Former Minnesota head coach Tracy Claeys added to Hokies staff, reunites with Kill

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Pompous Elitist said:
The team has moved into the next higher tier and is in a better place overall right now vs under that regime but it’s always interesting to see how much vitriol some have for TC. Every former coach has its detractors and absolutely fair to point them out.

Claeys on field missteps were surely no worse than PJFs this year. Off the field fair to criticize Claeys but interestingly the same people give Coyle and Kaler a pass. Compare and contrast Wisconsin's approach to Quintez Cephus with how MN treated it’s students. This, despite the accusers sueing the school after Cephus was reinstated (the case went to trial and the accusers were shown to be fibbing). Kaler’s and Coyle’s panic in the face of the prospect of facing hostile media, combined with a horrific lack of communication helped lead to the fiasco that ensued. Has anyone heard a peep about Cephus all year? Nope.
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It’s a lot easier to let a story fly under the radar and the process to play itself out.

if the Wisconsin team threatened to boycot a game because cephus was suspended and chryst came out publicly on the opposite side of the issue of Alvarez, Chryst would get fired too.

Tracy Claeys was an absolute idiot if he wanted to keep the head coaching job. There isn’t a coach in the entire country save for maybe saban and urban Meyer before he retired that could publicly go on the record against the administration and survive it. Which is why you usually don’t see them doing that.
 

Some guy said:
It’s a lot easier to let a story fly under the radar and the process to play itself out.

if the Wisconsin team threatened to boycot a game because cephus was suspended and chryst came out publicly on the opposite side of the issue of Alvarez, Chryst would get fired too.

Tracy Claeys was an absolute idiot if he wanted to keep the head coaching job. There isn’t a coach in the entire country save for maybe saban and urban Meyer before he retired that could publicly go on the record against the administration and survive it. Which is why you usually don’t see them doing that.
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Sounds like Chryst was proud of his guys supporting their accused teammate. Chryst himself stated he’d welcome the accused back to the team. Ironically the case going to trial was probably the best thing that could have happened to Cephus as there was a real discovery process, less evidence was filtered, witness cross examination occurred, a jury was not indoctrinated in memory pseudoscience, etc etc etc.

??

Chryst cautioned, however, that it is too early in the process to assume Cephus will return to UW and the team.
“There’s a lot of steps that have to happen,” he said. “There’s been a lot of work being done and will continue to be done so that Q can find out his options.
“I’m proud of the way this team helped him pull through it. It has been hard on everyone involved.”
Cephus in October 2018 filed a lawsuit against UW, contending school officials violated his rights to equal protection and due process by conducting a Title IX disciplinary action while he still faced criminal charges involving the same incident.
The suit was dropped in March but his attorneys could refile the suit if UW officials deny Cephus’ petition to be readmitted.
 

TC was the man...all the purple in la today were gopher fans as well...wish it had been the rose bowl.....felt like it could have been ....sun..crazed Minnesotans in socal everywhere4....great day in purple
 




Pompous Elitist said:
Sounds like Chryst was proud of his guys supporting their accused teammate. Chryst himself stated he’d welcome the accused back to the team. Ironically the case going to trial was probably the best thing that could have happened to Cephus as there was a real discovery process, less evidence was filtered, witness cross examination occurred, a jury was not indoctrinated in memory pseudoscience, etc etc etc.

??

Chryst cautioned, however, that it is too early in the process to assume Cephus will return to UW and the team.
“There’s a lot of steps that have to happen,” he said. “There’s been a lot of work being done and will continue to be done so that Q can find out his options.
“I’m proud of the way this team helped him pull through it. It has been hard on everyone involved.”
Cephus in October 2018 filed a lawsuit against UW, contending school officials violated his rights to equal protection and due process by conducting a Title IX disciplinary action while he still faced criminal charges involving the same incident.
The suit was dropped in March but his attorneys could refile the suit if UW officials deny Cephus’ petition to be readmitted.
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If you can’t see the difference between what Wisconsin players did and said and what Minnesota players did and said, I can’t help you.
If you can’t see how Chryst supporting what Wisconsin players did and said is different from TC supporting what Minnesota players did and said, I can’t help you.
 

