Are We Overreacting?

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John Galt

John Galt

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I've been in favor of keeping Tracy Claeys. He seems like a great guy, his players respect him, and he's had some of the better defenses in my lifetime. Plus he was 9-4 this year. But here are a few things to consider once the emotion subsides:

1. For all those who are outraged, where were you on November 19? I was at TCF Bank Stadium watching my 8-3 Gophers that still had a chance to win the West play a big game vs. NW. Only 37,000 joined me. So now you love Claeys, but where were you on 11/19 and throughout the rest of the season where we had the lowest attendance in TCF history?
2. We still couldn't beat our rivals. A bad loss at home vs Iowa where we scored 7 points. 2nd half collapses vs Penn St., Nebraska, and a complete meltdown at Wisky. Was Claeys a guy that could break through and get it done against top 25 teams? Maybe, but the fact is we didn't beat a top 25 team.
3. We played the easiest schedule we will ever have. Preseason, everyone predicted at least 8-9 wins. We had a senior QB, 2 stud RBs, and a lot of guys returning on defense. 9 wins was great, but it was the expectation of most at the beginning of the season.
4. The sex scandal. It wasn't Claeys fault, but it still doesn't look good when it happens on your watch. And with an underage recruit.
5. The boycott. Would a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer team stage a boycott? Again, there are a lot of nuances, but it doesn't look good. Claeys should have made damn sure he knew what was in the EOAA report before taking a stand either way.
6. Recruiting. Recruiting rankings aren't the end all/be all, but they do pretty well predicting success. Despite being 9-4, we had one of the lowest ranked classes in the B1G with 1 month to go.

Coyle said at the press conference he wants to win at the highest level. The onus is now on him to pay up and hire a coach that gets this done. He fired a coach with 9 wins and has no excuses or alibis. Our expectation should now be 9-10 wins every year and a west title every 3-4. Bottom line, if he hires a coach that gets this done, all will be forgiven and he will be a genius. Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.
 

Ask me after we know who the new coach is.


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Yes we are overreacting.


Could the hire be terrible? Yes
Could the hire be better? Yes
Could the hire be about the same? Yes

I'd bet on the first, but this program has been to bowls in 14 of the last 18 years inspite of how terrible people want to think Brewster is or was for the long term of the program.
 

Unless we have a new coach in place within seven days, then the answer is "no."

Sent from my SM-T550 using Tapatalk
 

Not at all. Want to discipline the players? Fine. Run an unbiased investigation and get rid of the players that actually did something wrong.

Claeys getting fired over a tweet is over the top.
 


Well put.

I was a fan of Claeys, but there were some things that made me question his leadership through all of this, particularly surrounding the boycott. Reminds me of a very recent interview with Calipari regarding players not standing during the national anthem, how he would react if one or more of his players did something like that. He said he would have known about it before it happened. Meaning? He knows his team, his players, and his players know damn well they wouldn't do something like that without discussing with Coach.

Like it or not, time to move on.
 

Plausible Deniability said:
Well put.

I was a fan of Claeys, but there were some things that made me question his leadership through all of this, particularly surrounding the boycott. Reminds me of a very recent interview with Calipari regarding players not standing during the national anthem, how he would react if one or more of his players did something like that. He said he would have known about it before it happened. Meaning? He knows his team, his players, and his players know damn well they wouldn't do something like that without discussing with Coach.

Like it or not, time to move on.
Click to expand...

Of course it isn't. It hasn't even been been for hours, but can see why your confused. You're not over here much. At least with that moniker.

http://www.forums.gopherhole.com/boards/member.php?10290-Plausible-Deniability
 

John Galt said:
I've been in favor of keeping Tracy Claeys. He seems like a great guy, his players respect him, and he's had some of the better defenses in my lifetime. Plus he was 9-4 this year. But here are a few things to consider once the emotion subsides:

1. For all those who are outraged, where were you on November 19? I was at TCF Bank Stadium watching my 8-3 Gophers that still had a chance to win the West play a big game vs. NW. Only 37,000 joined me. So now you love Claeys, but where were you on 11/19 and throughout the rest of the season where we had the lowest attendance in TCF history?
2. We still couldn't beat our rivals. A bad loss at home vs Iowa where we scored 7 points. 2nd half collapses vs Penn St., Nebraska, and a complete meltdown at Wisky. Was Claeys a guy that could break through and get it done against top 25 teams? Maybe, but the fact is we didn't beat a top 25 team.
3. We played the easiest schedule we will ever have. Preseason, everyone predicted at least 8-9 wins. We had a senior QB, 2 stud RBs, and a lot of guys returning on defense. 9 wins was great, but it was the expectation of most at the beginning of the season.
4. The sex scandal. It wasn't Claeys fault, but it still doesn't look good when it happens on your watch. And with an underage recruit.
5. The boycott. Would a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer team stage a boycott? Again, there are a lot of nuances, but it doesn't look good. Claeys should have made damn sure he knew what was in the EOAA report before taking a stand either way.
6. Recruiting. Recruiting rankings aren't the end all/be all, but they do pretty well predicting success. Despite being 9-4, we had one of the lowest ranked classes in the B1G with 1 month to go.

