The state tracking problem for a class of model reference adaptive control (MRAC) systems in the presence of controller temporary failures is studied. Due to the controller temporary failure, the considered system is viewed as an error switched system. The properties of Lyapunov function candidates without switching are described. Then the notion of global practical stability of switched systems is presented, and sufficient conditions for global practical stability of the error system under the restrictions of controller failure frequency and unavailability rate are provided. An example is presented to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.