Coaching changes are tough.

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dpodoll68 said:
Sure, when you caveat everything to death, it's a dumb comparison. Ok, since you say that it's "well-documented" :rolleyes: that Brewster was "in over his head", how about we compare Fleck to his immediate predecessor - another guy who many point to as having been "well-documented" that he was "in over his head". How is Fleck doing compared to Claeys? Fleck is clearly eminently more qualified; how do the on-field results compare?
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No way to prove it one way or another but I think with last years team and schedule Fleck would have had similar results to Claeys and I think with this years team and schedule I think Claeys would have had similar results to what we are getting out of Fleck.

Although the initial results would be similar I like Fleck's chances of recruiting better talent over the long haul as I think that would have been a real struggle for Claeys based on what we had seen prior to him being fired. But obviously there is no real way to make a comparison because Claeys brief run was tied very heavily to Kill and there is no way to really know how he would have done with more time.
 

balds said:
The "he inherited a 9-4 team" angle is vastly overplayed. You simply can't draw a straight line between seasons like that. How many Power 5 teams have to beg a walk on QB to come back for his 5th year to compete with a guy who had zero other power 5 offers and has zero career starts? Not to mention a Sun Belt quality OL (with no depth), a secondary so depleted we have a walk on S starting at CB, etc. All while learning/playing in a new system.

I really liked Kill, but just like Fleck, he needed time. I recall the same chorus of "this MAC coach is in way over his head" when Kill was struggling early as well.

I also think the "year zero" thing is overplayed. Yes, Fleck could've (should've ) not said it, but in substance he's correct. In August of 2018, 2019, 2020, etc., are we going to be gnashing our teeth about if we went 4-8 this year and not 7-5 and playing in some crap bowl game?
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It fairness it was Pol Pot who made the term "Year Zero" popular, Fleck is just borrowing it.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
Not criticizing, but it's interesting none of the examples you gave were lower level coaches moving up to higher tier conferences.

Lincoln Riley is a very similar situation to Tracy Claeys. Much different being promoted and retaining most of the staff, players, etc. No change in systems, no getting to know you period, etc.

Ed Orgeron is practically a pariah in Louisiana for his "poor" record.

Kiffin, Davis, Strong and Tedford are all bigger name coaches going to lower conferences. In those conferences, a handful of talented players can make a huge difference. All of them brought in players that would not have come to those schools had those coaches not been there.

Sanford is not quite in the above territory, but DC of Notre Dame isn't chopped liver, either.

Based on the roster the Gophers have and any potential recruits they may have gotten, do you honestly believe ANY of those coaches have the Gophers offense or defense playing better than they are?
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Riley also has that Baker Mayfield guy....heard he is pretty good.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Sure, when you caveat everything to death, it's a dumb comparison. Ok, since you say that it's "well-documented" :rolleyes: that Brewster was "in over his head", how about we compare Fleck to his immediate predecessor - another guy who many point to as having been "well-documented" that he was "in over his head". How is Fleck doing compared to Claeys? Fleck is clearly eminently more qualified; how do the on-field results compare?
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Impossible to say. It is impossible for Fleck, in his first year here, to have a Senior QB who has ~35 career starts, an entire team who has played in (and been recruited to play in) his system their entire college career, etc. Throw in graduations/departures at DE, DB, OL, the team that began in August was not a 9-4 team.
 

balds said:
Impossible to say. It is impossible for Fleck, in his first year here, to have a Senior QB who has ~35 career starts, an entire team who has played in (and been recruited to play in) his system their entire college career, etc. Throw in graduations/departures at DE, DB, OL, the team that began in August was not a 9-4 team.
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They were 0-0 in August
 


balds said:
Impossible to say. It is impossible for Fleck, in his first year here, to have a Senior QB who has ~35 career starts, an entire team who has played in (and been recruited to play in) his system their entire college career, etc. Throw in graduations/departures at DE, DB, OL, the team that began in August was not a 9-4 team.
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The offense was playing for a first-year offensive coordinator, just as this year's offense is. They were playing for an offensive coordinator and head coach who didn't recruit any of them, just as this year's offense is. The defense was playing for a first-year defensive coordinator, just as this year's defense is. I am quite certain that there were graduations and departures at DE, DB, and OL between the 2015 and 2016 seasons. Somehow, the team managed to string together 9 wins.
 

