PiPress: Mason finally will see the on-campus stadium he lobbied so hard for

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From the article:

Mason recalls telling university officials repeatedly when he was the Gophers' coach that playing at the Metrodome was a big disadvantage. He was fired after a loss to Texas Tech in the Insight Bowl in 2006. Brewster led the Gophers into TCF Bank Stadium in 2009.

"But I'm sure glad that it became a realization," he said. "I've heard great things about it. I haven't been there. I wish I could have experienced using that as a recruiting tool and have the opportunity to coach there, but that was out of my control."

http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_18897525?nclick_check=1

Go Gophers!!
 

BFF Barreiro and Mase tweeted each other this weekend.....Barreiro during the Charger-Viking game: "Somebody needs to tell Chargers, if they wanna get some, they gotta bring some." Mase responds with "too busy getting their chili hot".
 

I was waiting for Barreiro to bring Brewster on as a regular guest like he does Mason after he was fired...funny, he wanted nothing to do with Mase before he was fired.
 

"But I'm sure glad that it became a realization," he said. "I've heard great things about it. I haven't been there. I wish I could have experienced using that as a recruiting tool and have the opportunity to coach there, but that was out of my control."

32-48 over ten years, but it was out of your control. This defines the Mason Error for me.
 

The Kessel, 19 November 1942 - 31 January 1943

soneillumn said:
I was waiting for Barreiro to bring Brewster on as a regular guest like he does Mason after he was fired...funny, he wanted nothing to do with Mase before he was fired.
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soneillumn,

1. Maybe because Barreiro is a Hoosier. Hoosiers by their very nature are sensitive to the repeated beatings they have received over the decades by Buckeyes, and of course Glen is a Wayne Woodrow Hayes trained Buckeye and alum.

2. In the annals of sports history, Joel Maturi's stewardship and concommitant epic collapse of University of Minnesota revenue sports reminds me of the fate of the German Sixth Army under Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus. It matters little whose decision it was to get rid of Glen or to prematurely attack Stalingrad. Making a bad decision even worse, was Paulus' fear of disobeying Hitler's idiotic orders and break out of the Kessel as GeneralfeldMarschall Erich von Manstein had begged Paulus to do. If Robert Bruininks and / or the Regents had ordered Joel to fire Glen, then Joel should have had the cajones to refuse the order and should have tendered his own resignation in defiance. Of 250,000 soldiers in the German 6th Army, only 91,000 soldiers were left to be taken prisoner by the Red Army on 31 January 1943. Of these only about 6,000 ever returned home. The rest perished on their way to or at POW camps in Siberia. Paulus became Stalin's puppet in the postwar German Democratic Republic. Whose interest has Joel been representing? Interestingly enough, Paulus didn't have the conviction to stand up to Hitler. Yet he survived WW II and lived until 1957. On the other hand Herr Generalfeldmarschall von Manstein did have the cajones to stand up to Hitler, and he also survived WW II. von Manstein was nobody's puppet. He lived until 1973 and was buried with full military honors by the Federal Republic of Germany. University of Minnesota revenue sports needs strong leadership to break out of "The Kessel."

3. This post inspired by LCDR Wayne Woodrow Hayes, USN, a WW II veteran whom I had the distinct honor and pleasure of meeting at the Defense Construction Supply Center, Columbus, Ohio officer's club around 1979 or 1980. Woody was extremely learned in military history, and lectured us about leadership and military history on that occasion. I have the greatest admiration and respect for this Navy veteran. He truly understood what leadership is all about.
 


Does leadership include tearing up a down marker when a call doesn't go your way or clothes-lining an opposing player?
 

