How bare is the cupboard?

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imthewalrus said:
I would have NOT changed to some mamby-pamby, easty-westy spreadsy-wedsey offense the way brewster did when he rented dunbar to tell him what kind of offense he was totally committed to at that moment and that he would use regardless of not having players that either fit the system and had never run the system before. I would have probably tried to retain Browning and Shaw to keep the offense pretty much in place. The odds are pretty good that some of the things that got lost in the change might not have happened had there been a coach or two around that the players already there were familiar with and knew. brewster was so busy running his mouth and running around the country "recruiting his way to a 1-11 season..." that he had no time to stick around and tend to the players that he did have.

brewster should have won four or five games that first year. But, he didn't. And he NEVER recovered. He was d.o.a. because he didn't evaluate the players he did have and he had not a clue what offense or defense he was committed to. brewster was committed to nothing. brewster didn't have a core philosophy. brewster was all talk...all hype and no substance. But, he certainly sold a bill of goods to badger joel maturi. And when the smoke cleared, he ended his career at Minnesota just the way he had started his career at Minnesota. But, make no mistake, it was all over for brewster way back at the end of that first season in 2007.

It will be pretty essential for the new coach to retain at least one and possibly two coaches from this staff just to insure a better transition and to make sure that some of the players on the team don't get lost in all the hoopla caused when a new staff and coach takes the program over.

I'd take the players that were there in 2007. I really don't know how the players who are here right now have been developed because of ALL the coaching and coordinator chaos, changes and comings and goings. These current players who have been redshirted or are redshirting haven't had a chance to have any kind of consistancy and consistancy is needed for development as a position player. I'm sure the kids are all great kids. The system has failed them up until now though.
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Based on your post, we've decided to go in a new direction. You are no longer the coach. Best of luck to you.
 

Well, at least thank you for re-posting my opinion on the...

matter! We certainly don't want GOPHERHOLE to have only one "official" and "unified" opinion do we? Our Football Program is facing some very hard times right now, and it is good to examine a range of responses and points of view regarding the plight of our Football Program and the problems it may face. The health of our program can easily be evaluated by counting our Big Ten Wins and Big Ten losses. Recruiting without coaching is not helpful. At least brewster has helped prove that point. Also, Big Ten wins are not easily obtained. Each Big Ten win is of great value. Never forget that fact of life. ; 0 )
 

imthewalrus said:
You are really going out of your way to overstate the lie that the brewster apologists always try to overstate.

Based upon your lie, you would then have to believe also that brewster recruited ZERO talent during his three plus years here. There are still some Mason recruits playing. The last two years, when even brewster actually won a few Big Ten games, he was playing a lot of Mason recruits.

So, you contend that brewster was not only totally inept, but was also incapable of recruiting athletes that could replace the "ZERO" talented athletes recruited by Masonthat were there when he arrived?????? You have really gone off the deep end with your spin bob. How foolish can you be???????
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Alright Ms. Mason you don't have to have a coronary over someone saying something you disagree with on a message board. Telling from your exaggerated use of exclamation points having a civil debate is probably impossible, but I'll give it a whirl for you.

Mason did a far better job than Brewster did at the U, however, for a vareity of reasons (some of them not Mason's fault), Brewster walked into a completely bare cupboard. I am not making excuses for his team being so terrible this season, I 100% agree that he should be fired, but that doesn't change the fact that he walked into almost no talent.

So how about this, you tell me at which positions we brought more depth and experience to in 2007 than 2011...

QB: 2011 by a landslide
RB: 2011 by a landslide
WR: Pretty close. Probably more talent on 2007 because Decker turned out so good but there was no depth beyond Decker and Wheelright. The hard thing is that guys like Herndon and Ralph Spry got a decent amount of playing time on that team and they would never sniff the field on the 2011 team.
TE: 2011 by a landslide
OL: 2011 team by quite a bit (i'm not saying that Mason wouldn't have coached up this unit better, but neither team had much for upperclassmen (much more for the 2011 team). The underclassmen on the 2011 team seem much more promising (Olson, Michel, Gjere). We don't know much about Gjere or even Michel but we knew nothing about most of the guys in 2007.

