Assistant coach instability

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benlaur

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Who is at fault for the instability of the assistants? I thought it was the one doing the hiring, no? First you have to hire someone who is qualified in all aspects of the word qualified. They also have to agree on similar philosophies that you are trying to employ. Additionally, it is nice to find someone who would like to stay with the program for a few years. Then you have to make sure they are engaged in their environment. Who is to blame at the U for this instability? It is often brought up as a reason for our poor performance this year; change of philosophy/assistants.
 

I believe this is one area where Brewster boosters and detractors can agree that it pretty much can be laid at Brewster's feet. This should be one place where the sides can agree that Brewster screwed things up.
 

Brewster was hired on January 17, 2007. That means he had approximately 3 weeks to hire a coaching staff and try to put together a recruiting class from the group of players who did not withdraw from their commitments after Mason was fired. Bruininks gets much of the blame for the instability of Brewsters coaching staff because he fired Mason with so little time left before commitment day. Brewster has been trying to repair the damage ever since. Withers, in particular, was a total disaster as a Defensive Coordinator.
 

Brewster chose to make a radical change in the offense to the spread. He could have chosen a less radical change or even kept the existing offense. He could have transitioned out of it. But then he chose to make a second radical change after just two years to the pro style, effectively starting over at square one.
 

I think the only change that was initiated by Brewster was the change on the O. Otherwise the cover story is that every other coach left for other positions.

I've seen enough executive emails in my life that everything isn't as it appears in the press release, however, I've no idea what really caused the change. Did Winters really want to go the South. Did Fisch really want to join Seattle's staff? However, I've been hanging my hat on a belief that we need consistency in our scheme before we turn the corner. I do not look forward to another year of change.
 


RodentRampage said:
Brewster chose to make a radical change in the offense to the spread. He could have chosen a less radical change or even kept the existing offense. He could have transitioned out of it. But then he chose to make a second radical change after just two years to the pro style, effectively starting over at square one.
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I am not saying that Brewster should not be held responsible for the staff turnover. But he was put in a very difficult situation that very few people remember or want to recognize. I don't think the main problem was changing from the spread to a pro style offense. The biggest problem was that he initially hired an offensive coordinator who only knew how to coach one type of offense. He didn't have the players to run a spread offense while he was here.
 

One part is definitely on Brewster - and not just the "who did you hire?" stuff. IMO, the offense has been set back by the constant recalculation & restructuring of the offense.

He started with the spread, dumped that & decided to go more pro-style, then hired a guy who stuck for a year ... now he has his spread QB playing WR. Either his initial decision was wrong (maybe he found out he couldn't recruit spread kids to Minnesota) or junking the offense and starting over again (and again) was a mistake.

You can run the spread in Minnesota - the turf in TCF will give you the footing you need, the weather isn't that big an impediment (how many Big 10 teams are running some version of the spread?) ... about the only thing that could hold the Gophers back is inability to get the horses to come to Minnesota.

I don't know what to say about the defense - - - except "ugh".

One question I'd like to see answered - compared to the competition, how well does the U pay assistants?
 

Of course he was in a difficult situation. I have supported Brewster and welcomed the change from Mason, but Brewster should have been much more deliberate in putting together his first staff, particularly the co-ordinators. Both Dunbar and Winters were mistakes.

It looks like he had a few guys (Butler and Cross come to mind) that he had crossed path with in the past and that those guys were on board from the get-go (but I could be wrong about that). If it came down to putting together a solid coaching staff and blowing off his first set of recruits, he would have probably been better served to do that latter.
 

UpnorthGo4 said:
He didn't have the players to run a spread offense while he was here.
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No new coach ever has the players to run any offense but the one that's in place when he's hired. When Meyer came to Florida, he didn't have the horses to run the spread, but he put the offense in because he believed in it.

That's what you do - you install an offense you believe in and then recruit the kids you need to play it.
 



BradDad, I don't know in comparison to the Big 10, but I believe we pay our assistants better now than they were paid under Mason. I think that's why Brewster has a lower head-coaching salary. I'm pretty sure that was the case with Dunbar. Not sure about since.
 

Obviously, the coordinators have been a revolving door, but the position coaches have been very stable. And that is either good or bad. It's good if they are talented coaches and other schools want them, bad if they aren't good enough to have other schools try to hire them away.
 

BradDad said:
One part is definitely on Brewster - and not just the "who did you hire?" stuff. IMO, the offense has been set back by the constant recalculation & restructuring of the offense.

He started with the spread, dumped that & decided to go more pro-style, then hired a guy who stuck for a year ... now he has his spread QB playing WR. Either his initial decision was wrong (maybe he found out he couldn't recruit spread kids to Minnesota) or junking the offense and starting over again (and again) was a mistake.

You can run the spread in Minnesota - the turf in TCF will give you the footing you need, the weather isn't that big an impediment (how many Big 10 teams are running some version of the spread?) ... about the only thing that could hold the Gophers back is inability to get the horses to come to Minnesota.

I don't know what to say about the defense - - - except "ugh".

One question I'd like to see answered - compared to the competition, how well does the U pay assistants?[/QUOTE]


Based on the info linked the shocking thing is that Kevin Cosgrove is the second highest paid assistant in the entire Big Ten after Paul Chryst, that is money really well spent. Talk about shrewd negotiating Maturi and Brewster with a guy that was unemployed the year before. You can see that Minnesota assistants and especially coordinators are paid very comparable to the rest of the conference.

Note: The list does not include Brewster's recruiting coordinator Brez who makes 6 figures at Minnesota which should be factored in as well since many schools have one of the assistants handle these same duties rather than a dedicated resource.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2009-coaches-contracts-database.htm
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