6 Nov 1999 said:
2. In the annals of sports history, Joel Maturi's stewardship and concommitant epic collapse of University of Minnesota revenue sports reminds me of the fate of the German Sixth Army under Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus. It matters little whose decision it was to get rid of Glen or to prematurely attack Stalingrad. Making a bad decision even worse, was Paulus' fear of disobeying Hitler's idiotic orders and break out of the Kessel as GeneralfeldMarschall Erich von Manstein had begged Paulus to do. If Robert Bruininks and / or the Regents had ordered Joel to fire Glen, then Joel should have had the cajones to refuse the order and should have tendered his own resignation in defiance. Of 250,000 soldiers in the German 6th Army, only 91,000 soldiers were left to be taken prisoner by the Red Army on 31 January 1943. Of these only about 6,000 ever returned home. The rest perished on their way to or at POW camps in Siberia. Paulus became Stalin's puppet in the postwar German Democratic Republic. Whose interest has Joel been representing? Interestingly enough, Paulus didn't have the conviction to stand up to Hitler. Yet he survived WW II and lived until 1957. On the other hand Herr Generalfeldmarschall von Manstein did have the cajones to stand up to Hitler, and he also survived WW II. von Manstein was nobody's puppet. He lived until 1973 and was buried with full military honors by the Federal Republic of Germany. University of Minnesota revenue sports needs strong leadership to break out of "The Kessel."

3. This post inspired by LCDR Wayne Woodrow Hayes, USN, a WW II veteran whom I had the distinct honor and pleasure of meeting at the Defense Construction Supply Center, Columbus, Ohio officer's club around 1979 or 1980. Woody was extremely learned in military history, and lectured us about leadership and military history on that occasion. I have the greatest admiration and respect for this Navy veteran. He truly understood what leadership is all about.
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I've been trying to tell everyone this for years!
 

Let me predict that the next coach to break the record for the biggest collapse in bowl game history will get fired. It may be a while though.
 




So you are telling me that he has never seen the stadium, even though he was a huge part of the football program that now occupies it and he has lived in town ever since it opened? I dont buy it. He may not have gone inside yet, but he sure as hell has driven buy and seen it.
 

What a big friggin' crybaby! I agree with EG#9.

I'm appreciative of everything Mason did to get the stadium built, but if he still can't figure out why he was fired, he needs to buy a clue. He's never ever going to 'fess up to his own shortcomings.
 

50PoundHead said:
What a big friggin' crybaby! I agree with EG#9.

I'm appreciative of everything Mason did to get the stadium built, but if he still can't figure out why he was fired, he needs to buy a clue. He's never ever going to 'fess up to his own shortcomings.
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He was fired because he was working for an incompetent AD in Maturi who didn't have a clue about anything. It's that simple. No way did he deserve to be fired. And looking back now it's even more obvious.
 

And another thread bites the dust as DMB123 digs in to defend his inflexible love of all things Mason against all comers.
 



GoAUpher said:
And another thread bites the dust as DMB123 digs in to defend his inflexible love of all things Mason against all comers.
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??? This thread is about Mason genius. Excuse me for liking the most successful coach we've had at the U in forty years. How dare I.
 

I wasn't among the people calling for Mason to be fired. But after that bowl game collapse, it was almost impossible not to fire him. There was already growing dissatisfaction with Mason even before the bowl game. It wasn't as if Maturi fired Mason despite overwhelming support of Mason from the fans and boosters. Hiring Brewster was a mistake, or at best a big gamble that didn't pay off, but that doesn't necessarily mean that firing Mason was a mistake. We could have hired some other coach.
 

Pretty sure he's on with Barriero today so I may have to actually listen to his show.
 

I tend to agree with DMB123...I remember the Wacker years vividly and really appreciated the job Mason did...did we stall after the 10-3 season of 03'...probably....but I refuse to buy in that he was a horrible coach...he did what no one in 40 years has been able to do...did he make some mistakes along the way, especially his final season, sure...but I do not agree with his firing and never will...my opinion...gets frustrating to see anyone who defends him get blasted...you are entitled to your opinion...but just because we choose to like the guy doesn't make us fools or bad people...believe me, the Michigan game killed me too...we are in the Rose Bowl without that meltdown...the final game against Iowa is a stinger too...but I also remember how a nine-win team got screwed out of a better bowl and sent to the Sun Bowl which we won over a decent Oregon team...I will also remember wins over Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and others...I would gladly take those now.
 

Most positive thing I took from the article was that Limegrover seems to enjoy picking the brain of old OL coach Gordy Shaw. That is the direction this offense needs to take.

