Gophers hired Glen Mason 25 years ago today with a salary of $140,000 per year plus incentives

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per the Rochester Post Bulletin:

1996 – 25 years ago

  • Glen Mason of Kansas was named as the new Minnesota Gopher football coach at a news conference. Mason was given a seven-year contract with a salary of $140,000 per year plus incentives. Mason replaces Jim Wacker.
www.postbulletin.com

1996: Glen Mason hired as Minnesota Gophers head football coach

Highlights from 1996, 1971, 1946 and 1921.
www.postbulletin.com www.postbulletin.com

Go Gophers!!
 



good coach, but had an awful recruiting philosophy.

He said something along the lines on Barreiro the other day that if his scouts found a guy who was 6'4 and 300 lbs and could play offensive line great, he would tell them to go find someone else, because they werent going to get a guy with the size and ability to play for them, said he would ask for the scouts instead to find someone smaller who could play, because then he wouldn't have to compete against as many schools. Some may call that being a realist, I call it defeatist.
 






skauma said:
good coach, but had an awful recruiting philosophy.

He said something along the lines on Barreiro the other day that if his scouts found a guy who was 6'4 and 300 lbs and could play offensive line great, he would tell them to go find someone else, because they werent going to get a guy with the size and ability to play for them, said he would ask for the scouts instead to find someone smaller who could play, because then he wouldn't have to compete against as many schools. Some may call that being a realist, I call it defeatist.
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I dunno, I don’t think he was a great recruiter, but I think the ability to determine “Can I really get this guy?” and passing on guys you know you are wasting your time on is an important skill go a coach.

The fact that they pass on some guys isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
 



skauma said:
good coach, but had an awful recruiting philosophy.

He said something along the lines on Barreiro the other day that if his scouts found a guy who was 6'4 and 300 lbs and could play offensive line great, he would tell them to go find someone else, because they werent going to get a guy with the size and ability to play for them, said he would ask for the scouts instead to find someone smaller who could play, because then he wouldn't have to compete against as many schools. Some may call that being a realist, I call it defeatist.
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I didn't hear that interview, but once upon a time I remember Mason saying something to the effect that he really scoured high school teams with losing records that often had really good players who were overlooked because their team wasn't particularly good. I got the impression that he didn't want to "chase" higher-ranked guys that he felt weren't going to seriously consider the Gophers. Not a bad strategy if you have limited resources.
 


skauma said:
good coach, but had an awful recruiting philosophy.

He said something along the lines on Barreiro the other day that if his scouts found a guy who was 6'4 and 300 lbs and could play offensive line great, he would tell them to go find someone else, because they werent going to get a guy with the size and ability to play for them, said he would ask for the scouts instead to find someone smaller who could play, because then he wouldn't have to compete against as many schools. Some may call that being a realist, I call it defeatist.
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Realistic 25 years ago with our facilities, organization and the dome. It worked for him to make it a 10 year stint.
 




MaxyJR1 said:
Realistic 25 years ago with our facilities, organization and the dome. It worked for him to make it a 10 year stint.
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It had to be frustrating for him to build that program for 10 years and actually get a stadium built only be fired right be for it opens. As I recall, Maturi said that if they had won that last bowl game he probably wouldn't have been fired. ???
 

GoForGold said:
It had to be frustrating for him to build that program for 10 years and actually get a stadium built only be fired right be for it opens. As I recall, Maturi said that if they had won that last bowl game he probably wouldn't have been fired. ???
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Yeah. It was a series of late game disasters in big games. It was kind of like the Vikings this year.

I think if the Vikings would have blown the game against the Steelers, I don't think Zimmer is the coach of the Vikings today. So technically, losing that bowl game did Mason in, but it was a cumulative decision based on similar breakdowns, breakdowns that really prevented us from getting over the hump.
 

GoForGold said:
It had to be frustrating for him to build that program for 10 years and actually get a stadium built only be fired right be for it opens. As I recall, Maturi said that if they had won that last bowl game he probably wouldn't have been fired. ???
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Mason should’ve been fired before the bowl game. Program had stagnated and started to decline IMO

A blocked field goal saved us from losing to FCS, saved 6-6, saved a bowl game.

then in the bowl game the team demonstrated exactly why Mason was never getting the program over the top.
It was time.

I appreciate Mason, but it was time. I don’t like coaches who do average and try to people they should be happy they are as good as they are. Kill and Claeys started to do it a little at the end too.
Don’t do mediocre things and try to say how impressive it is that you did mediocre things.


if Pj fleck is selling us on how good a 7 win season is in 5 years…I’ll be done with him too.
 

GoForGold said:
It had to be frustrating for him to build that program for 10 years and actually get a stadium built only be fired right be for it opens. As I recall, Maturi said that if they had won that last bowl game he probably wouldn't have been fired. ???
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It seems odd the decision hinged on whether the TT kicker was successful on a 52 yard FG or not. Maybe Mason would have been fired either way, just based on another late game collapse. Just speculating here.
 

Some guy said:
25 years ago the dome was only 15 years old.

lou Holtz encouraging us to make the dome permanent set the program back 20 years.
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Don't forget Sid and Harvey Mackay (and by extension the Downtown Council) wanting to get Gopher football downtown as part of that equation.