Coyle said at the press conference he wants to win at the highest level. The onus is now on him to pay up and hire a coach that gets this done. He fired a coach with 9 wins and has no excuses or alibis. Our expectation should now be 9-10 wins every year and a west title every 3-4. Bottom line, if he hires a coach that gets this done, all will be forgiven and he will be a genius. Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.
Click to expand...

I heard there were less than 30,000 butts in the seats and the announced crowd was 37,000. I think MC and EK were concerned about the interest in the program before all the stuff hit the fan in December.
 

John Galt said:
I've been in favor of keeping Tracy Claeys. He seems like a great guy, his players respect him, and he's had some of the better defenses in my lifetime. Plus he was 9-4 this year. But here are a few things to consider once the emotion subsides:

1. For all those who are outraged, where were you on November 19? I was at TCF Bank Stadium watching my 8-3 Gophers that still had a chance to win the West play a big game vs. NW. Only 37,000 joined me. So now you love Claeys, but where were you on 11/19 and throughout the rest of the season where we had the lowest attendance in TCF history?
2. We still couldn't beat our rivals. A bad loss at home vs Iowa where we scored 7 points. 2nd half collapses vs Penn St., Nebraska, and a complete meltdown at Wisky. Was Claeys a guy that could break through and get it done against top 25 teams? Maybe, but the fact is we didn't beat a top 25 team.
3. We played the easiest schedule we will ever have. Preseason, everyone predicted at least 8-9 wins. We had a senior QB, 2 stud RBs, and a lot of guys returning on defense. 9 wins was great, but it was the expectation of most at the beginning of the season.
4. The sex scandal. It wasn't Claeys fault, but it still doesn't look good when it happens on your watch. And with an underage recruit.
5. The boycott. Would a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer team stage a boycott? Again, there are a lot of nuances, but it doesn't look good. Claeys should have made damn sure he knew what was in the EOAA report before taking a stand either way.
6. Recruiting. Recruiting rankings aren't the end all/be all, but they do pretty well predicting success. Despite being 9-4, we had one of the lowest ranked classes in the B1G with 1 month to go.

Coyle said at the press conference he wants to win at the highest level. The onus is now on him to pay up and hire a coach that gets this done. He fired a coach with 9 wins and has no excuses or alibis. Our expectation should now be 9-10 wins every year and a west title every 3-4. Bottom line, if he hires a coach that gets this done, all will be forgiven and he will be a genius. Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.
Click to expand...

Agree with all points of your post.

I think TC is a good man and damn good coach. However, not convinced that TC is the face-of-a-program-type guy. Retaining Claeys was a 50/50 proposition before this stuff went down.

Hopefully the next coach will be able to retain the current players and be more effective at recruiting.
 



As a season ticket holder who goes to all the games I agree there are many armchair/ couch fans complaining about TC. I may be joining you next year if they do not get a quality hire. I agree with John Galt and did not think TC was ready to be a great HC and am tired of being an average Big team. The ticket price increases drove many fans out and if they do not get this hire right there will be even less fans. When you charge more the expectations go up and I do not have much confidence in our AD/ President.
 

John Galt said:
I've been in favor of keeping Tracy Claeys. He seems like a great guy, his players respect him, and he's had some of the better defenses in my lifetime. Plus he was 9-4 this year. But here are a few things to consider once the emotion subsides:

1. For all those who are outraged, where were you on November 19? I was at TCF Bank Stadium watching my 8-3 Gophers that still had a chance to win the West play a big game vs. NW. Only 37,000 joined me. So now you love Claeys, but where were you on 11/19 and throughout the rest of the season where we had the lowest attendance in TCF history?
2. We still couldn't beat our rivals. A bad loss at home vs Iowa where we scored 7 points. 2nd half collapses vs Penn St., Nebraska, and a complete meltdown at Wisky. Was Claeys a guy that could break through and get it done against top 25 teams? Maybe, but the fact is we didn't beat a top 25 team.
3. We played the easiest schedule we will ever have. Preseason, everyone predicted at least 8-9 wins. We had a senior QB, 2 stud RBs, and a lot of guys returning on defense. 9 wins was great, but it was the expectation of most at the beginning of the season.
4. The sex scandal. It wasn't Claeys fault, but it still doesn't look good when it happens on your watch. And with an underage recruit.
5. The boycott. Would a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer team stage a boycott? Again, there are a lot of nuances, but it doesn't look good. Claeys should have made damn sure he knew what was in the EOAA report before taking a stand either way.
6. Recruiting. Recruiting rankings aren't the end all/be all, but they do pretty well predicting success. Despite being 9-4, we had one of the lowest ranked classes in the B1G with 1 month to go.

Coyle said at the press conference he wants to win at the highest level. The onus is now on him to pay up and hire a coach that gets this done. He fired a coach with 9 wins and has no excuses or alibis. Our expectation should now be 9-10 wins every year and a west title every 3-4. Bottom line, if he hires a coach that gets this done, all will be forgiven and he will be a genius. Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking about that point myself. I would add to it that I wonder if the team saw Claeys as any kind of disciplinarian. I'm sure that bad sh*t goes on in every program, but I have to wonder if Claeys did enough to strike fear in the team regarding their off-field behavior to have them at least give a second thought to the type of things that got this whole ball rolling.

I'm old. If I were in my 20s, still drinking, and in possession of a Twitter account, I'd probably be going off the deep end. I'm in my 60s, sober, and have a rarely-used Twitter account, so that's just not happening.
 

I was at the Northwestern game and at Madison the next week. So there.

When Coyle indicated support for Claeys in November, my reaction was "meh." But now I'm pissed. Coyle's news conference convinced me that he wanted Claeys gone -- if not on November 28, then December 13 (or thereabout). But he was too weak to do it. Now we lose the 10 suspended players, plus a few extra transfers, and have little chance for any type of recruiting class. Three weeks is gold for recruiting this time of year.

Coyle could've done this with less pact to the program. But he didn't. Couldn't. Or wouldn't.

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GringaGopher said:
As a season ticket holder who goes to all the games I agree there are many armchair/ couch fans complaining about TC. I may be joining you next year if they do not get a quality hire. I agree with John Galt and did not think TC was ready to be a great HC and am tired of being an average Big team. The ticket price increases drove many fans out and if they do not get this hire right there will be even less fans. When you charge more the expectations go up and I do not have much confidence in our AD/ President.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, I am not saying TC couldn't have been a great coach. Or that he won't be somewhere else. Just that if we look at his entire tenure objectively, there were a few things that should have given everyone a few second thoughts.
 



I agree with John. Despite some reservations as to Claeys' ability to take the program to the next level, I supported keeping him. But if we truly want to see this program go to the next level - to get fans back in the stands - we need to see the U make a commitment to football that we haven't seen in the past 50 years. This is our chance to do that. It's up tp Coyle to see that happen. If he doesn't, both he and this program are in big trouble.
 

Some guy said:
Yes we are overreacting.


Could the hire be terrible? Yes
Could the hire be better? Yes
Could the hire be about the same? Yes

I'd bet on the first, but this program has been to bowls in 14 of the last 18 years inspite of how terrible people want to think Brewster is or was for the long term of the program.
Click to expand...

Speak for yourself...
 

Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.

Yes, you are overreacting.
 

vagopher said:
I agree with John. Despite some reservations as to Claeys' ability to take the program to the next level, I supported keeping him. But if we truly want to see this program go to the next level - to get fans back in the stands - we need to see the U make a commitment to football that we haven't seen in the past 50 years. This is our chance to do that. It's up tp Coyle to see that happen. If he doesn't, both he and this program are in big trouble.
Click to expand...

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

I was 100% against the firing. But I'm 100% invested in Gopher football. I hope and pray that Mark Coyle and the rest of the administration is ready to make a REAL committment to the team.
 

