Different attitude these days

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Gold Rush

Gold Rush

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Do you know what this OL coaching hire tells me?

It tells me the Gophers are no longer satisfied to be 7-5 anymore. Brewster identified the problem with the offensive line and running game he is doing something about it. Not only is he trying to get a top coach, he is making him the offensive line and running coordinator to hopefully fix the problem.

It is a very different attitude these days. Before, I always got the feeling that the Gophers were content with a 7-5 record and there was no sense of urgency to get better. The recruiting stayed status quo and I honestly believed there was no chance that we would improve to the next level because everything was perceived "just fine" as we were. Now I see how angry Gopher fans are with how we finished and I can see that everyone is not satisfied. Brewster isn't satisfied either and I have a hunch he will really recruit hard to improve. THAT is the mark of a team that is hungry and wants to get better.

Brewster will still be able to point to this season and tell recruits that we are moving in the right direction and we are getting better and that will hopefully convince enough of them to eventually sign with us. Stay focused and stay hungry and do whatever you can to get to be a better football team. THAT is how we will get to be a better football team.
 

In line with that good thought of yours, it tells me

1. If Brewster sees a problem/issue he will address it ASAP!
2. He already has a plan in place when he does address it (tell me he did not already have Davis ready when Meyers re-signed. My suspicion is Brew basically told Meyers this is the direction he wants to go and has trouble seeing him be the one to help make it happen.
3. He knows how to upgrade

Though given that Meyers was having to work with young OLmen so I do not blame it all on him, at the same time there should have been some sort of improvement rather then digressing the last four games. And when opposing defenses found the weaknesses to MN and exploited it, there should have been adjustments made. As far as I could tell, neither happened, at least to a satisfactory level and definitely not to the level where Meyers could be trusted with the changes Brew is going to make.

Whatever Bowl the Gophers end up in, look for a Gophers victory if for no other reason than teams will not know what or how to defense them.
 

It seems like with every move he makes a solid improvement. I like it.
 

I agree with the OP. It started last year when Brewster went out and immediately got a handful of JUCO players to step in on defense. I like his sense of urgency. He is constantly evaluating the team and addresses their needs IMMEDIATELY.
 

I agree. Different attitude. Throw your OL coach under the bus to deflect attention away from yourself after losing a rivalry game 55-0 at home to a team not that much better than you.

Yep, that's definitely an attitude change.

Here's my question. How is this coach from Alabama suddenly available when their season isn't over yet? Is this guy in Saban's doghouse and saw the writing on the wall? Who abandons the #1 team in the country with 2-3 games left? What does that say about his committment? If he were to come on board after the season, that's one thing, but the guy was hired 24 hours after the old coach was thrown under the bus.

Hmmmm.....
 


As to the question of why Davis would be coming to MPLS Monday and not until Mid-January?

Alabama has already completed their recruiting of O-Line players and Minnesota isn't. Has anyone looked at the size of O-Linemen the Crimson Tide has committed for 2009?

They received all their oral committments last fall into this past summer. They just wrapped up their final player up 3 weeks ago.

Davis is a good recruiter and will probably help add another player or 2. Meyers was not a recruiter and if Davis would have arrived with just a couple weeks left until LOI what type pf player do you think would be available to recruit for the O-Line.

Brewster wants to WIN the bowl game and Davis will have some time to help the players improve.
The team will finally be healthy and the opposition will have 3 fewer weeks to get rested up and get ready than the Gophers will. The break to get healthy and refreshed plus get prepared with 15extra practices will be a huge factor in the bowl game.
 

Open talk of Rose Bowl still rings in my head when Brewster was hired. Now that he has been here for two years, he knows there is a ton of roadblocks ahead of him that he needs to plow through or finesse around them in order to get there. Both the quality of the the staff and players must be upgraded and Brewster is not backing down from the challenge.

USC, pro's, Bama is a strange road indeed. But there may be a silver lining ahead for Coach Davis. IMO, coordinator of the running game/OL coach in a BT school nwith a decent salary is a nice gig for the guy and could be considered a step upwards.