Memorial needed some serious upgrades, but leaving campus was a big-time mistake.
 


Some guy said:
Mason should’ve been fired before the bowl game. Program had stagnated and started to decline IMO

A blocked field goal saved us from losing to FCS, saved 6-6, saved a bowl game.

then in the bowl game the team demonstrated exactly why Mason was never getting the program over the top.
It was time.

I appreciate Mason, but it was time. I don’t like coaches who do average and try to people they should be happy they are as good as they are. Kill and Claeys started to do it a little at the end too.
Don’t do mediocre things and try to say how impressive it is that you did mediocre things.


if Pj fleck is selling us on how good a 7 win season is in 5 years…I’ll be done with him too.
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I don't know which player's fingernail sent that NDSU kick awry, but that was a miserable game and I thought it was the end of Mason had they lost.

Mason put competitive teams on the field for most of his stint as head coach. He's a really good football guy. In Minnesota, we have to face the fact that we have a bit of an odd fan base and the casual fan is very fickle.

What I always appreciated about Mason is that he was a no-BS guy, but he probably took that a bit too far for the casual fan. Like Denny Green, if he had been a tad warmer when dealing with some of the more tedious aspects of PR, he'd have been here a lot longer.

It was really odd that deep down I think part of the reason Maturi hired Brewster is that whatever shortcomings he had as an on-field coach would be more than overcome by his ability to promote the program. Brewster never missed a Sunday Sports Huddle. That double-whammy of the hire is that the hard-core fans realized right away that Brewster didn't have the capacity to be a Power 5 head coach and when the team started off poorly, the casual fan fell away.
 
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Chicago Gophers said:
Maturi was odd.
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Which is why everyone suspects that Bob Bruininks ordered the hit on the way home from Phoenix. Based on the events of the previous year (highly disputed extension before the Music City Bowl vs. Virginia and the first Monson fiasco after an NIT blowout in Cincinnati), Maturi damn sure wasn't going to do it himself.

MV wrote out a fairly long blog post on his FBT about the suspected timeline. I can't find it in the Internet Archive.
 


GopherVotary said:
It seems odd the decision hinged on whether the TT kicker was successful on a 52 yard FG or not. Maybe Mason would have been fired either way, just based on another late game collapse. Just speculating here.
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Maturi was exactly the best communicator. He should have made it clear that Mason was done. Instead, he said something like the field goal had a big effect on his decision. Unfortunately, it was also Maturi who hired the next coach.
 

Defense always seemed to struggle during the Mason regime. While he was a huge upgrade over Wacker, his record here was 64-57, just a little better than 500, good for 4th place all time in wins (behind Williams, Bierman and Warmath). For what it's worth, Fleck at 33-23 is currently 6th all time, behind Stoll at 39-39.
 

Redbird said:
Defense always seemed to struggle during the Mason regime. While he was a huge upgrade over Wacker, his record here was 64-57, just a little better than 500, good for 4th place all time in wins (behind Williams, Bierman and Warmath). For what it's worth, Fleck at 33-23 is currently 6th all time, behind Stoll at 39-39.
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The important difference is the conference records. Mason was 32-48 while Fleck is 21-22 in the Big Ten. The trend is clearly in the right direction with Fleck (16-9 over the last 3 seasons) while Mason's records were up and down throughout his tenure.
 

GoForGold said:
The important difference is the conference records. Mason was 32-48 while Fleck is 21-22 in the Big Ten. The trend is clearly in the right direction with Fleck (16-9 over the last 3 seasons) while Mason's records were up and down throughout his tenure.
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Mason didn't have Maryland, Rutgers, and Nebraska on his schedule. He played 8 of the 11 teams every year. I agree we are headed in a good direction with Fleck. Really solid foundation to sustain competitiveness.
 

50PoundHead said:
It was really odd that deep down I think part of the reason Maturi hired Brewster is that whatever shortcomings he had as an on-field coach would be more than overcome by his ability to promote the program. Brewster never missed a Sunday Sports Huddle. That double-whammy of the hire is that the hard-core fans realized right away that Brewster didn't have the capacity to be a Power 5 head coach and when the team started off poorly, the casual fan fell away.
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I do have an issue with this statement. There definitely were grumblings amongst fans the 1st season, but the 2nd season started well & I sure didn't hear many people chirping after the Gophers beat Juice Williams & Illinois in Champaign. A win 2 weeks later at Purdue & suddenly the Gophers had some pop going in to the Northwestern game. That's probably where the downfall began, with 55-0 to Iowa adding lots of gas to the fire.

It didn't work out with Brewster, but it wasn't from a lack of effort & didn't mind the swing that was taken with the recruiting style of coach. His issue was the revolving assistants & coordinators. We had something with Ted Roof, but he left after a year. I personally think had Jeff Horton been here longer or possibly from the start, things would have been good. Brewster didn't get the results, but he took his dismissal like a man.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Mason didn't have Maryland, Rutgers, and Nebraska on his schedule. He played 8 of the 11 teams every year. I agree we are headed in a good direction with Fleck. Really solid foundation to sustain competitiveness.
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If we want to go down this path OSU for much of Mason's tenure wasn't the buzzsaw they are today (though they were still very good), WI and IA had some down years, PSU had some weaker teams, etc.
 


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