Some guy said:
It’s a lot easier to let a story fly under the radar and the process to play itself out.

if the Wisconsin team threatened to boycot a game because cephus was suspended and chryst came out publicly on the opposite side of the issue of Alvarez, Chryst would get fired too.

Tracy Claeys was an absolute idiot if he wanted to keep the head coaching job. There isn’t a coach in the entire country save for maybe saban and urban Meyer before he retired that could publicly go on the record against the administration and survive it. Which is why you usually don’t see them doing that.
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Well, I would agree that TC was an idiot if his goal in standing up for the players was to keep his job. Just maybe, that wasn’t his goal and he put his own beliefs and those of the players above keeping his job.
 


Some guy said:
If you can’t see the difference between what Wisconsin players did and said and what Minnesota players did and said, I can’t help you.
If you can’t see how Chryst supporting what Wisconsin players did and said is different from TC supporting what Minnesota players did and said, I can’t help you.
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Please explain - complicated situation at MN with a lot of failures but genuinely interested to hear what you think. The main difference seems to be law enforcement took the next step and prosecuted Cephus in a criminal trial. He was cleared by the legal system (sound familiar) and the school had the benefit of the findings of fair and thorough trial process to aid their decision while MN had the compromised EOAA investigator and SMSS panel findings. Apples and oranges in that respect.
 



Pompous Elitist said:
Please explain - complicated situation at MN with a lot of failures but genuinely interested to hear what you think. The main difference seems to be law enforcement took the next step and prosecuted Cephus in a criminal trial. He was cleared by the legal system (sound familiar) and the school had the benefit of the findings of fair and thorough trial process to aid their decision while MN had the compromised EOAA investigator and SMSS panel findings. Apples and oranges in that respect.
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MN lacks institutional control. weird, cuz we have constitutional autonomy
 

CWCWCW said:
Will Sawvel join the reunion?
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Saw Sawvel last spring and he said he wasn't even looking for a job at the time. Unless things changed he was living in the north metro and enjoying time with family.
 

Cruze said:
Very few Minnesotans can imagine the sexual abuse scandal that became a nationwide story and public relations disaster during the Kill/Claeys regime ever happening during Fleck's time as coach. There was a culture problem with the team that Claeys contributed to and he did nothing to help clean up the mess. In fact, he made it worse. He left the job to clean it up entirely to Coyle and Kaler.
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How do we know that. Coyle was aware of the incident from the earliest stages.
 

Some guy said:
It’s a lot easier to let a story fly under the radar and the process to play itself out.

if the Wisconsin team threatened to boycot a game because cephus was suspended and chryst came out publicly on the opposite side of the issue of Alvarez, Chryst would get fired too.

Tracy Claeys was an absolute idiot if he wanted to keep the head coaching job. There isn’t a coach in the entire country save for maybe saban and urban Meyer before he retired that could publicly go on the record against the administration and survive it. Which is why you usually don’t see them doing that.
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Reading between the lines, I think Claeys knew that he was gone well before he backed the players. We have to remember that this situation was evolving since September. The excrement hit fan in December. We will never know the whole of it, but I find it hard to believe that it all was up to Claeys. The Mpls DA cleared the players twice. It would have been very easy to have the AD step in, oh wait he did. Then the AD gave the okay for the players to play again. The players/ team felt jerked around. Quadruple jeopardy doesn't seem like a good way to handle things.

Not saying it's Coyle's fault, but there was/ is definitely areas that could have been handled better.
 



I thought for sure Claeys would end up DC at VT, but didn't realize they had the next one in waiting. I'm a little surprised he chose to be a position coach, but maybe the lure of Coach Kill was too much to resist?
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
I thought for sure Claeys would end up DC at VT, but didn't realize they had the next one in waiting. I'm a little surprised he chose to be a position coach, but maybe the lure of Coach Kill was too much to resist?
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Also a little surprised he didn't resurface in a DC role but does happen in coaching a fair amount. I just can't believe we are on page 3 of yet another thread of bickering about Kill/Claeys/Fleck....
 

RememberMurray said:
Again with the "Ol' Jer" crap?

If you insist on being one of Pat's Parrots, could you at least put the apostrophe in the proper place? Also, if you're going to be faithful to your inspiration, Patrick Reusse's 'pithy' name for Kill was "Country Jer".