Brewster knows what he wants. I think he is still figuring out how to get there. If Coach Davis is of the same mold of Roof then Brewster has one more piece of the puzzle in place.

Chill out a bit there Art. I would guess Brewster has been working on this change for some time now and found the guy he wanted.
 

Here is the way things went down: Brewster knew he needed to make a change and made it. Nick Saben (sp?) knows his coaches and what their goals are. Nick was informed of the opening, spoke with Tim Davis and the rest is history. Believe it or not, there are still people out there that look for challenges, want to built something from the ground up and so location doesnt factor in (within reason) as long as the opportunity meets the challenge.
 

Art;

He wasn't coaching for Alabama this year. He was the Director of Player Personnel. You can also make the timing look suspicious, but for for a running game to work within a spread system a QB has to be accurate and elusive. The receivers have to be good and numerous. That makes "scatback" size runners and average linemen successful.

It certainly didn't take the blowout against Iowa to realize that many of those things weren't going to happen this year or next. Take those things away and you'll need need big lineman and backs to make the rest of the spread work.

Nothing to get pissed about.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving to you and Everyone out there!
 



I have a feeling you will see the same type of progress by the offensive line next year that you saw out of the defense this year.

For whatever reason, the coaching was not working. This does not say that the previous coach was a horrible coach, but it just wasn't the right fit. Withers' defensive schemes just did not work last year but he went on to coach at UNC and do a good job for the Tarheels. I think the same thing will be true for our running game and offensive line next year....
 

I hope, but the OL isn't as plug and play as the D. We'll be better though, but how much??
 

IMO I love the move. Everyone on the board has been frustrated with the lack of a run game from day one. TB says what he means and means what he says. He wanted a running game that involved the spread. Its not happening, lets get someone to get in and do it. What is also interesting is that TB is involving himself in it as well.
 

Iceland12 said:
Art;

He wasn't coaching for Alabama this year. He was the Director of Player Personnel. You can also make the timing look suspicious, but for for a running game to work within a spread system a QB has to be accurate and elusive. The receivers have to be good and numerous. That makes "scatback" size runners and average linemen successful.

It certainly didn't take the blowout against Iowa to realize that many of those things weren't going to happen this year or next. Take those things away and you'll need need big lineman and backs to make the rest of the spread work.

Nothing to get pissed about.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving to you and Everyone out there!
Click to expand...


come on now iceland. how long have you been reading the gopherhole? when was the last time you recall art ever having a positive outlook on anything?! :rolleyes:

did you really expect him to post anything about tim davis other than what he did? happy thanksgiving art!
 



Different Attitude

Art Vandelay said:
I agree. Different attitude. Throw your OL coach under the bus to deflect attention away from yourself after losing a rivalry game 55-0 at home to a team not that much better than you.

Yep, that's definitely an attitude change.

Here's my question. How is this coach from Alabama suddenly available when their season isn't over yet? Is this guy in Saban's doghouse and saw the writing on the wall? Who abandons the #1 team in the country with 2-3 games left? What does that say about his committment? If he were to come on board after the season, that's one thing, but the guy was hired 24 hours after the old coach was thrown under the bus.

Hmmmm.....
Click to expand...

I am not sure what press conferences you were listening to Art, but I haven't heard Brewster throw anyone under a bus. In fact, he stated that he alone is responsible for the loss and he will do whatever it takes to improve our team.

He is upgrading talent at both the coaching lever and player level. He has improved this team and I am thrilled at the possibilities.
 

He was quite positive after Mason was fired and a few games into Brewster's first season...;)

But Bronko, with a whole lot of good people I know losing their jobs for things WAY beyond their control, I'm not in much of a "to hell with them" mood over football. I get that at the job ever day. I've already put Saturday WAY out of my mind. A little more complaining by Art isn't going bother me much.

Enjoy the holidays Bronko, I hope you and your family get through okay.
 

Who knows? maybe Davis was promised OC after next year (strictly speculation on my part). Also, Alabama is in a smaller community - he and his family may prefer the city lights.
 

