Gophers new co-DC’s: Kevin Cosgrove and Ronnie Lee – how would YOU rate this hire?

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Probably the second most qualified DC we've had here at Minnesota in the past 30 years. Roof being number 1. You can talk about Gibbs...but he was a youngen who we gave a shot to, he wasn't qualified for the job.
This is a much better hire than Lockwood, Ankney, Hudson by a longshot.

Let's just see what he can do.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I bought season tickets last year for the first time since I was an undergrad, solely so I could be guaranteed seats in the new stadium. The sad part is that now I'm not even sure whether I'm going to get season tix for 2009. I hate to have such a defeatist attitude, but I mean, c'mon. Look at the guy's track record...
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There's a waiting list so I'm sure no one will mind if you bail. I'm sure this is just hyperbole 'cause you're upset but if you are serious...good lord...

The hire doesn't get me all excited either but I'm not going to bail before we've even played a SINGLE DOWN of the 2009 season (not that I'd bail anyway).
 

He coached a lot of really good football players art Wisconsin, many of them that he recruited.

He was on the staff for 3 Rose Bowl victories and was def coordinator for two of them. Two of his defenses for the Badgers were in the top ten in points allowed.

The reaction to him before he has recruited a player or coached a down is unreal.
 

GVBadger said:
He coached a lot of really good football players art Wisconsin, many of them that he recruited.

He was on the staff for 3 Rose Bowl victories and was def coordinator for two of them. Two of his defenses for the Badgers were in the top ten in points allowed.

The reaction to him before he has recruited a player or coached a down is unreal.
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You are clearly wrong - Gophergod says he watched all the Badger games and the reason they didn't go undefeated every year was because of Cosgrove.
 



Thank you. Been thinking the same thing.
 

I hope Don Lucia gets a clean bill of health soon.

P.S. Congrats to Ronnie Lee on the promotion. Cosgrove's resume looks pretty good to me and the NE fans calling for Cosgrove's head remind me of the Kentucky fans who ran off one Tubby Smith. Not saying Cosgrove will be the next Tubby, but he has had some pretty nice accomplishments over the years.
 

Thank you for your grounded comments. Also, thanks for not using Punky :)
 

I'm not big on the Cosgrove hire, given the last part of his tenure of the Husker DC. But I don't think the 2009 defense will be worse than it was in 2007, and should improve over last year. We could have as many as 8 sr's starting on D and more depth than we've been accustomed to.

However, he is only the Co-coordinator and I don't know how the 2 coordinator dynamic will play out. I like that we were able to promote someone from within and hopefully it provides some sort of continuity from last year, although I haven't heard of Lee as a rising star.

Also, I doubt Cosgrove will have carte blanche on all calls. Therefore, real question is, "Who is DC-1A and DC-1B"? Is Cosgrove leading the way and Lee is there to learn on the job, or is Cosgrove there more to give advice behind the scenes and be a sounding board / advisor to Lee?

Hopefully the OC hire will make
 



I'll withold judgement for a while. I think people underestimate "fit." Perhaps Cosgrove just didn't fit in Nebraska but he will here - who knows.

I will say that it seems like a roll of the dice rather than bringing in some highly praised DC who has had consistent success.

The way Brewster talked up the OC hire, however, has set the bar high - I would think a disappointing name for that hire could sow the seeds of discontent among fans - and once that occurs, it is very difficult to regain fan support without some serious victories.

I hope that Maturi can hold off a little while on any contract extension so that we can see if the program is improving.
 

The problem with trying to bring in a big time DC is money for one, but also getting him to stay put here creates a challenge. At least Brewster has more of a history with Lee and Cosgrove then he had with Roof or Withers. So hopefully they can build something together and not want to bolt for something better at least not for a while. I wanted McCarney at DC, I think he would have done well, but I think it would be tough to keep someone like that around. Just getting some consistency at D Coordinator could end up being very helpful for the squad in future years.
 

cosgrove has never had success

His D at Wisconsin was between 50th and 60th in the nation. How is that good?
 

Oklahoma's D

was ranked in the 50's and they were in the national championship game, go figure?

Go Gophers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 



lawrence21 said:
His D at Wisconsin was between 50th and 60th in the nation. How is that good?
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"Good" might be a stretch, but 50th/60th would be an improvment over our current D and in line with some not-so-bad teams. I'd say such a ranking would be "pretty decent," and put us in a position to win some games.

MN - 80th
TX - 51st
OK - 68th
OR - 82nd
KA - 89th

Source:
HTML: 
http://web1.ncaa.org/mfb/natlRank.jsp?year=2008&rpt=IA_teamtotdef&site=org
 

maroonfive said:
was ranked in the 50's and they were in the national championship game, go figure?

Go Gophers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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If we can just average 51.1 points/game and 547.9 yards/game on offense as they did this season prior to last nights game then we should be set.
 

lawrence21.
Maybe you should do some homework B4 making statements like a 50th-60th ranking.

Here are the average points per fame Wisconsin allowed under Cosgrove; 1994-20.6ppg, 1995-23, 1996-18.7, 1997-23.5, 1998-17.2, 1999-13.2, 2000-20.4, 2001-28.8, 2002-23.0, 2003-23.5. That's an average of 21 ppg. Very few Gopher fans can remember the days when we could say that about our team for a 14 year span.

The Husker D allowed 2004-27 ppg, 2005-21, 2006-18.2, 2007-38.
 