John Galt said:
I've been in favor of keeping Tracy Claeys. He seems like a great guy, his players respect him, and he's had some of the better defenses in my lifetime. Plus he was 9-4 this year. But here are a few things to consider once the emotion subsides:

1. For all those who are outraged, where were you on November 19? I was at TCF Bank Stadium watching my 8-3 Gophers that still had a chance to win the West play a big game vs. NW. Only 37,000 joined me. So now you love Claeys, but where were you on 11/19 and throughout the rest of the season where we had the lowest attendance in TCF history?
2. We still couldn't beat our rivals. A bad loss at home vs Iowa where we scored 7 points. 2nd half collapses vs Penn St., Nebraska, and a complete meltdown at Wisky. Was Claeys a guy that could break through and get it done against top 25 teams? Maybe, but the fact is we didn't beat a top 25 team.
3. We played the easiest schedule we will ever have. Preseason, everyone predicted at least 8-9 wins. We had a senior QB, 2 stud RBs, and a lot of guys returning on defense. 9 wins was great, but it was the expectation of most at the beginning of the season.
4. The sex scandal. It wasn't Claeys fault, but it still doesn't look good when it happens on your watch. And with an underage recruit.
5. The boycott. Would a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer team stage a boycott? Again, there are a lot of nuances, but it doesn't look good. Claeys should have made damn sure he knew what was in the EOAA report before taking a stand either way.
6. Recruiting. Recruiting rankings aren't the end all/be all, but they do pretty well predicting success. Despite being 9-4, we had one of the lowest ranked classes in the B1G with 1 month to go.

Coyle said at the press conference he wants to win at the highest level. The onus is now on him to pay up and hire a coach that gets this done. He fired a coach with 9 wins and has no excuses or alibis. Our expectation should now be 9-10 wins every year and a west title every 3-4. Bottom line, if he hires a coach that gets this done, all will be forgiven and he will be a genius. Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you started this thread, I entirely agree with you.
 

I was there 11/19/16. Best game I saw in person all year. D was great. Loved it! I'm hoping for the best with the new coach and the direction of the football program. I wish Coach Claeys and the staff all the best. I'll be there again 8/31/17.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 

John Galt said:
I've been in favor of keeping Tracy Claeys. He seems like a great guy, his players respect him, and he's had some of the better defenses in my lifetime. Plus he was 9-4 this year. But here are a few things to consider once the emotion subsides:

1. For all those who are outraged, where were you on November 19? I was at TCF Bank Stadium watching my 8-3 Gophers that still had a chance to win the West play a big game vs. NW. Only 37,000 joined me. So now you love Claeys, but where were you on 11/19 and throughout the rest of the season where we had the lowest attendance in TCF history?
2. We still couldn't beat our rivals. A bad loss at home vs Iowa where we scored 7 points. 2nd half collapses vs Penn St., Nebraska, and a complete meltdown at Wisky. Was Claeys a guy that could break through and get it done against top 25 teams? Maybe, but the fact is we didn't beat a top 25 team.
3. We played the easiest schedule we will ever have. Preseason, everyone predicted at least 8-9 wins. We had a senior QB, 2 stud RBs, and a lot of guys returning on defense. 9 wins was great, but it was the expectation of most at the beginning of the season.
4. The sex scandal. It wasn't Claeys fault, but it still doesn't look good when it happens on your watch. And with an underage recruit.
5. The boycott. Would a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer team stage a boycott? Again, there are a lot of nuances, but it doesn't look good. Claeys should have made damn sure he knew what was in the EOAA report before taking a stand either way.
6. Recruiting. Recruiting rankings aren't the end all/be all, but they do pretty well predicting success. Despite being 9-4, we had one of the lowest ranked classes in the B1G with 1 month to go.

Coyle said at the press conference he wants to win at the highest level. The onus is now on him to pay up and hire a coach that gets this done. He fired a coach with 9 wins and has no excuses or alibis. Our expectation should now be 9-10 wins every year and a west title every 3-4. Bottom line, if he hires a coach that gets this done, all will be forgiven and he will be a genius. Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.
Click to expand...

You make fair points. My responses:

1. I do not put empty seats on the head football coach with a 7-3 record. I put it on the fans. Our fan base, outside of 25-30k, are fair weather (we have options, and few choose to be die-hard Gopher football fans) and shallow in their understanding of football ("but he's fat!"). I would also blame our previous AD's ticket policies and our advertising department before blaming the head football coach. A head coach's job is to win football games. You do that long enough, seats will fill. You do not hire or fire a coach because seats are not filling in his first full year as head coach.

2. I agree; our losses were painful. But if you take Claeys as a first year full-time head coach, you can't fire him for losing close games to very good teams. If you want to go back through the Kill era (including times when Claeys was interim), we DID beat Nebraska, Iowa, Penn St, and Michigan. Either way, the trajectory looked like with Claeys we are competitive with our rivals going forward - winning some, losing some. I'll take that.

3. When will we realize that we played 11 Power 5 opponents, 9 Big Ten teams, 8 bowl teams, 5 Big Ten road games, and we won 9 games?! We went 2-2 in games that, looking back, were toss-ups, 0-2 in games we should have lost, and 7-0 in games we should have won. No, it wasn't 2014 or 2015, but this "easiest schedule ever" thing is WAY overblown.