MNVCGUY said:
No way to prove it one way or another but I think with last years team and schedule Fleck would have had similar results to Claeys and I think with this years team and schedule I think Claeys would have had similar results to what we are getting out of Fleck.

Although the initial results would be similar I like Fleck's chances of recruiting better talent over the long haul as I think that would have been a real struggle for Claeys based on what we had seen prior to him being fired. But obviously there is no real way to make a comparison because Claeys brief run was tied very heavily to Kill and there is no way to really know how he would have done with more time.
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Based on results on the field, one could make a statement that says: Although initial results would be similar, I would have liked Claeys chances better, because he and his staff showed an ability to coach up the recruits and win games and I have not seen that out of Fleck and his staff as of yet. :p
 

dpodoll68 said:
QB - Gray vs. Croft - slight advantage 2011
RB - Bennett/Kirkwood vs. Smith/Brooks/McCrary - huge advantage 2017
WR - McKnight/Green/Barker vs. Johnson/Carter/Still - slight advantage 2017
TE - McGarry/Lair vs. Lingen/Wozniak - gigantic advantage 2017
OL - Olson/Bunders/Wynn/Orton/Gjere vs. Greene/Wright/Olson/Calhoun/Schlueter - slight advantage 2017

The 2017 talent is better at every position save potentially QB, and even that is in question. Gray is/was a hell of an athlete, but not a good college QB.
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I disagree with several of these. I'd take 2011's WRs over this year. I'd also take the 2011 OL over this year, or at the very least it is a wash.

QB - I don't think Gray's arm is a huge upgrade over this year, but his legs are significantly better than Croft.
RB - They are far deeper this year, no question. But Bennett was not a bad back. He had a cup of coffee in the NFL and I don't think any of the current RBs will fare much better at the next level.
TE - A healthy 2015 Lingen would be a gigantic advantage, but he's been banged up and doesn't look anywhere near what he used to. Wozniak is not very good. They are on pace to put up similar stats or worse than McGarry/Lair in 2011. I wouldn't consider that a gigantic advantage.
 

Some perspective

Face The Facts said:
Just a study on Brewster and Kill vs Wisconsin should give you some perspective.

Facts:
In our 13 year stretch of losses against Wisconsin, Brewster coached the two closest. (two 3-point losses).

Before Kill and Claeys we actually competed with WI when we lost to them. (2008 and 2009 both 3 point losses, and in Brewster's first year they lost by 7).
2010 we lost by 18 in Brewster's last year.

Since then, never within single digits. (losses by 29,25,13,10,10,14)
It took Kill until his third year (a loss by 13), just to top Brewster's worst game against Wisconsin (a loss by 18).

Jeff Horton in 5 games (with Brewsters team) got 50% as many wins vs ranked teams (1) as Kill did in 77 games (2).
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2009 game was at home in the rain. Gophers were not in that game, getting blown out in that game until a couple fluke fumbles. Wisconsin even fumbled inside our 10 yards line instead of scoring.
Even though they only beat us by 3 points that was not a close football game. Again like I said statistics and scoring do not tell the entire picture. Watched those games live, the Gophers both in MN and WI, for both coaches. The competitive level was not as close as the scores would indicate under Brewster, without the mistakes in 2014 and 2015 by the QB the poor throws, that WI streak is over.
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
I disagree with several of these. I'd take 2011's WRs over this year. I'd also take the 2011 OL over this year, or at the very least it is a wash.