GreatPlains, I was thinking the same thing you mentioned as well. Tim Davis might be coming up to a very good situation and I think he will be able to help us out.

We need to improve on 3rd and short plays. I bet we were near the bottom of the NCAA on 3rd down conversions on short yardage.

I hope he utilizes a fullback on 3rd and short and has Weber go under center - that has got to be better than what we had this year and we won't have to punt as much. I think our OL will be better from a lot more experience and hopefully Davis can come right in and get to work as soon as possible!!
 

I bet we have a short yardage play that works by the Bowl Game. Based on what Davis has said, I'm thinking that's about all we see except attitude. He wants one play that works to build off, and that's our greatest need.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
I am not sure what press conferences you were listening to Art, but I haven't heard Brewster throw anyone under a bus. In fact, he stated that he alone is responsible for the loss and he will do whatever it takes to improve our team.

He is upgrading talent at both the coaching lever and player level. He has improved this team and I am thrilled at the possibilities.
Click to expand...

Ummm, he threw his OL coach under the bus by firing him almost immediately after the Iowa loss. Again, how is losing 55-0 at home to an OK Iowa team considered improving?? Outscored 84-6 in the final 2 home games. He could've hired Mickey Mouse as the new OL coach and the lemmings on this board would still be appluading the decision. None of you, myself included, have ever heard of this guy so quit pretending like he's some sort of Lombardilike coaching legend. This Davis fella may, or may not be the next Gordy Shaw, but red flags have to go up when a guy walks out on the #1 team in the country with 2 games left. It doesn't look like Saban went out of his way to convince him to stay. I guess we'll see soon enough eh??
 

You need to read up on the situation and try to put it in perspective of how college football works Art.

If you've looked at the resume's at all you'd see that Davis is significantly more accomplished as an OL coach.

If you'd look at his situation at alabama you'd see that he was not in a coaching role. You'd also be able to see that he's not going to get that same position at Alabama as the path was blocked. You might even be able to see that possibly he was on Saban's staff until he found the right position coach job again. Possibly Saban was doing him a favor, being out of work following the Miami change??

Obviously Brewster was unhappy with the OL play, who was happy with it? He had a chance to upgrade, it's his job to make the move. You'd have to ignore a lot of info to conclude that this was purely sacrificial as you'd like to believe it to be.
 

Art...........

I just think that 7-5 was considered "good enough" by the former regime but I do not see that anymore.

Art, you know when I knew Mason lost his job here?? It was right after he went 10-3 in 2003. I was feeling very good about the program and felt Mason would kick it up a notch and with the success he had on the field finally be able to bring in a recruiting class that would be able to get to the next level.

Well, if you take a look at the 2004 class, it was extremely disappointing -- it was the class we just graduated this year. It was rated 10th in the Big Ten that year (which is inexcuseable for a 10-3 team) and filled with 2 star kids that became busts, with a few good gets. It did feature 5 QB's, but I wish there would have been 5 OL because we sure could have used them this year. I knew as soon as they announced it that Mason had taken this team as far as he could and there was no urgency to ever get better. I always got the feeling from everyone that 7-5 was a great season and I don't get that anymore.

That was the point of the original post -- that the staff is trying harder than ever to get better and improve the team on all levels. THAT is what it takes to be playing on New Year's Day and I think Brewster will not rest until he gets us to the Rose Bowl or dies trying.
 

Previous Line Coaches

While I think Shaw was a good line coach, people on this board give him way more credit than he deserves. I am too lazy to look back at the poster that also pointed this out but Browning should get as much or more credit as a line coach. There is a reason Browning found a job at D-1 Syracuse, even though there are/were terrible this year, and coach Shaw is working at a D-2 (maybe 1-AA now, I don't know) school.

And I hate how often people bring up the past regime but here I am doing it. The reason we had success is due to the system, Terry Jackson filled in during the 2002 (?) season and had a Top 5 year for the U and didn't even sniff the field the next year. Same can be applied to the offensive line, about the same ratio (including TE's which Browning coached) has made it to the NFL over the last few years maybe more RB's but it's close.
 

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