I, for one would like to know just what the hell co-DC means? Who decides whether or not we blitz on a given play? Who sets the scheme for a game? Who gets credit for good games and who takes blame when things go poorly. Sounds to me like Brewster wants Lee to have a year or two to develop into his real DC.
 


Bayfieldgopher said:
lawrence21.
Maybe you should do some homework B4 making statements like a 50th-60th ranking.

Here are the average points per fame Wisconsin allowed under Cosgrove; 1994-20.6ppg, 1995-23, 1996-18.7, 1997-23.5, 1998-17.2, 1999-13.2, 2000-20.4, 2001-28.8, 2002-23.0, 2003-23.5. That's an average of 21 ppg. Very few Gopher fans can remember the days when we could say that about our team for a 14 year span.

The Husker D allowed 2004-27 ppg, 2005-21, 2006-18.2, 2007-38.
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What's even more funny is that we were ranked 61st and gave up an average of 24.8 points/game this past season, yet for some reason everyone hates Cosgrove even though his defenses have given up over 24.8 points/game only 3 times in 14 seasons. I think Roof did a great job and I wish he was still our DC but I don't understand why everyone is hating on Cosgrove.

I have no idea if he'll be successful here or not, but I'm at least going to give him a chance before my world comes to an end.
 

I'll take a wait and see attitude with the 2 of em.....It's Brewster's neck and hopefully he took all of that into consideration....when he signed off. Job sharing like a couple of ladies in an office.... hehehehe.
WI rose in football stature similar to the MAC and WAC teams. limited scholarships created parity throught college football.
Since then the Big Ten has been lackluster so it is tough for one bigten team to spout off about team stats. read cosgrove got stats on feasting on MN,IN,IL,PUR,NW
 


GVBadger said:
He coached a lot of really good football players art Wisconsin, many of them that he recruited.

He was on the staff for 3 Rose Bowl victories and was def coordinator for two of them. Two of his defenses for the Badgers were in the top ten in points allowed.

The reaction to him before he has recruited a player or coached a down is unreal.
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You know folks are overreacting when "Punky" hating Badger fans make sense. Seriously...

I'm still trying to understand the co-DC thing better. How is that supposed to work? And is ANY other program using this (or has anyone used it recently)?
 

I will let the product on the feild decide if this is a good hire. Does anyone know how the heck having co-coordinators will work? I could see a lot of arguing and disfunction. Any thoughts?
 

GophersInIowa said:
You might want to do some actual research first. Just looking at 1999, Wisky's defense was ranked 15th overall in yards allowed and 5th in points allowed. http://www.ncaa.org/stats/football/IA/1999/team.txt

But I guess that is close to 50th and 60th. :rolleyes:
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Actually GophersInIowa you might want do you your research. Here was Wisconsins OVERALL defense rankings each year which I believe is what he was referencing.

1999 - 15th
2000 - 79th
2001 - 58th
2002 - 56th
2003 - 43rd for an average of 50.2
 

GopherGod said:
Actually GophersInIowa you might want do you your research. Here was Wisconsins OVERALL defense rankings each year which I believe is what he was referencing.

1999 - 15th
2000 - 79th
2001 - 58th
2002 - 56th
2003 - 43rd for an average of 50.2
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Gophers were 80th this year.
 

I'd be inclined to look at scoring defense vs overall myself. But defense stats are so deceptive anyway as they have a lot to do with the offense.

Did you notice the Minnesota rankings on there. I didn't remember Minnesota being that good. It's a shame we couldn't have paired that D with the rushing offense that followed.
 

GopherGod said:
Actually GophersInIowa you might want do you your research. Here was Wisconsins OVERALL defense rankings each year which I believe is what he was referencing.

1999 - 15th
2000 - 79th
2001 - 58th
2002 - 56th
2003 - 43rd for an average of 50.2
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Huh? I did some research and even provided a link. What in my post was wrong? Absolutely nothing. Now go back and look at the post I was responding to. lawrence21 said "Cosgrove has never had success" and "His D at Wisconsin was between 50th and 60th in the nation." I provided information that showed what he was saying was wrong. He has had some success and his defense at Wisconsin was not always between 50th and 60th. That's it.

Secondly, the rankings you're posting is not his entire resume at Wisconsin. I guess 1995-1998 never happened.

Thirdly, those rankings are for yardage allowed. To me, points allowed is what really matters in my books. In 2000, they may have been 79th in yards allowed but were 34th in points allowed.
 



GopherGod said:
I see now why you live in Iowa, the rankings that I provided were OVERALL/TOTAL defensive rankings and not just yardage allowed. If you looked at one of my posts responding to you on another thread I acknowledged I did not have the 1995-1998 rankings as I could not find them as the NCAA website stats archive does not go back that far. If you have them please share as I could not find them and to be fair would love to include them. here is the link I used to look at the total defensive rankings for every season that I could find.

http://web1.ncaa.org/stats/StatsSrv/rankings?doWhat=archive&sportCode=MFB
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Wow, now that was funny!

Do this for me, click on the link you just provided, go to 2001 statistics, then total defense. Look at the column that is the 4th farthest from the right. That is the column for "Ydspgm" which stands for yards per game. Now look down that column. Does it look like a pattern there? It goes down from the lowest to highest which means the "overall/total defense" rankings uses, you guessed it, yardage allowed!!! Man was that tough.
 

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