DL: It's pretty close. 2007 had WVD but all of the other guys were completely inexperienced and had seen almost no real playing time.
LBS: Close, but I would certainly give it to the 2011 team. The 2007 team had Sherels, Hightower and Davis who were OK. Tinsley, Rallis, Reeves, Cooper are just OK as well, but we have actual depth behind these guys.
Secondary: Both are weak but I can gurantee you that true freshman the caliber of Theret, Collado and Curtis Thomas would ever see playing time on the 2011 team, so that's not really close either (When you are talking about depth and being able to field a roster).
 

Sorry: I haven't seen enough of Mr. Gray at qb to have any kind of idea if he can be a Big Ten QB for an entire season. I like his potential at WR if he works on his route running and blocking skills. You know, maybe he will be a GREAT qb (I certainly do hope so), but, I have got to see if he makes it through a season healthy and see how he reads defenses, etc. I'm not sure about his passing skills and abilities either. I will have to watch him run a few Big Ten games and I will have a better idea. We will ALL have a better idea. We have seen him only in scripted situations. That really tells us very little about him as a qb. We have seen more of him as a receiver. Good luck to him though. I just don't see how you can state that Mr. Gray is anywhere near being ready to qb this team. I hope you are basing your feelings on something more than what I have seen from him though. I think with a good work ethic, he could play on Sundays as a WR. And, at this point in time, we don't have a clue who will take over the coaching job and what kind of offense he will run. There are just too many unknowns for me to feel certain about a lot of things headed into the 2011 season.

The offensive line certainly has a lot of questions to answer for the 2011 season. All too often the running game disappeared this 2010 season. The defense in 2011? Who knows? From what I have seen in 2010, there is a mighty long way to go.

What the new coach will have to work with depends much more on the new coach than on the existing players he will start coaching. Will he pick an offensive system that his offensive players have been working on OR will he come in with something completely different? If he comes in with something completely different who on earth could guess how the existing players will do. If the qb's have to learn totally new stuff again, the abuse to the existing players will continue re: lack of continuity, schemes and coaching.

So, the way I see it, if the new coach is willing to "go to the players level" with an offense and defense they can comprehend and they have some understanding of, there will be a chance to win four or five games. They need to be able to react and respond to their offense and their defense coming from a base of knowlege and understanding about that offense or defense.

If the new coach comes in and wants to throw a season away the way brewster did, I will feel very sorry for the existing players. The system will have failed a group of student athletes once again.
 

imthewalrus said:
Sorry: I haven't seen enough of Mr. Gray at qb to have any kind of idea if he can be a Big Ten QB for an entire season. I like his potential at WR if he works on his route running and blocking skills. You know, maybe he will be a GREAT qb (I certainly do hope so), but, I have got to see if he makes it through a season healthy and see how he reads defenses, etc. I'm not sure about his passing skills and abilities either. I will have to watch him run a few Big Ten games and I will have a better idea. We will ALL have a better idea. We have seen him only in scripted situations. That really tells us very little about him as a qb. We have seen more of him as a receiver. Good luck to him though. I just don't see how you can state that Mr. Gray is anywhere near being ready to qb this team. I hope you are basing your feelings on something more than what I have seen from him though. I think with a good work ethic, he could play on Sundays as a WR. And, at this point in time, we don't have a clue who will take over the coaching job and what kind of offense he will run. There are just too many unknowns for me to feel certain about a lot of things headed into the 2011 season.

The offensive line certainly has a lot of questions to answer for the 2011 season. All too often the running game disappeared this 2010 season. The defense in 2011? Who knows? From what I have seen in 2010, there is a mighty long way to go.

What the new coach will have to work with depends much more on the new coach than on the existing players he will start coaching. Will he pick an offensive system that his offensive players have been working on OR will he come in with something completely different? If he comes in with something completely different who on earth could guess how the existing players will do. If the qb's have to learn totally new stuff again, the abuse to the existing players will continue re: lack of continuity, schemes and coaching.

So, the way I see it, if the new coach is willing to "go to the players level" with an offense and defense they can comprehend and they have some understanding of, there will be a chance to win four or five games. They need to be able to react and respond to their offense and their defense coming from a base of knowlege and understanding about that offense or defense.

If the new coach comes in and wants to throw a season away the way brewster did, I will feel very sorry for the existing players. The system will have failed a group of student athletes once again.
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I think you missed my point, I am absolutely not trying to make a case that we will be good next season. I think there are a lot of unknowns and guys who haven't shown a ton. However, all of these arguments need to be made in comparison with the 2007 team.

