How the Golden Gophers spent a decade running without making any progress

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Unregistered User said:
Stupid article.

When did the writer start following Washington that the program was so elevated that it was blowing the doors off the Gophers program since Mason showed up?

Neuheisel had an 11-1 season in 2000, and outside of that, from 1997-2016 (which is when I am assuming the writer began to attend UW), their high-water mark was a 9-4 campaign in 2013 under Sarkisian. Throw in two 8-win seasons through 2015, and I really can't find a stretch of seasons where I see that UW was the far superior program.

After Neuheisel, Gilbertson went 7-16, Willingham went 11-37, Sarkisian went 35-29, and all those records include non-conference games.

Seems like two similar programs to me.
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That 2000 Huskies team had a friggin cadre of criminals, too. They had one of the slimiest lawyers ever defending their guys (who was also an Alma mater from there, so he defended them pro bono) and they basically ruled the roost on campus. Jerramy Stevens was a huge dirtbag and basically got away with whatever the hell he wanted. Dude was a rapist with a massive drinking problem.
 

mngg11 said:
That 2000 Huskies team had a friggin cadre of criminals, too. They had one of the slimiest lawyers ever defending their guys (who was also an Alma mater from there, so he defended them pro bono) and they basically ruled the roost on campus. Jerramy Stevens was a huge dirtbag and basically got away with whatever the hell he wanted. Dude was a rapist with a massive drinking problem.
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Did they win?
 

gopherbadgerman said:
I liked Mason. He definitely made progress with bad facilities and support. He had a couple close calls that really stunted the program and could never seem to get a consistent defense. That Michigan game will
always haunt me. And the next week against MSU. I think he was pretty close to as good as Fleck.
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He's also made comments around the facilities, like "Can you imagine what I could have done if I had the Athletes Villiage and the stadium?" I also think the support from the administration has been strong over the past roughly 15 years. A lot of $$ invested, especially with the FB team in mind.
 

Gold Rush said:
Mason was able to defeat every team in the Big Ten at least once, and I loved watching his offense. His Achilles heel though was his inability to recruit and develop defense so the Gophers were always prone to late game meltdowns. I have never felt worse after a football game than the great Michigan debacle. (The Vikings losing the NFC championship to Atlanta comes close, though!)

With that said his offense and punishing running style that torched even the best rush defenses in the league were a real treat to watch. They would be 3rd and 8 - run the ball and pick up a first down on numerous occasions.
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I think he brought in some great defensive players. Many were great on both sides of the ball, but Mase would almost always use them on offense. At least that's what I remember.
 



PMWinSTP said:
I think he brought in some great defensive players. Many were great on both sides of the ball, but Mase would almost always use them on offense. At least that's what I remember.
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For me, what I remember about his defense was having weak spots somewhere. What I mean is like, we might have a good defensive end like Karon Riley, but the other DE wasn't really B1G caliber. Or we'd have Lamanzer Williams but the other defensive tackle was nothing of note. We'd have TC at safety but the other safety wasn't up to par, etc. That kinda thing. Who was the starting CB opposite Middlebrooks? Anyone remember?

And then the whole going through defensive coordinators, with the new one always saying something to the effect of, "we're gonna simplify the scheme and get these guys playing fast", which never worked out.

With Fleck, it seems like most of the recent defenses (barring injuries last year) have had 4 competent B1G lineman, etc. Basically 11 players that belong on a B1G field.
 

PMWinSTP said:
He's also made comments around the facilities, like "Can you imagine what I could have done if I had the Athletes Villiage and the stadium?" I also think the support from the administration has been strong over the past roughly 15 years. A lot of $$ invested, especially with the FB team in mind.
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Yes the dome sucked. But people act like we lapped the competition with facility upgrades. Everyone upgrades, it’s like a nuclear arms race. I think he didn’t recruit well especially towards the end because he had lost some fire for it.
 

btowngopher said:
Yes the dome sucked. But people act like we lapped the competition with facility upgrades. Everyone upgrades, it’s like a nuclear arms race. I think he didn’t recruit well especially towards the end because he had lost some fire for it.
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This. When the new stadium was proposed, it was going to be state of the art with one of the biggest stadium screens in the country compared to what was out there at the time. Then everyone else did the same thing within the next five years and we were back to being in the middle of the pack
 

We were the Kansas of College football at the time, the dregs and armpit of College football. Without some bad luck like the Michigan debacle or last second losses to Purdue and Wisconsin things may have been different. At least the Mason years brought us out of being a doormat for every team to beat. In 1995 the Gophers football program were at rock bottom in the Big 10, defense was like Scott thin tissue TP. They were horrible and played in the Dome. One thing was certain, Gophers could run the ball on just about everyone, after 1998.
 



PMWinSTP said:
I think he brought in some great defensive players. Many were great on both sides of the ball, but Mase would almost always use them on offense. At least that's what I remember.
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I remember it that way as well. I also remember the year Mase brought in something like six quarterbacks.
 

Some guy said:
saying Mason made no progress is ridiculous. The gophers in mason’s era went from a bottom 5 program in the power 6 to a program that fired a coach coming off 5 consecutive bowl games and 7 of 8.
Including winning 3 of those last 5.
Plus two top 20 finishes for a program that hadn’t finished top 20 since they expanded the poll to 20 teams.
Plus two games away from 2 big ten title shares (99 Wisconsin and 03 Michigan)

What followed Mason was perhaps the second worst coach in program history (I would rank Brewster ahead of wacker) and the team has gone to bowls in 12/17 seasons following that inspire of Brewster being terrible.

