15 years ago today, Tim Brewster was fired.

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Schnauzer said:
Claeys was not an interim when he was fired.
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I was pretty young and could be totally wrong, but I recall that being a weird situation where the interim tag was removed but most people still viewed him as a short term replacement which is why I considered him to basically be an interim firing.
 

Governor Sibley said:
Was it after the Purdue game? I recall watching him on the sidelines as the realization set in.

He took his firing like a man. I respected him for that.
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Yes he has been much classier about his departure from the U than the guy who succeeded him (or I should say succeeded Jeff Horton).
 






Jerry Kill was a petty man. Parking spot and screaming at chief of u police Charlie.
 





Him being a Big Ten head coach really should never have happened considering his career up until that point. I never really faulted him, though, for mainly speaking up the program and the potential of what could be.

I know many have since referred to him as a snake oil salesman for the bill of goods he was putting forth. However, I've said it before, a positive vision of the future based on his ability to recruit and the excitement around the new stadium was really all he could bring to the table. In contrast, the other three main head coaches in recent history all had resumes they could refer to.

Since 1980, Kansas football has had four seasons ranked in the top 25, Glen Mason was responsible for two of those, building up that program. Jerry Kill brought with him 15 years of experience turning around every program that he ever coached at and making them conference contenders.

PJ Fleck methodically built up Western Michigan in a four-year span, winning a conference title for the first time since the 80s and getting the program its first ranked finish ever. He had to face adversity to get there, too, with that 1-11 season.

Tim Brewster had no head coaching experience, he had no experience as an offensive or defensive coordinator and he hadn't even coached in the college space in six years. He didn't have the advantage of pointing to previous results and say, 'trust the process.'

I respect him for not taking any shots or holding negativity toward Minnesota since he was let go. I remember after Gary Tinsley passed he returned to Minnesota to be there for other players in that class. He also showed a lot of support while here, like to Jon Hoese after his father passed.

His work since shows he does have some place in college football, it just shouldn't have been at the head coach spot. Looking on the field, I was honestly surprised he wasn't let go after the non-conference schedule.

South Dakota's passing attack shredded us and Northern Illinois looked like the Big Ten team on the field that night just bulldozing the defense.
 

Brewster could not keep coordinators from year to year to stay. That was the downfall of his program, the constant change on the field. Trying to go to a apread offense his first year without the recruited talent for it was a mess. Instead of installing that right away and then abandoning the philosophy that was in place, made it difficult and hard to build the foundation of the program. If he wanted to run spread or RPO he should have waited until his recruits were in place to do that in year 3 or 4. It was jamming a square peg in to a round hole. He could recruit, but he needed strong coordinators to have success. He could have been successful if he was able to keep coordinators and snatched a few more recruiting wins. It's in the past and he never trashed the U or the program.
 



Brewster still generates a lot of bad taste in certain Gopher supporters - wore a Brewster Gophers T-shirt to a poker game of my tailgate buddies last year - was almost thrown out of the house...... Only let me play if I promised to burn it
 




#2Gopher said:
Not only did he go out professionally, he has never trashed the program as far as I know after he left.
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Brew actually praised the program, plus continued to support the players after he left. That's even though he had what I'd call some significant issues he could have complained about on how he was treated at the U. When it came to football, Maturi IMO was a terrible AD. He basically threw Brew under the bus. Maturi didn't give him the financial support needed (thus the revolving door of assistant coaches) and wouldn't even support Brew during the season. Maturi had this continual line when asked about Brewster of "I'm not going to lie to you about his status and I'm not talk about it during the season" - and Maturi did that every season. I've never seen an AD give less support to a coach. Then you get the MN media piling on, and it was a huge uphill battle for Brew. And, as others have stated, he took the high road when he left. I've gotta admire him for that.
 

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