I don't know if Dunbar will be back next year and I don't think it would break too many hearts to see him go.
My final coaching grades will come out in a few days, and I think Tim Brewster still did a decent job when all is said and done. He gets extremely high grades for motivation and or course recruiting, but one thing I think he needs to improve on is adjustments with the offensive schemes. Any good coach will find what works the best and work with that system to improve the team and things that aren't working will either get scrapped or worked on. Your schemes need to be tweaked if they aren't working and too often I saw the Gopher staff trying to jam a square peg in a round hole, especially on offense.
Our blocking schemes were pathetic and it wasn't just the linemen. The receivers were horrible. Rather than trying to keep running plays that weren't working, the staff should have been working on finding something that worked. This offensive line was smaller than most, but they were fairly quick. Fine, then you need to use that to your advantage, NOT disadvantage. Yo don't say, "Well we want to run this new scheme and man in 5 years it's going to work" because your staff won't last that long if it doesn't. Rather, I think the staff needs to evaluate what will work and adapt their plans to it. I know this offense is dreadfully short on playmakers, but no way are they 55 points worse than Iowa at the beginning of the season. The thing is -- Iowa improved.......did we??
If I had a chance to talk to Tim Brewster, I would ask him, "Why do we need to drastically change our blocking schemes when they worked so well before? Your new blocking schemes don't work at all." I have heard Tim Brewster say he wants to run the spread because he wants to recruit the best athletes in the country, but I don't think Maroney and Barber were necessarily that bad and I will take Mason's WORST offense after the first year than the one we have seen over the last 2 years.
I would also suggest finding what worked in Mason's offense and utilizing it here. He used a one back offense with 3 receivers which isn't drastically different from the spread. Maybe there is a combination that would make everyone happy, but right now, that offense doesn't make ANYONE happy.
In closing, even though we gave up 55 points to Iowa, I would give Brewster and staff high marks for the work they have done with the defense. I look for continued improvement, but Brewster really needs to go back to the drawing board with this offense because it is a mess.