I know, I know... Reusse has professionals editing his musings, and you don't have that advantage. But let's be honest: this "Country Jer" schtick is some of Pat's weaker stuff, and it's not worth parroting.

Reusse was once an excellent sports writer, but these days he's a mere troll. You could do better in your choice of heroes.
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Well, that escalated quickly.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
I thought for sure Claeys would end up DC at VT, but didn't realize they had the next one in waiting. I'm a little surprised he chose to be a position coach, but maybe the lure of Coach Kill was too much to resist?
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Is there someone at VT who TC knew or something?

I think of coaching hires is networking and TC spent all his time under Kill and a bad stint at WSU... I don't think that adds up to much as far as getting hired.
 

Panthadad2 said:
One of the negative posters should probably answer, but I'm pretty sure the perception for some would have been different had Kill not burned his bridges with his negative comments on the current staff and administration. Being a prick publicly doesn't help.
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Yep. Jerry crafted this good old nice guy coach persona here and basically ruined that goodwill with his comments after Claeys was fired. It doesn't help that he's damaged any kind of image of sincerity as he's consistently job-hopped in the years since.

Claeys is a good football coach. I admire him for standing up for the players, some of whom got a raw deal. But long term he was never, ever going to be the head coach here. You have to have a certain personality and he didn't have it.
 

STPGopher said:
Reading between the lines, I think Claeys knew that he was gone well before he backed the players. We have to remember that this situation was evolving since September. The excrement hit fan in December. We will never know the whole of it, but I find it hard to believe that it all was up to Claeys. The Mpls DA cleared the players twice. It would have been very easy to have the AD step in, oh wait he did. Then the AD gave the okay for the players to play again. The players/ team felt jerked around. Quadruple jeopardy doesn't seem like a good way to handle things.

Not saying it's Coyle's fault, but there was/ is definitely areas that could have been handled better.
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No question it could’ve been handled better by the whole admin.

Coyle has nobody to blame but himself for the players threatening to boycot.
Claeys should’ve been a leader of young men and taught them a more appropriate way of voicing their concerns (like the Wisconsin team did to back cephus).

once the boycott threat went national Claeys had to back the university’s position if he ever wanted a chance at being retained or at a near future head coaching job. He made himself toxic as a head football hire By publicly embarrassing the admin whether they deserved to be or not.

if you separate the innocence or guilt of the players involved from the actions of the coach/admin. There is no way the admin could keep him.
if they players are innocent and the admin messed it up, they still needed to get rid of Claeys for his response.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Please explain - complicated situation at MN with a lot of failures but genuinely interested to hear what you think. The main difference seems to be law enforcement took the next step and prosecuted Cephus in a criminal trial. He was cleared by the legal system (sound familiar) and the school had the benefit of the findings of fair and thorough trial process to aid their decision while MN had the compromised EOAA investigator and SMSS panel findings. Apples and oranges in that respect.
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Not talking at all about the incident.
The incident didn’t do Claeys in.

Maybe they knew they were going to fire Claeys before the incident.

But regardless of how bad the admin messed or didn’t mess anything up, Claeys reacted in a way that there isn’t a university in the country that would’ve kept him around save maybe Saban at Alabama.

Rather than leading his players to a deescalation to let the process play out like Chryst did with Cephus’ teammates. Claeys either emboldened them or failed to lead them to deescalation. When the story blew up to a national level story from there, regardless of your thoughts on the fairness of EOAA or whatever it’s called, the head coach can’t publicly oppose the university’s stance and expect to keep the job.
Once he publicly opposed Coyle and Kaler’s stance, there were only two options:
1) Claeys is gone
2) Claeys is gone and so was Coyle and/or Kaler
Both scenarios involve Claeys being gone.

you can’t blow up and embarrassing story for your university, make it an even bigger national story, and publicly undermine your boss. That’s a good recipe to get let go by either the current or new administration.
 

#2Gopher said:
I'm a little surprised about this as well. I always felt that he was an excellent DC. However perhaps more out there than we realized. I would think he would be in demand.
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You must not have paid attention to WSU this year...
 

Some guy said:
Not talking at all about the incident.
The incident didn’t do Claeys in.

Maybe they knew they were going to fire Claeys before the incident.

