wins, Texas became synonymous with that high standard. The Horns’ 13-12 record over the 2010 and 2011 seasons simply did not cut it.

But before anyone gets carried away, how about a dash of perspective to what Brown has cooked up during his tenure on the Forty Acres?

Before Brown arrived for the 1998 season, the Texas program needed a fair share of dusting and polishing after the likes of David McWilliams and John Mackovic came through the head coach’s office. The Longhorns had not been national champions in nearly 30 years, and they were primed for a breath of fresh air.

So what does Brown do (for you)?

He comes in, goes 9-3 in his debut season with a 38-11 trouncing of Mississippi State at the Cotton Bowl. And within a decade, Brown’s Longhorns appeared in two National Championship Games—many will argue it should have been three—and claimed Texas’ first national title in 35 years.

For the better part of 90 per cent of his time at Texas, Brown has made excellence a standard and has transformed the program into a national brand that is a black hole for recruiting in the Lone Star State.

The Big Picture

So 13-12 over two years does not exactly sit well with the Texas faithful. But following a gut-wrenching loss in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game against Alabama, the Longhorns—both players and coaches—fell into a rut of semi-complacency. What had been working in years before simply is not working now. And instead of Brown riding off into the sunset with the program in shambles, the former Tar Heels head coach started cooking up something completely new.

In Brown’s coaching overhaul, he found a bevy of the youngest and brightest minds in the sport to inject new blood into a Texas program that had essentially become the beaten path. With guys like Bryan Harsin, Major Applewhite and Manny Diaz, the new, ambitious coaches are manufacturing a completely new road to success that is on the brink of some major breakthroughs.

The barely over-.500 record may not indicate it, but Brown’s 2011 recruiting class backed up by an excellent 2012 class has the wheels turning in the right direction that looks to bring the Longhorns back to prominence. Brown’s brick-by-brick mantra in which he has enveloped his program is not in the business of building a small, two-room house. Rather he is going for a bustling mansion that once again will have the spotlight of the entire country.

It is not a one-year fix, a two-year fix, or maybe even a three-year fix. It is a process that requires plenty of bricks, mortar and—most importantly—time. Brown and his staff bought in first. Then, the players bought in. Now, the UT regents have bought in. It is time for the fans to buy in.