Take Gray for example, he hasn't shown much at QB. I totally agree. However, the little he has shown is more than what Adam Weber had shown going into the 2007 season. It would be like if Tom Parish was going to be our QB next year.

Going into the 2007 season Adam Weber was a RS Freshman who was mildly recruited and looked like he COULD be a decent player. That is exactly the position that Tom Parish is in for the Gophers next year. So while Gray hasn't shown much, I think we can all agree that we are more comfortable with GRay being our QB next season than Tom Parish.

As far as the offensive line, we have tons of questions. However, we probably have less questions about our offensive line in 2011 than we did in 2007. We will be returning Bunders, Orton, Wynn as upperclassmen and while these guys haven't been very good, they are better than the upperclassmen we had going into 2007.

So again, I am not saying we are a talented team with a ton of depth and experience going into next season. I am just saying that we have more now than we did in 2007.
 


Sorry Bob, fantasy recruiting stars bore me to death...

Also, Gray had missed a year in high school with an injury. He didn't exactly set the world on fire once he got to Minnesota. He is a huge question mark at the qb spot.

I had been hearing a lot about Adam Weber during his redshirt season in 2006. And, I know the Adam Weber hating brew-crew bunch won't like to hear it, but, Adam Weber has done more with less help than any qb I have watched play at the U of M. That's just the way it played out, but, I am so sick and tired of people dissing Adam Weber. He has been one stand-up quarterback for the University of Minnesota in spite of the crap that people have tried to send his way. He was above it all! He has perservered. He has always said "yes" every time they handed him the ball. He has played hurt. He has been more "stand up" than any other player or coach who has been in this program for the past four years. He ALWAYS played. He played injured.

Gray might have had some fantasy stars coming out of the hype filled fantasy recruiting systems...but...he will have to step up to the plate big time now. All the hype in the world means nothing when you are out there taking every snap. When your offensive line doesn't block for you. When your running game doesn't exist. When you only have one dependable WR to throw to and the defense knows it. THAT is when Mr. Gray will show us all what kind of a qb he is. When he has to continue to learn new systems every year he is in the program. Then we will see what kind of a qb he is.

Like I said: I hope he is all that some of you say he is at the qb position. So far, I haven't seen it. I hope he has the greatest season any qb has ever had in 2011. That will really be something to see! I'd be very happy for him, his team, his coaches, and all of us fans. Will you promise me that is what will happen? Please promise me. I'd love to "take it to the bank..." I would love the four star fantasy rating to come true in Big Ten play in 2011~
 

I had been hearing a lot about Adam Weber during his redshirt season in 2006. And, I know the Adam Weber hating brew-crew bunch won't like to hear it, but, Adam Weber has done more with less help than any qb I have watched play at the U of M. That's just the way it played out, but, I am so sick and tired of people dissing Adam Weber. He has been one stand-up quarterback for the University of Minnesota in spite of the crap that people have tried to send his way. He was above it all! He has perservered. He has always said "yes" every time they handed him the ball. He has played hurt. He has been more "stand up" than any other player or coach who has been in this program for the past four years. He ALWAYS played. He played injured.

How in the world could you possibly think there is such a thing as the Adam Weber hating brew-crew bunch? Those two things go hand in hand. There isn't a player who symbolizes the Brewster era more than Adam Weber. How could the Brew Crew bunch hate Adam Weber? IF they supported Brew, they would automatically be supporting Adam Weber because Brewster played him the entire time he was here! Are you kidding me?

As to doing more with less, well we can agree to disagree. Three of the best WRs in Gopher history (McKnight, Wheelright, Decker) all played with Weber.

But again, all of this nonsense is completely beside the point. Adam Weber (prior to 2007) showed absolutely nothing. He was nothing but a RS freshman who was only playing because we didn't have any other possible options. It would be the exact same thing if the next head coach was forced to play Tom Parish next season.

I agree (three times now!) that Gray hasn't shown much at QB, but the little he has shown is more than Adam Weber showed in 2006. This isn't a rip on Adam Weber, it is stating the fact that he was a FRESHMAN. Again and please read this, NO ONE IS SAYING THAT GRAY IS A GREAT QB. People are simply saying that he has shown more going into next season than Adam Weber showed in 2006. This shouldn't be that difficult to understand.

I personally think we could very well be in some trouble at the QB position next season, but there is absolutely more depth and experience than there was in 2007. Remember our backup QB was Tony Mortensen in 2008, Tony Mortensen. He was a Division 2 caliber QB.