Letting him go was Brew's oft-forgotten first colossal mistake.
 

IronRanger91 said:
I tend to agree with DMB123...I remember the Wacker years vividly and really appreciated the job Mason did...did we stall after the 10-3 season of 03'...probably....but I refuse to buy in that he was a horrible coach...he did what no one in 40 years has been able to do...did he make some mistakes along the way, especially his final season, sure...but I do not agree with his firing and never will...my opinion...gets frustrating to see anyone who defends him get blasted...you are entitled to your opinion...but just because we choose to like the guy doesn't make us fools or bad people...believe me, the Michigan game killed me too...we are in the Rose Bowl without that meltdown...the final game against Iowa is a stinger too...but I also remember how a nine-win team got screwed out of a better bowl and sent to the Sun Bowl which we won over a decent Oregon team...I will also remember wins over Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and others...I would gladly take those now.
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Cal Stoll outperformed him. Stoll was 27-29 in the Big Ten. The difference was that Stoll's Gophers played brutal non-conference schedules.
 

RodentRampage said:
Cal Stoll outperformed him. Stoll was 27-29 in the Big Ten. The difference was that Stoll's Gophers played brutal non-conference schedules.
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Yes, but the Big 10 outside of MI and OSU were not what they were when Mason was there. Hard to compare such different eras. Not trying to take anything away from Stoll, but I don't think the B1G record tells the whole story in this case...

To several others above - OBVIOUSLY Glen Mason has seen the outside of the stadium (he still lives in the Cities). But he had thus far refused to go inside - it was too emotional for him.
 

I have rarely (if ever) seen a single comment on any of these boards saying that Mason was a bad coach. To the contrary, most will agree that he could turn chicken sh*t into chicken salad like few others could.

The best way to sum him up was that he was lazy. Just plain lazy, especially by the standards of a Division I football coach. He worked hard at first, up until about '03 or '04, but at some point decided that it wasn't worth it to try to make Minnesota better, and also decided that no one could make it happen. That's why he is worthy of disdainful comments from Gophers fans. After a certain point, he just didn't care.

When you're trying to turn a poor-to-mediocre team into a consistently competitive one, in any sport, at any level, about the last thing you can afford to be is lazy. When you're Steve Spurrier at Florida, you can get away with it. You can't when you're Glen Mason at Minnesota. Despite what some may think, I think even now that Mason could be successful at Ohio St., because the thing that takes the most work and diligence (recruiting) is basically taken care of for you there. Spurrier is now learning the lesson at South Carolina that you can't get away with being lazy when you're at a school that doesn't recruit itself.
 

0.482 winning percentage and an average of 3.86 wins per season versus 0.400 and an average of 3.2 wins per season does tell the story. It's the non-conference schedule that puffs things up. If you want to say that Mason was the best we have had since Stoll, I'll have no problem with that.

I think Mason could have easily gotten a job as a HC of a non-BCS team if he had wanted it, and may very well have been able to work his way back to the BCS level if he really wanted to.
 

IronRanger91 said:
I tend to agree with DMB123...I remember the Wacker years vividly and really appreciated the job Mason did...did we stall after the 10-3 season of 03'...probably....but I refuse to buy in that he was a horrible coach...he did what no one in 40 years has been able to do...did he make some mistakes along the way, especially his final season, sure...but I do not agree with his firing and never will...my opinion...gets frustrating to see anyone who defends him get blasted...you are entitled to your opinion...but just because we choose to like the guy doesn't make us fools or bad people...believe me, the Michigan game killed me too...we are in the Rose Bowl without that meltdown...the final game against Iowa is a stinger too...but I also remember how a nine-win team got screwed out of a better bowl and sent to the Sun Bowl which we won over a decent Oregon team...I will also remember wins over Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and others...I would gladly take those now.
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If you defend Tim Brewster on this board most will agree with you, if you defend Glen Mason on this board you will get ripped badly. I've never understood it at all. It's like that Seinfeld episode with the bizarro world, everything is backwards.
 