4. Agreed. You can't pin it totally on him, but it doesn't look great.

5. Agreed. Thought he could have and should have handled this better.

6. I just don't think you hire and fire based off recruiting. You hire and fire based on the on-field product. And recruiting is always based on the previous year too; we are in effect recruiting players with a 6-7 record and a coaching transition.

With all of this, plus the very high APR, the upstanding nature Claeys has displayed throughout his time here, his willingness to stay for the long haul, and the obvious love the players and those close to the program have for him, I think this is a very bad day for Gopher football. I don't think it was a completely outrageous decision from Coyle, but I do think it was the wrong one. And much too delayed too, no matter what anyone thinks about the final decision.

If we are able to hire a good replacement, it won't change the fact that we probably did wrong by a very good coaching staff. But here's to hoping Coyle can pull it off.
 

A home run hire makes a lot of this go away.

Regardless of the decision, we were going to have diminishing attendance and a roster that was less talented than the prior one.

A lot of next seasons results will source very little from todays decision.

As far as message board fodder, we've struck gold again. The twists of fate permutations are through the roof!
 

Some guy said:
Yes we are overreacting.


Could the hire be terrible? Yes
Could the hire be better? Yes
Could the hire be about the same? Yes

I'd bet on the first, but this program has been to bowls in 14 of the last 18 years in spite of how terrible people want to think Brewster is or was for the long term of the program.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the reason not to overreact now. People are seriously posting things like "the program won't win X games for the next Y years" or "we just set the program back X years".

How about we actually wait until that happens to get angry?

Kill was able to build us up from the ashes and take us to the Citrus Bowl. We are in 10 times a better position now than when Kill took over. Of course every coach implements "his" program, but this is not a rebuild in the sense that we are a disaster.

If we hire someone like Kill (who by the way underwhelmed the vast majority of us when he was announced) we'll be ok. Imagine the excitement and potential if we actually land someone like Fleck who can generate excitement and recruit.

Emotion is very high right now. 75% of the posts today will look really ridiculous in 6 months.
 

Yes everyone is over reacting.

At the end of the day the AD wants his own coach. I was one of the fire Claeys emails to Coyle after the Wisconsin game. I think this is the best option more so now.

I signed the petition to keep Claeys last week because I wanted this administration and Claeys to work through this mess.

Tonight Coyle put himself out there that he is confident enough to go get a new coach and put his job on the line. Isn't that what we want in an AD?

The player's reactions mean nothing to me as it's what I expect when losing their coaches.

I feel Coyle wanting to move forward and risk his job trumps all for me.


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BarnBoy said:
This is exactly the reason not to overreact now. People are seriously posting things like "the program won't win X games for the next Y years" or "we just set the program back X years".

How about we actually wait until that happens to get angry?

Kill was able to build us up from the ashes and take us to the Citrus Bowl. We are in 10 times a better position now than when Kill took over. Of course every coach implements "his" program, but this is not a rebuild in the sense that we are a disaster.

If we hire someone like Kill (who by the way underwhelmed the vast majority of us when he was announced) we'll be ok. Imagine the excitement and potential if we actually land someone like Fleck who can generate excitement and recruit.

Emotion is very high right now. 75% of the posts today will look really ridiculous in 6 months.
Click to expand...

I was thinking more like this:

One_Million_Years_BC.jpg
 

Some Day...Maybe said:
Fail, and he will go down as the worst AD in Minnesota history.

Yes, you are overreacting.
Click to expand...

If you fire a 9-4 coach and your new hire flames out, you would be among the worst ADs. At least Teague left us with Pitino.
 

John Galt said:
If you fire a 9-4 coach and your new hire flames out, you would be among the worst ADs. At least Teague left us with Pitino.
Click to expand...

We don't agree on the OT board......but you are absolutely correct here. Fire a good coach and bring in someone to take over a dumpster fire. Unless they make a homerun hire.....success rates plummet. Tyler Moore is the first to announce his transfer. It's going to continue and this team will likely be a mess for the successor.
 

vagopher said:
I agree with John. Despite some reservations as to Claeys' ability to take the program to the next level, I supported keeping him. But if we truly want to see this program go to the next level - to get fans back in the stands - we need to see the U make a commitment to football that we haven't seen in the past 50 years. This is our chance to do that. It's up tp Coyle to see that happen. If he doesn't, both he and this program are in big trouble.
Click to expand...

Ah, yeah, don't hold your breath on that one.
 

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