Now again, i'm not ripping on Adam Weber and i'm not pimping MarQuise Gray, I am simply saying that a JR who has seen some time at QB and played a ton in other positions is more ready to play than a freshman. I am also saying that Alipate is a better backup than Tony Mortensen was. These aren't high standards like saying that they will be good in the Big 10, I am simply saying that they are in a better position today than they were when Brew took over.
 

imthewalrus said:
Also, Gray had missed a year in high school with an injury. He didn't exactly set the world on fire once he got to Minnesota. He is a huge question mark at the qb spot.

I had been hearing a lot about Adam Weber during his redshirt season in 2006. And, I know the Adam Weber hating brew-crew bunch won't like to hear it, but, Adam Weber has done more with less help than any qb I have watched play at the U of M. That's just the way it played out, but, I am so sick and tired of people dissing Adam Weber. He has been one stand-up quarterback for the University of Minnesota in spite of the crap that people have tried to send his way. He was above it all! He has perservered. He has always said "yes" every time they handed him the ball. He has played hurt. He has been more "stand up" than any other player or coach who has been in this program for the past four years. He ALWAYS played. He played injured.

Gray might have had some fantasy stars coming out of the hype filled fantasy recruiting systems...but...he will have to step up to the plate big time now. All the hype in the world means nothing when you are out there taking every snap. When your offensive line doesn't block for you. When your running game doesn't exist. When you only have one dependable WR to throw to and the defense knows it. THAT is when Mr. Gray will show us all what kind of a qb he is. When he has to continue to learn new systems every year he is in the program. Then we will see what kind of a qb he is.

Like I said: I hope he is all that some of you say he is at the qb position. So far, I haven't seen it. I hope he has the greatest season any qb has ever had in 2011. That will really be something to see! I'd be very happy for him, his team, his coaches, and all of us fans. Will you promise me that is what will happen? Please promise me. I'd love to "take it to the bank..." I would love the four star fantasy rating to come true in Big Ten play in 2011~
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No, Gray didn't set the world on fire during his freshman season. He never had a chance. If you'll recall, before the 2009 season, Brewster declared that every starting position on the team was up for grabs...except for one. I'll let you guess which position was simply handed to an incumbent and which incumbent proceeded to have an absolutely terrible season.
 




Bob_Loblaw said:
How in the world could you possibly think there is such a thing as the Adam Weber hating brew-crew bunch? Those two things go hand in hand. There isn't a player who symbolizes the Brewster era more than Adam Weber. How could the Brew Crew bunch hate Adam Weber? IF they supported Brew, they would automatically be supporting Adam Weber because Brewster played him the entire time he was here! Are you kidding me?
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Yeah, what planet has Wren been living on. The people that loathed Brewster the most were the same people that loathed Weber the most.
 

The problem is: you don't know who the coach will be, what they system will be...

and how much the system will differ from the last system that any Gopher qb has been playing in. I contend that it matters much more what the new coach does than anything any of the current players do in anticipation of a new coach and a possible new system.

A wise and experienced coach will realize that he needs to evaluate the players he does have returning and will need to tailor his offense and defense to fit the talent he does have. Yes, he may want to change some things, but, it will need to take into consideration what his players can do and can not do. IF defense is a weakness, he will need to employ an offense designed to keep the defense off the field. He will need to be a "systems" guy who can utilize x's and o's to try to put his players in a position to win SOME games in year number one. IF he doesn't get some wins in year one, he will have dug himself a very deep hole. This program, these players, the new coaching staff, and the fans all need as many HOME wins as is possible during the 2011 season.

The coach will really have to BE a coach, not just a "recruiting/gm" brewster type.

So, the talent the new coach will have on hand is the talent the new coach will have on hand. Period. That is what he will have to sell the fans in year number one. That is what he will have to sell the players in year number one. He will have to make do with what he has. He will need to coach these players up. He will need to put them in a position to win the games that they should win...that they NEED to win. And, he needs to have an eye to see what he has and a mind to know what he has and the courage to put his players in a system that will allow them to start competing as a Big Ten team from day one.

Neither you nor I are smart enough or wise enough or have enough vision to know who the coach will be...what the system will be or how the new coach will work with the players he has. Isn't that about as honest as we both can be? Won't that make the 2011 season just a little more interesting? And, won't that give the young men on the team a chance to stand up and compete and work to be all that each of them can be?
 

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