QB - I don't think Gray's arm is a huge upgrade over this year, but his legs are significantly better than Croft.
RB - They are far deeper this year, no question. But Bennett was not a bad back. He had a cup of coffee in the NFL and I don't think any of the current RBs will fare much better at the next level.
TE - A healthy 2015 Lingen would be a gigantic advantage, but he's been banged up and doesn't look anywhere near what he used to. Wozniak is not very good. They are on pace to put up similar stats or worse than McGarry/Lair in 2011. I wouldn't consider that a gigantic advantage.
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Agree with your assessment. 2017 gigantic advantage at TE is silly. Same with 2017 RB huge.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Interesting to watch fans belittle former coaches and roast fans that aren't sold on Fleck yet, yet ignore very questionable game plans, personnel decisions, and lack of adjustments that led to some ignominious losses that hurt fan, media, and likely recruiting momentum. I don't like his negative attitude this season. Perception is he's looking ahead and not focused on winning this year. That doesn't bother some and it bothers others a great deal. I'm not seeing much inspiration on the field.

Kill had a better MAC record than Fleck (read that this is important), while Fleck went to a better bowl game. Kill had a mediocre run at MN but his teams overperformed his recruit rankings by a handy margin, particularly by measures like S&P+. IMO we were a QB away from turning the corner but the staff was limited there.

We all hope PJ is able to turn the corner but he's dug a little bit of a hole and next year may be rough as well if we go into it with the same attitude we can't win without a deep, aged roster but everything will be great by 2020. Sorry for the negativity but it's rubbing off.
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That's not true.

Average overall recruiting ranking from 2011-2016 according to Rivals: 56.5
Average overall S&P ranking 2011-2016: 56.5

They underperformed the first 3 years and over performed the last 3 years. It averaged out to be exactly the same.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
That's not true.

Average overall recruiting ranking from 2011-2016 according to Rivals: 56.5
Average overall S&P ranking 2011-2016: 56.5

They underperformed the first 3 years and over performed the last 3 years. It averaged out to be exactly the same.
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So, they improved to a point they were ranked at a top 20- 30 level and you're averaging it all together with the early years. Brilliant.

Are you still maintaining greater talent in aggregate leads to better teams was some sort of unfounded knowledge from the ancients?
 

Pompous Elitist said:
So, they improved to a point they were ranked at a top 20- 30 level and you're averaging it all together with the early years. Brilliant.

Are you still maintaining greater talent in aggregate leads to better teams was some sort of unfounded knowledge from the ancients?
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So it took them until year 4 to start outplaying their recruiting ranking? I thought good coaching overrides talent, even in year one? They were never top 20, and were top 30 once.

As for your last question, you keep trying to argue against it so apparently that knowledge is still unfounded to you.
 



Has there been any discussion as to whether taking over as a new coach when the previous, fired coach was quite successful makes for a more difficult transition? Seems it could take longer to get everyone completely bought in versus a case where the previous coach was failing. I know Nebraska has fired two 9 win coaches since Osborne and both successors had losing records their first year. Lots of reasons for those records. But I have to wonder how much player unhappiness with the loss of a liked and successful coach can slow the adaptation to a new system.
 

GopherBuddy said:
Has there been any discussion as to whether taking over as a new coach when the previous, fired coach was quite successful makes for a more difficult transition? Seems it could take longer to get everyone completely bought in versus a case where the previous coach was failing. I know Nebraska has fired two 9 win coaches since Osborne and both successors had losing records their first year. Lots of reasons for those records. But I have to wonder how much player unhappiness with the loss of a liked and successful coach can slow the adaptation to a new system.
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http://www.forums.gopherhole.com/bo...ecords-of-First-Year-Coaches-in-2017-and-2016
 

Is any part of this about who is actually a better coach between Fleck and the previous regime ? Because for the record, PJ was highly sought after and was going to get that 3 million from someone. The previous regime not all that valued elsewhere.
 

Let's use my favorite metric, draftable upperclassmen, to determine which team was better:

2007 - 0 draft picks, and I don't believe a single junior/senior ever made an NFL roster - http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/m-footbl-mtt-07-08.html
2011 - 0 draft picks, but Michael Carter, Brandon Kirksey, MarQueis Gray, Da'Jon McKnight, Kim Royston, and Troy Stoudemire were all upperclassmen. Hageman was a Sophomore. http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/m-footbl-mtt-07-08.html
2017 - tbd. I don't think we have a single junior/senior on this team that will be drafted. It's still early to tell what will happen with the younger players.