But regardless of how bad the admin messed or didn’t mess anything up, Claeys reacted in a way that there isn’t a university in the country that would’ve kept him around save maybe Saban at Alabama.

Rather than leading his players to a deescalation to let the process play out like Chryst did with Cephus’ teammates. Claeys either emboldened them or failed to lead them to deescalation. When the story blew up to a national level story from there, regardless of your thoughts on the fairness of EOAA or whatever it’s called, the head coach can’t publicly oppose the university’s stance and expect to keep the job.
Once he publicly opposed Coyle and Kaler’s stance, there were only two options:
1) Claeys is gone
2) Claeys is gone and so was Coyle and/or Kaler
Both scenarios involve Claeys being gone.

you can’t blow up and embarrassing story for your university, make it an even bigger national story, and publicly undermine your boss. That’s a good recipe to get let go by either the current or new administration.
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I think fans here tend to wildly overestimate how much attention fans pay to the program, whether good or bad. Tracy Claeys tweet was intentionally misinterpreted by those actively looking to be upset due to his “pro-rape”attitude (right?) which was always a ludicrous stance. Those people get a hard eye roll. Twitter is an awful medium for nuance, yes.

There is something called the 24 hour news cycle, and there weren’t even police charges in this he said she said scenario. Nationally we’re seeing more and more people just wait out the cycle, allow emotions to simmer down, and attention turns to something else.

Management is always 100% responsible. The school from the top down failed their students. Do better.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Is there someone at VT who TC knew or something?

I think of coaching hires is networking and TC spent all his time under Kill and a bad stint at WSU... I don't think that adds up to much as far as getting hired.
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You are joking, right? You know Jerry Kill is a "special assistant" there. I figured when they hired JK, knew Bud Foster was retiring and Claeys "resigned" midyear it was a done deal.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
You are joking, right? You know Jerry Kill is a "special assistant" there. I figured when they hired JK, knew Bud Foster was retiring and Claeys "resigned" midyear it was a done deal.
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Ha

For some reason I read the article, then got back to this thread and assumed LadyGopher was talking about another team ... that's what happens when you don't reread the thread.
 

SJUgopher said:
You must not have paid attention to WSU this year...
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Claeys had a secondary coach in open rebellion against him and couldn't get Mike Leach's support to make him toe the line and do things his way. The situation was intolerable and Claeys walked away. Given the situation defensive breakdowns were inevitable.
 

nsmike said:
Claeys had a secondary coach in open rebellion against him and couldn't get Mike Leach's support to make him toe the line and do things his way. The situation was intolerable and Claeys walked away. Given the situation defensive breakdowns were inevitable.
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All of which reinforces the narrative that TC is not a good leader if he can't provide direction and control to his support staff. He should know the situation as an outsider when he took the WSU job. He wasn't going to be working with his normal family any more
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Ha

For some reason I read the article, then got back to this thread and assumed LadyGopher was talking about another team ... that's what happens when you don't reread the thread.
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Funny. The way you wrote it I didn't think you were being sarcastic, but I was like you have to know, so how can't you be! :) Makes sense now.(y)
 

Pompous Elitist said:
I think fans here tend to wildly overestimate how much attention fans pay to the program, whether good or bad. Tracy Claeys tweet was intentionally misinterpreted by those actively looking to be upset due to his “pro-rape”attitude (right?) which was always a ludicrous stance. Those people get a hard eye roll. Twitter is an awful medium for nuance, yes.

There is something called the 24 hour news cycle, and there weren’t even police charges in this he said she said scenario. Nationally we’re seeing more and more people just wait out the cycle, allow emotions to simmer down, and attention turns to something else.

Management is always 100% responsible. The school from the top down failed their students. Do better.
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Who is the direct manager of the players?
The coach

Again, If you can’t see it, I can’t help you.
 

Some guy said:
If you can’t see the difference between what Wisconsin players did and said and what Minnesota players did and said, I can’t help you.
If you can’t see how Chryst supporting what Wisconsin players did and said is different from TC supporting what Minnesota players did and said, I can’t help you.
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Some guy said:
Who is the direct manager of the players?
The coach

Again, If you can’t see it, I can’t help you.
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Well, you sure aren’t very helpful.
Maybe a resolution for 2020?
 


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