Mason has more top 25 finishes (2) than every coach post warmath combined (1)
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On paper, Wacker should have been a better hire than Brew. He had major college head coaching experience and was a proven winner at the D2 and 1AA levels.
 

Weird the author would pick a decade that was a marked improvement over its preceding decade to point out as a decade without progress.
 

disco said:
On paper, Wacker should have been a better hire than Brew. He had major college head coaching experience and was a proven winner at the D2 and 1AA levels.
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Disagree with this.
On paper Brewster was an unknown, maybe with potential (apparently not)

Wacker was a known loser at the FBS level
40-58 (21-48)

His last 7 years at TCU he had 0 winning seasons in conference and was 15-39 in conference.

And yes, TCU is a worse job than some in the southwest. But it was clearly a better job than some others
 



Some guy said:
Disagree with this.
On paper Brewster was an unknown, maybe with potential (apparently not)

Wacker was a known loser at the FBS level
40-58 (21-48)

His last 7 years at TCU he had 0 winning seasons in conference and was 15-39 in conference.

And yes, TCU is a worse job than some in the southwest. But it was clearly a better job than some others
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Part of the issue at TCU was he self-reported violations that literally every team in the SWC except maybe Rice was committing. Ethical, but kind of stupid really.

He was 66-17-1 at NDSU and SW Texas State (now Texas State) with two national titles and two other semifinals, and two NAIA titles. He was aboslutely a proven coach at lower levels. The field at Texas State is named in his honor.

Brewster was a mediocre position coach, an unknown with no head coaching experience at any level.
 

disco said:
Part of the issue at TCU was he self-reported violations that literally every team in the SWC except maybe Rice was committing. Ethical, but kind of stupid really.

He was 66-17-1 at NDSU and SW Texas State (now Texas State) with two national titles and two other semifinals, and two NAIA titles. He was aboslutely a proven coach at lower levels. The field at Texas State is named in his honor.

Brewster was a mediocre position coach, an unknown with no head coaching experience at any level.
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The thing with Brew was that he actually produced what he was known for and expected to do, and that was recruit. The unknown part was could he place and keep a staff around him to handle the rest, there he failed. I wonder a little if it would have looked any different if he had a larger budget to work with for his assistants.
 

btowngopher said:
The thing with Brew was that he actually produced what he was known for and expected to do, and that was recruit. The unknown part was could he place and keep a staff around him to handle the rest, there he failed. I wonder a little if it would have looked any different if he had a larger budget to work with for his assistants.
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Agreed. He had Ted Roof here, who was an above average DC. He also had Jedd Fisch in his coaching infancy as OC at one point. I think Brewster could identify things and had a big picture idea but couldn't put it all together and didn't have much help. I'll say it again and again, I think the guy truly believed he could be a successful head coach at the top level and this was the ultimate reality check for him. It bugs me when some people still push the idea that he was some kind of snake oil salesman. He didn't take us for a ride, Maturi hired the wrong guy.
 


btowngopher said:
The thing with Brew was that he actually produced what he was known for and expected to do, and that was recruit. The unknown part was could he place and keep a staff around him to handle the rest, there he failed. I wonder a little if it would have looked any different if he had a larger budget to work with for his assistants.
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I’ve heard Brewster didn’t get along with any of his coordinators. He didn’t know what he wanted on either side of the ball and kept changing schemes.
 


disco said:
Part of the issue at TCU was he self-reported violations that literally every team in the SWC except maybe Rice was committing. Ethical, but kind of stupid really.

He was 66-17-1 at NDSU and SW Texas State (now Texas State) with two national titles and two other semifinals, and two NAIA titles. He was aboslutely a proven coach at lower levels. The field at Texas State is named in his honor.

Brewster was a mediocre position coach, an unknown with no head coaching experience at any level.
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Wacker stupidly backed himself into a corner at TCU with his rhetoric and he couldn't get out of it. Still, TCU was hot garbage before Wacker got there and he improved the program significantly even with the unexpectedly harsh sanctions after self reporting. He was a good head coach. Someday, I hope someone studies and writes an article that opines why Wacker failed so miserably at Minnesota. I thought he could win here.
 

Panthadad2 said:
Wacker stupidly backed himself into a corner at TCU with his rhetoric and he couldn't get out of it. Still, TCU was hot garbage before Wacker got there and he improved the program significantly even with the unexpectedly harsh sanctions after self reporting. He was a good head coach. Someday, I hope someone studies and writes an article that opines why Wacker failed so miserably at Minnesota. I thought he could win here.
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He didn’t get enough good players here.
 

Panthadad2 said:
Wacker stupidly backed himself into a corner at TCU with his rhetoric and he couldn't get out of it. Still, TCU was hot garbage before Wacker got there and he improved the program significantly even with the unexpectedly harsh sanctions after self reporting. He was a good head coach. Someday, I hope someone studies and writes an article that opines why Wacker failed so miserably at Minnesota. I thought he could win here.
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He may have been a good guy and a decent coach. Objectively, he was not a good FBS head football coach.

56-98-2 (36%) 29-80-1 (26%)

He finished his career with 12 straight seasons not getting above .500 in conference a single time

The latest his team was .500 at Minnesota was Nov 5 (one season). He never had a team above .500 in the month of November at Minnesota.
 

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