Bottom line, you aren't going to have a good football team with no upperclassmen that are bound for the NFL. Last year's team had Travis and Myrick, plus Winfield (in all likelihood). Looking at the rosters, I think 2007 is far and away the worst roster of the 3. 2011 looks better on paper than a 3-9 team.
 

John Galt said:
Let's use my favorite metric, draftable upperclassmen, to determine which team was better:

2007 - 0 draft picks, and I don't believe a single junior/senior ever made an NFL roster - http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/m-footbl-mtt-07-08.html
2011 - 0 draft picks, but Michael Carter, Brandon Kirksey, MarQueis Gray, Da'Jon McKnight, Kim Royston, and Troy Stoudemire were all upperclassmen. Hageman was a Sophomore. http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/m-footbl-mtt-07-08.html
2017 - tbd. I don't think we have a single junior/senior on this team that will be drafted. It's still early to tell what will happen with the younger players.

Bottom line, you aren't going to have a good football team with no upperclassmen that are bound for the NFL. Last year's team had Travis and Myrick, plus Winfield (in all likelihood). Looking at the rosters, I think 2007 is far and away the worst roster of the 3. 2011 looks better on paper than a 3-9 team.
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Use your metric all you want....it doesn't mean sh!t
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
2009 game was at home in the rain. Gophers were not in that game, getting blown out in that game until a couple fluke fumbles. Wisconsin even fumbled inside our 10 yards line instead of scoring.
Even though they only beat us by 3 points that was not a close football game. Again like I said statistics and scoring do not tell the entire picture. Watched those games live, the Gophers both in MN and WI, for both coaches. The competitive level was not as close as the scores would indicate under Brewster, without the mistakes in 2014 and 2015 by the QB the poor throws, that WI streak is over.
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We were ahead at the half 13-10, and should’ve been up more. They did take a bigger lead before we came back and made it close. Pretty close game overall IMO.


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dpodoll68 said:
The offense was playing for a first-year offensive coordinator, just as this year's offense is. They were playing for an offensive coordinator and head coach who didn't recruit any of them, just as this year's offense is. The defense was playing for a first-year defensive coordinator, just as this year's defense is. I am quite certain that there were graduations and departures at DE, DB, and OL between the 2015 and 2016 seasons. Somehow, the team managed to string together 9 wins.
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Oh come on.....it almost feels like you might actually be making a joke but I am pretty sure you don't do that. Sawvel may have technically been a first year defensive coordinator but he had been a key part of the defensive staff years and had been running the defense since mid 2015 when Claeys had to shift to the head role. He knew all the players on the roster and had been coaching them for years.

Johnson inherited an offense with a senior starting QB, solid RBs some experienced offensive linemen, plus a couple decent receivers. He didn't have great pieces to work with but he had more to work with then the current staff does because at least he had an experienced QB who despite his flaws was way better then the guys we have now as evidenced by the fact that they could not come close to beating him out for the job.

And as for the schedule, they had one of the easiest Big Ten schedules you could hope for. To their credit they won the games they were supposed to but they also didn't win any of the conference games they weren't supposed to outside of maybe the game with Northwestern and that wouldn't be classified as a major upset. Of the 9 wins on the season the only game that was a surprise at all was the bowl game, outside of that one you basically could have scripted the season before it even started.

Give Fleck last year's roster and last year's schedule for his first season and the end result would have been very similar to what happened under Claeys. Had Claeys come back for year 2 with this roster and this schedule it would not shock me one bit if the record was basically the same as it is right now. But that is just my opinion, feel free to keep pretending that this current roster is better than it really is. Tough to win in football when you don't have a reliable QB, Leidner wasn't great but he was light years ahead of what we are running out there right now.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
So it took them until year 4 to start outplaying their recruiting ranking? I thought good coaching overrides talent, even in year one? They were never top 20, and were top 30 once.