DMB123 said:
If you defend Tim Brewster on this board most will agree with you, if you defend Glen Mason on this board you will get ripped badly. I've never understood it at all. It's like that Seinfeld episode with the bizarro world, everything is backwards.
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If you defend Brewster's coaching, no one is going to agree with you.
 

GoAUpher said:
And another thread bites the dust as DMB123 digs in to defend his inflexible love of all things Mason against all comers.
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Last 52 games of Mason's tenure: 31-21, 2-2 in Bowls

First 52 games after Mason: 17-35, 0-2 in Bowls.

That said, it is well past time to move on.
 

howeda7 said:
Last 52 games of Mason's tenure: 31-21, 2-2 in Bowls

First 52 games after Mason: 17-35, 0-2 in Bowls.

That said, it is well past time to move on.
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That's nice, so we know the next coach sucked tremendously. That doesn't mean Mason didn't need to go. The program was declining, and like dp said, I felt like Mason didn't see this program as capable of anything special at all, he was okay with being middling, it didn't seem to bother him at all. Even if the best we could ever hope for is a Sun Bowl appearance, I'd like my coach to at least believe we could do better and work his hardest to try to make it happen. I don't feel like Mason did that.

All that said, I think Mason was a good coach. I just think the act wore thin and it was his time to move on. We botched up the next hire, unfortunately, so yes, we are set back, but hopefully Kill can get the train back on the tracks and we can move forward.
 

Firing Mason at a horrible time and then making a terrible hire doesn't mean Mason didn't deserve to be fired in the first place. That's the straw man that so many toss out. Should they have fired him after the bowl game? No. Did he deserve to be fired before that following the regular season? IMO yes. Did he do great things for MN? Yes, but that didn't give him a lifetime get out of jail free card.
 

Mason was only as successful as his Coordinators, especially on the Defensive side of the ball.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I have rarely (if ever) seen a single comment on any of these boards saying that Mason was a bad coach. To the contrary, most will agree that he could turn chicken sh*t into chicken salad like few others could.

The best way to sum him up was that he was lazy. Just plain lazy, especially by the standards of a Division I football coach. He worked hard at first, up until about '03 or '04, but at some point decided that it wasn't worth it to try to make Minnesota better, and also decided that no one could make it happen. That's why he is worthy of disdainful comments from Gophers fans. After a certain point, he just didn't care.

When you're trying to turn a poor-to-mediocre team into a consistently competitive one, in any sport, at any level, about the last thing you can afford to be is lazy. When you're Steve Spurrier at Florida, you can get away with it. You can't when you're Glen Mason at Minnesota. Despite what some may think, I think even now that Mason could be successful at Ohio St., because the thing that takes the most work and diligence (recruiting) is basically taken care of for you there. Spurrier is now learning the lesson at South Carolina that you can't get away with being lazy when you're at a school that doesn't recruit itself.
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+ 1,000,000 My nomination for Post of the Year.

Take one look at the depth chart a couple of years after Mason left; the senior classes in Brew's third and fourth year. The brunt of your team should be juniors and seniors and those groups had ZILCH, NADA, ZIPPO, NOTHING in the way of large numbers of impact upper classmen.

That alone should embarass Mason like nothing else he's ever done.
 

I can understand the argument that he wasn't having much success with recruiting. But I'm not sure that we can make the logical leap needed in order to say he had become "lazy". While he was bringing in some of the worst recruiting classes in the Big Ten he was busy lobbying all over hell for a new stadium. He knew he needed the stadium to get the prgram to the next level.

What's significant about the 2006 Insight Bowl is not that Minnesota blew a lead. What's significant is that Minnesota was playing in the Insight Bowl . If it were not for the unexplicable complacency (or outright mocking) of our media and its tepid fan base, Minnesota should have been playing Texas in the Alamo Bowl. As it were, Minnesota was in a bowl game that supposedly no one cared about. That's not on Mason.

I think he began to understand that Wisconsin and Iowa were having greater success because they chose to be more successful, while Minnesota continued to be complacent every time hope shimmered. TCF was the only thing that could begin to level that playing-field.
 

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