IF we finish with only 6 wins....

[Some guy]

More than a snobbish attitude towards sports, it's likely that the lower emphasis on football may well have been for financial reasons. They simply had more pressing needs on campus than to improve facilities and recruiting.

The gophers didn’t have a bad football team every year from 1961-1980

That’s kind of revisionism

From 61-81 the gophers had a .500 or better record in the conference 12 times
From 81-01 3 times

The problems may have started in the 1960s but the issues were not irreversible until the late 70s or early 80s.
The hole to dig out of went from medium to huge when they hired wacker.

Wacker is an inexplicable hire.
I know TCU wasn’t in the best position to win. But they were awful under wacker.
The hire may have been explainable if they hired him as holtz replacement. But by the time the gophers hired him he was a known failure at the D1A level.

 

[disco]

The gophers didn’t have a bad football team every year from 1961-1980

That’s kind of revisionism

From 61-81 the gophers had a .500 or better record in the conference 12 times
From 81-01 3 times

The problems may have started in the 1960s but the issues were not irreversible until the late 70s or early 80s.
The hole to dig out of went from medium to huge when they hired wacker.

Wacker is an inexplicable hire.
I know TCU wasn’t in the best position to win. But they were awful under wacker.
The hire may have been explainable if they hired him as holtz replacement. But by the time the gophers hired him he was a known failure at the D1A level.

I can understand why they hired Wacker.
He was successful everywhere he'd been except TCU.
He was squeaky clean, coming off Holtz' recruiting violations a few years earlier, and the U generally being extremely risk averse.

 

[Some guy]

I can understand why they hired Wacker.
He was successful everywhere he'd been except TCU.
He was squeaky clean, coming off Holtz' recruiting violations a few years earlier, and the U generally being extremely risk averse.

I understand why they hired him too. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was a terrible hire and was easy to see it was a terrible hire based on the fact he was a big time losing coach at the D1 level.


If St John’s coach went to UCF and went 40-65 would he be “successful everywhere except?”

He was successful everywhere except the most comparable situation

 

[disco]

I understand why they hired him too. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was a terrible hire and was easy to see it was a terrible hire based on the fact he was a big time losing coach at the D1 level.


If St John’s coach went to UCF and went 40-65 would he be “successful everywhere except?”

He was successful everywhere except the most comparable situation

He was ranked 12th 8-4 and won national coach of the year in 1984. The next year he kicked the slush fund players off, and self reported the violations which crushed the team with probation for the next three years. Now we can debate whether he should have done that or was he just too honest a guy to coach in that era, but that was a big part of why his record at TCU was so bad.

 

[Some guy]

He was ranked 12th 8-4 and won national coach of the year in 1984. The next year he kicked the slush fund players off, and self reported the violations which crushed the team with probation for the next three years. Now we can debate whether he should have done that or was he just too honest a guy to coach in that era, but that was a big part of why his record at TCU was so bad.

He for sure should’ve done that. That doesn’t mean he merited getting a job.

Being a good guy that lost games because of it doesn’t mean you should get a big ten job. Even if you won a division 2 title.


He did have one season with a winning overall record after the situation you just described. He beat texas tech for his best win and ball state for his second best win.

 

[Clairemont Gopher]

That's kind of implying that the higher ups at the U got together in a room and said "nobody will notice if we have a crappy football team now because the Twins and Vikings are here." (rubs hands and lets out an evil laugh.) That's a little tinfoil hat-like.

I do not think Malcolm Moos had one thought about the NFL coming to Minnesota. His sole desire/ambition was to take steps toward making the U into a truly elite public institution. Slashing the athletic budget was one of those steps.