So........
1) The Sr's and Jr's on this years team have been coached by Brewster for 3 years now. If we don't argue the talent level point - eg the talent behind them is better -- for a moment, watching the lack of discipline, the confusion, and the basic unpreparedness of his teams is concerning that he can actually coach. Better players will hide some, but not all of that and that is a concern.
I don't think anyone is saying there aren't improvements to be made or that Brewster is a great on field coach at this point, but there is something to be said for overmatched and inexperienced athletes making more mistakes, and i know you point out three year starters, but the majority of the penalties are not from those guys. It's from the first year guys, be it Juco's or freshmen.
2) If you look at the players Brewster's recruited to fill gaps and improve the quality of the team, aside from Simoni Lawrence who has been steady but not spectacular and Troy Stoudimire who is a stud on Special Teams (until the penalty invariably brings the play back) but mediocre at best as a WR what promise is there that this better talent will improve the team?
-David Pittman sure hasn't.
-Hayo Carpenter sure hasn't
-Jeff Wills sure hasn't
-Big Play Traye has given up as many Big Plays as he's made (if not more)
-Marquies Gray has looked as confused, overwhelmed and inaccurate as Weber in his playing time (if not worse) save the practice like quality his only extended appearance took place in.
It isn't a forgone conclusion that Brewster will not succeed here but there are not clear indications that I can point to to say, yes, it is headed in the right direction.
It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if people that post here even watch the games. Cooper, Wilhite, Carter, McKnight, Gray, Stoudimire, Allen, Edwards, Tinsley, Green, dandridge, Kirksey. That's twelve freshmen or sophmores making significant contributions. All of which look more talented than the experienced guys ahead of them.
Take 1: Yes, the D looked good and held Iowa to 12 pts at home.
Take 2: Yes, Iowa, playing with significant injuries didn't press anything offensively when it became obvious we could not get anything going offensively, and conservatively insured victory leaving the 9 and then 12 point lead to the defense to protect.
Take 1: We had a chance to win Against tOSU -- it was only 7-0 at half time
Take 2: Our offensive struggles were so bad, we were never in the game, the score was close until tOSU worked out their offensive Demons and took it to us in the second half.
I could go on and on with this.
I have not, nor will I ever give up on Gopher Football, but I have been convinced that:
- John Gutekunst and the prevent offense wasn't going to get it done.
- Jim Wacker was a hell of a guy, but getting down by 21 before we did anything offensively wasn't going to get the program anywhere
- Glen Mason had delivered some moderate success and had us within one victory on two occasions of going to the Rose Bowl but that we would never get over the hump with him at the helm and we needed someone to take us the rest of the way
- Tim Brewster set this program backwards when he was hired by insisting we start over completely, and while sometimes you need to go backwards to go forwards, there are usually signs of consistency of approach that illustrates progress and opportunity. All we have is higher recruiting rankings than we've had in the past, which again will help, but will not overcome the evident coaching deficiencies that have plagued this program since Brewster took over.
You don't have to agree, but if you can't even consider the evidence that suggests there are significant issues that "better" players may not address (e.g. getting the play to Weber with more than 7 seconds on the play clock, or not having an unsportsmanlike penalty in something like 20 of the last 25 games), then I would say you haven't been watching and you would say I'm dumb or giving up on Gopher Football or something else like that.