Doogie: Five names to watch as Gophers football coaching search narrows

[60's Guy]

Calhoun

I bet if you talk to Notre Dame coaches/players -- they played Army & Navy -- they would tell you that conditioning-wise, it was a blowout in Navy's favor... I remember talking to a couple players after last year's game against Air Force... they were struck by how strong/focused AF was in the 2nd half... point = still different levels of conditioning even with service academies... and we are still talking about 18-21 year olds... so, Calhoun gets no credit for instilling some of that discipline?

Calhoun gets credit but the starting line is in a different place to begin with. If an athlete goes to a service academy he has great grades, he is a goodie two shoes kind of kid, and he isn't good enough on the football field to be recruited by USC, Ohio St, Texas, Florida etc

So, while these kinds of kids play with great discipline, they are not good enough athletes to beat Big Ten teams consistently. You couldn't just keep recruiting those same people to play at Minnesota versus Ohio State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska etc So, can Calhoun recruit and develop
the better athletes with lesser grades and a more diverse free time curiosity than a service academy kid's straight and narrow profile?

Calhoun is an unknown in this environment.

 

[60's Guy]

Edsall

Oh no! Edsall isn't dominating at this current point in time. He must be a bad candidate. Love the gopherhole.

What suggests to you that career .500 coach is all of a sudden going to dominate the Big Ten?
It is a much tougher conference. The opposing players and the coaches are better. If he can't dominate at a lower level what makes it seem like he can by moving to a higher level.

Not that many guys hitting .212 in AA baseball get promoted to the big leagues and win the batting title. To me, it is just my opinion, Edsall has proven he can't do it.

All these guys are not who I hope we are choosing from but at least Mullen has "potential". He hasn't proven it isn't going to happen in his career. But Hoke and Edsall have labored and proven middle of the the road over their careers. Hoke left nothing at his last stop prior to SDST. It was not a program on the rise.

 

[mkAz]

(4) As of right now his offensive identity is a base wishbone. For all we know he will stick with it if he chose to come to Minnesota. However, this is a guy who has a long successful record on the offensive side of the ball at both the NFL and college level, being a coordinator and a quarterbacks coach. There is nothing that leads me to believe he could not adapt his offensive scheme to better suit the Big 10.

This worries me about Calhoun, the fact that if he comes here he will more than likely be employing a scheme he has never coached at the collegiate level. Wasn't that an issue with Brewster? He kept changing his scheme trying to find the right fit. I'd much prefer someone who knows what scheme he will be employing and has had success with that scheme.

 

[calminnfan]

All this Mullen talk is going to make me disappointed if we don't hire him. He's by far the best candidate of the ones mentioned IMHO.

It does seem odd Mullen's name would continually be in the mix if he was not interested. It sounds like he is on the A list and somehow has expressed some interest. If he does get the job, lets hope he is not making MN a stepping stone. The Big Ten does not need to play second fiddle to the SEC.

 

[calminnfan]

This worries me about Calhoun, the fact that if he comes here he will more than likely be employing a scheme he has never coached at the collegiate level. Wasn't that an issue with Brewster? He kept changing his scheme trying to find the right fit. I'd much prefer someone who knows what scheme he will be employing and has had success with that scheme.

I have trouble with the Brewster/Calhoun comparison. Not because of the changing schemes. Arguably, Calhoun had to work with the athletes he got.

Brewster kept changing things trying to make something work rather then trying to establish something. He kept changing things before the players could get disciplined to something. He was continually trying to develop an identity on the fly, especially with all the change he had to deal with in regard to Coordinators.

At MN, Calhoun could more easily recruit for an identity and build up from there.