A fine line

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Ogie Ogilthorpe

Ogie Ogilthorpe

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This board cracks me up, literally makes me laugh out loud sometimes with the football "acumen" being spouted on a daily basis, particularly after a loss. Coaching staff sucks, players suck, AD sucks, President sucks, University sucks, et al...

There is an INCREDIBLY fine line between winning and losing. The Gophers are a handful of plays away from being a LOWLY 2-8; at the same time they are two plays away from being 7-3 and a very real possibility of finishing 9-3.

My biggest frustration with this week's loss is with Fisch/Weber; heaving the ball downfield all first half for the home run ball was just plain poor. I'm sure some of this is on Fisch for the plays being called and some of it on Weber and his reads for just plain wanting to connect for an easy gain. For two weeks in a row, the Gophers have moved the ball extremely well, almost at will, by running the ball combined with the shorter passing game/crossing routes.

When you carry 85 (or whatever it is) scholarship players, it takes more than a year or two to put your stamp on a program. It's not like basketball where 2-4 blue chippers can raise a program from the ashes overnight.

I don't think there is any question that Brewster is assembling more talent then the Rodents have had in quite a long time. If the Gophers are still stumbling around, winning 6-7 games a year when Brewster's first two full recruiting classes are juniors and seniors and he's had the same coordinators for a few years, it's time to move in a different direction. Game over.

The thing is, the people around the program and university who have any real clue what's going on know that Brewster is going to be here until at least the end of the 2011 season. Nobody says you have to like it, but you better get used to it.
 




Brewster could convince Satan to join Christianity........
 


Great post Ogee. Pretty much my thoughts completely.
 

This post has renewed my affection for Brewster. Your argument, which is aboslutely different from the hundreds of other threads on this same arguement, has convinced me that Brewster is an inmortal epic hero that we should follow blindly and never question! Thanks for opening my eyes up to this new world you supporters call oblivion! Now, I will go try to find reasons to say this season was a success even though our record is a mere 6-6 in one of the worst leagues in college football!
 

thestl said:
This post has renewed my affection for Brewster. Your argument, which is aboslutely different from the hundreds of other threads on this same arguement, has convinced me that Brewster is an inmortal epic hero that we should follow blindly and never question! Thanks for opening my eyes up to this new world you supporters call oblivion! Now, I will go try to find reasons to say this season was a success even though our record is a mere 6-6 in one of the worst leagues in college football!
Click to expand...

THUMBS UP!!! :clap::clap:
 

Ummm....

Look, I'm not saying Brewster's "The Man", far from it. I'm saying he's upgraded the talent on the roster and the jury's still out on whether or not he's the best fit for this program.

I just laugh at message board, ".edu guy", sitting in his basement or his dorm room or his cubicle who thinks he knows more about football than guys who have spent their entire adult life around the game. Good grief, Maturi's only the AD but I'd venture to say he knows more about football than 99% of the clowns on most message boards.

But if this board gives you a place to vent all your frustrations while at the same time providing you with a forum to argue that your football IQ is superior to that of the rest of the unwashed masses, have at it.
 



ALMOST!!

thestl said:
This post has renewed my affection for Brewster. Your argument, which is aboslutely different from the hundreds of other threads on this same arguement, has convinced me that Brewster is an inmortal epic hero that we should follow blindly and never question! Thanks for opening my eyes up to this new world you supporters call oblivion! Now, I will go try to find reasons to say this season was a success even though our record is a mere 6-6 in one of the worst leagues in college football!
Click to expand...

You know, for a few seconds, I almost thought you got the jist of my post (ummmm, the irony of the repititive negative/positive posts) but then I realized you didn't quite grab on to it.

I guess what you're saying is that the hundreds of posts saying the head coach is a complete idiot and failure is not only okay but welcomed, but the hundreds saying give it time are completely unfounded, idiotic, and should just be deleted. You know, now that I really think about it, you've made me see the light!! Consider myself educated, and converted!!
 

Other than maybe Holtz, which Gopher coach the past 30 years was able to win more than 40% of its Big Ten Games? Yet some expect Brewster to get it done in year three!

Why? Because we finally are playing on campus? Or because Brewster said he would get us to the Rose Bowl? Or because some recruiting service ranking of HS & JUCO players convinced us we are now loaded with talent?

The University of Minnesota football culture is littered with failure and lack of achievement. Did anyone truly expect that Brewster would succeed with the same extremely difficult task that the others failed? I fail to see the talent on the field that Mason had in 99 and 03.

Thirty five games will not tell the whole story. The jury is still out.
 

"My biggest frustration with this week's loss is with Fisch/Weber; heaving the ball downfield all first half for the home run ball was just plain poor. I'm sure some of this is on Fisch for the plays being called and some of it on Weber and his reads for just plain wanting to connect for an easy gain. For two weeks in a row, the Gophers have moved the ball extremely well, almost at will, by running the ball combined with the shorter passing game/crossing routes.

Now add two things to that and I'm right with you.

Weber's determination to hold onto the ball and wait for someone to get open WAY beyond reason. That as he himself alluded to was the major cause of Saturday's sacks. The other is his almost unfathomable resistance to running himself out of danger and towards positive yardage. He's either stubborn as a mule or wait and "let things develop" has been drilled into his head. Regardless of cause it's damned frustrating to watch.

The Second Half Offense shows-up for the next three games and they sweep them. Iowa may be toast, and that's oddly sad for me to type :confused: and the Gophers are heading for such a minor bowl that the opponent will be pretty mediocre.

If the Gopher Offense decides to remaining as inept and bull-headed as they've been for the majority of the last 17 Quarters they'll be lucky to get one win let alone three.
 

Agreed Bayfield, but I don't think you're saying something radically different than what Ogee first said and with which I concurred. The jury is out. Is Brewster the right guy? I hope so, but what do I know?

But you make an interesting additional point. Mason ran his teams in cycles. He would take a set of guys, bascially as sophomores and play them darn near every down through their senior years. Those guys graduate and he'd do it again with a new set of players. Re-building on four year cycles.

I realize that programs like Ohio State don't re-build, they just re-load and we may NEVER be in that situation. But I'd like to think we could at least achieve some level of consistent respectability. We haven't had that, truth be told, since Cal Stoll was coach.
 



I don't even really care if Brewster is the guy or not, the point is, he's bringing in more talent than has been here in I don't know how long, so I'm willing to give the guy a few years with that talent matured to see if he can get it done. If not, the next coach, whoever that may be, will be walking into quite a more impressive program than what Brewster walked into as far as facilities and talent on the team. If he coaches 'em up better than Brewster and makes things happen, than yeah, in the end, Minnesota still benefits from Brewster's time here regardless. It's up to Brewster and his coaching staff whether they are the ones to take Minnesota to the next level, or whether someone else comes in and takes his talent and turns it into something special.
 

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