20-30 generally suggests a range of values. I'm generally busy during the day so didn't have time to look at the exact numbers. Sure enough, the team improved from the 70-80ish range early on to a peak of 26 in 2015 and some finishes in the 30-40s.


As for your last question, you keep trying to argue against it so apparently that knowledge is still unfounded to you.

Only in your mind have I or anyone ever argued against that. The hangup is your refusal to believe that coaches can over or underperform the talent at their disposal. I've kindly asked you to generate more detailed numbers based on different criteria and thus far bupkus.
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.
 

John Galt said:
Bottom line, you aren't going to have a good football team with no upperclassmen that are bound for the NFL. Last year's team had Travis and Myrick, plus Winfield (in all likelihood).
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So we count Winfield as a likely NFL player when he plays as a true FR but we don't get to count any FR or SO this year?

Also, Travis was not drafted.

When we count this years talent I assume we get to count FR/SO and guys who are signed as free agents too?
 

builtbadgers said:
Is any part of this about who is actually a better coach between Fleck and the previous regime ? Because for the record, PJ was highly sought after and was going to get that 3 million from someone. The previous regime not all that valued elsewhere.
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College football past and present is littered with highly sought coaches who failed.

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John Galt said:
Let's use my favorite metric, draftable upperclassmen, to determine which team was better:

2007 - 0 draft picks, and I don't believe a single junior/senior ever made an NFL roster - http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/m-footbl-mtt-07-08.html
2011 - 0 draft picks, but Michael Carter, Brandon Kirksey, MarQueis Gray, Da'Jon McKnight, Kim Royston, and Troy Stoudemire were all upperclassmen. Hageman was a Sophomore. http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/m-footbl-mtt-07-08.html
2017 - tbd. I don't think we have a single junior/senior on this team that will be drafted. It's still early to tell what will happen with the younger players.

Bottom line, you aren't going to have a good football team with no upperclassmen that are bound for the NFL. Last year's team had Travis and Myrick, plus Winfield (in all likelihood). Looking at the rosters, I think 2007 is far and away the worst roster of the 3. 2011 looks better on paper than a 3-9 team.
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I thought it was draftable seniors?
Nice pivot to try to make a point. What's your next move?
 

My guess is Rodney Smith, Shannon Brooks, Ryan Santoso, Emmit Carpenter, Stephen Richardson, Celestine, Duke McGhee and possibly Kobe will all get NFL camp invites. I think Smith, Brooks, Santoso and Carpenter have shots to make a team.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
So we count Winfield as a likely NFL player when he plays as a true FR but we don't get to count any FR or SO this year?

Also, Travis was not drafted.

When we count this years talent I assume we get to count FR/SO and guys who are signed as free agents too?
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I view Winfield as a definite NFL talent. I'm not sure about the other underclassmen, are you?

Travis was on the practice squad but not drafted.
 

Hates Monikers said:
College football past and present is littered with highly sought coaches who failed.

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This one has not failed. The previous one did. At the end of the day you have to win something, at least a division, a conference or a Rose Bowl. 14-21 IS HORRIBLE. 5 years and not even a sniff. I have had Gopher seats for basketball and football for several decades and i am sick of accepting mediocre as progress. 5 years in you better win something that matters. Those before Fleck got their chance and failed, now it is his turn. I could be wrong but i give him a far better chance to get it done.
 

builtbadgers said:
This one has not failed. The previous one did. At the end of the day you have to win something, at least a division, a conference or a Rose Bowl. 14-21 IS HORRIBLE. 5 years and not even a sniff. I have had Gopher seats for basketball and football for several decades and i am sick of accepting mediocre as progress. 5 years in you better win something that matters. Those before Fleck got their chance and failed, now it is his turn. I could be wrong but i give him a far better chance to get it done.
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I hope to god he succeeds. I've been waiting 45 years. But being sought after guarantees nothing.

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