if Kill succeeds some folks will say it was Brewsters Boys.

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Brew can get some credit for bringing some of these guys here. That's about it though.
 

Tully55 said:
I would find it very comical if people were to complain saying ,"but it was with Brewster's boys." Brewster couldn't' win with them.
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Right here is a snapshot about what is wrong with the Brew hating crowd. If someone said that Brew deserved some credit for bringing in Gray and Gray led us to a good season, they would NOT be complaining.

If we have success, I don't thnk anyone here will be complaining about anything. They might be putting some things into perspective. For instance, if we win 6 games next year and go to a bowl game, I think a lot of Gopher fans will be really excited about the direction of the program. If someone comments, yeah, but we won 6 games in year 2 under Brew. . . they wouldn't be complaining, they would just be putting the season into some perspective.

If we win 7-8 games next season and Gray, Stoud, Ed Olson, B. Green, Vereen and Carter all have fantastic seasons, Kill should be showered with praise. However, some praise should be given to Brew, like "despite being a terrible coach, he did bring in a lot of the guys who helped turn this program around." It's just like Wacker deserved a bit of credit for the Karon Riley, Jack Brewer, John Schlect, Cockerham, etc., team that helped turn it around for Mase. Most of the credit goes to Mase in that circumstance, but Wacker did bring in some talent.

On the flip side, if we struggle next year, I'm sure a ton of the people will partially blame Brew. They are probably right to blame Brew, because the recruits that someone brings in before the new coach arrives DOES have an impact on those first couple seasons. It has an impact whether that impact is good or bad.

Lastly, a knod to the former coach for bringing in some talent does not take anything away from the current coach.
 


nc2mn said:
And a "knod" to you, Bob - well said.
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Loblaw did all right as far as he went. However, there needs to be a general recognition by Gopher fans that Brewster left Kill with significantly better players than Mason left Brewster. It is not even a debatable proposition. The facts are undeniable. Mason was headed toward an unmitigated disaster with the Gophers because of his poor recruiting classes in 2004, 2005, 2006, and, more than likely, 2007 (if he had kept his job). As far as I am concerned Mason all but gave up after the 2003 season. After that he was already in retirement mode until Bruininks and Maturi recognized it and fired his ass. Fortunately for Mason if hadn't been fired after the 2007 season he would have had even worse teams than Brewster and probably wouldn't have gotten the Gophers to bowl games during the two years Brewster's teams played in bowl games.
 

Go4Broke said:
Loblaw did all right as far as he went. However, there needs to be a general recognition by Gopher fans that Brewster left Kill with significantly better players than Mason left Brewster. It is not even a debatable proposition. The facts are undeniable. Mason was headed toward an unmitigated disaster with the Gophers because of his poor recruiting classes in 2004, 2005, 2006, and, more than likely, 2007 (if he had kept his job). As far as I am concerned Mason all but gave up after the 2003 season. After that he was already in retirement mode until Bruininks and Maturi recognized it and fired his ass. Fortunately for Mason if hadn't been fired after the 2007 season he would have had even worse teams than Brewster and probably wouldn't have gotten the Gophers to bowl games during the two years Brewster's teams played in bowl games.
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I wasn't going to respond, as this thread has gotten off topic, but this last post is bad on so many levels I need to respond.

If Mase "all but gave up" after 2003, how was it that he went to 3 consecutive bowl games after 2003? Lest you also forget that Brew went to his bowl games with a large contribution from Mason's players. I doubt that Mason would have ever had 2 seasons in a span of 4yrs where we fail to get 3+ wins, regardless of his so-called inferior recruits. Heck, schedule alone got him 3 wins per season.


As for the basic topic of this thread, Recruiting involves a number of factors, including rankings, a recruit's heart, but also "fit" to a program. You can have the best rated players, but you won't win on talent alone if the pieces don't fit. It is hard to judge fit of a round peg if you don't know If the hole is round, square or whatever (Brew's downfall). Also, if a kid has his heart set in going somewhere, does that make you a bad recruiter if you can't convince a kid to not go to Notre Dame (ie Floyd). Conversely, a kid like Tommy Olson is probably the easiest to recruit, since he had is heart set early on to attend the UMN. Does getting him to commit make you a better recruiter? Hardly.

As for Parrish, I agree with Sportsfan24 that he probably got a raw deal. I wondered several times why he did not get a shot, but he merely got caught up in a "wrong place/wrong time" situation. For some reason he did not fit Kill's long-term plan for the qb position. Might be a good player somewhere else, just bad
fit here.

If Kill succeeds, it will be because of the players on the roster work hard to do what the coaches prepare them to do on a weekly basis. If that becomes a bunch of wins this season, I will merely enjoy it, regardless of who recruited the kids.
 


The roster Mason left Brew was the worst roster I've ever seen in D1 football. The cup board was so bare in fact that Mason had recruited a ton of Jucos (I think it was like 8 or 9 total) who were all being counted on to see significant action or to start. There's no doubt we were in a bad, bad way regardless of who coached that season. Then we lost DJ/Alex Daniels/RB from St Louis & Robert McField to add inult to injury.

Go4Broke said:
Loblaw did all right as far as he went. However, there needs to be a general recognition by Gopher fans that Brewster left Kill with significantly better players than Mason left Brewster. It is not even a debatable proposition. The facts are undeniable. Mason was headed toward an unmitigated disaster with the Gophers because of his poor recruiting classes in 2004, 2005, 2006, and, more than likely, 2007 (if he had kept his job). As far as I am concerned Mason all but gave up after the 2003 season. After that he was already in retirement mode until Bruininks and Maturi recognized it and fired his ass. Fortunately for Mason if hadn't been fired after the 2007 season he would have had even worse teams than Brewster and probably wouldn't have gotten the Gophers to bowl games during the two years Brewster's teams played in bowl games.
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badgergopher said:
Mason would have done good things with Adam Weber.
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Weber would have been fine under Mase, but that wasn't really his style. He would have done better things with the OL and running game than he would have done with Weber.
 

Go4Broke said:
Loblaw did all right as far as he went. However, there needs to be a general recognition by Gopher fans that Brewster left Kill with significantly better players than Mason left Brewster. It is not even a debatable proposition. The facts are undeniable. Mason was headed toward an unmitigated disaster with the Gophers because of his poor recruiting classes in 2004, 2005, 2006, and, more than likely, 2007 (if he had kept his job). As far as I am concerned Mason all but gave up after the 2003 season. After that he was already in retirement mode until Bruininks and Maturi recognized it and fired his ass. Fortunately for Mason if hadn't been fired after the 2007 season he would have had even worse teams than Brewster and probably wouldn't have gotten the Gophers to bowl games during the two years Brewster's teams played in bowl games.
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There were also some issues outside of Mase's control. I don't know if I would have blamed Mase for the Alex Daniels / Dominic Jones situation. That was a lot of talent leaving the team.

However, generally, I agree with the idea that Brew left Kill with more upperclassmen talent. However, Mase did leave Brew with Adam Weber and Decker. Brew's first year was going to be a lot of trouble no matter who the coach was going to be. We probably would have had a better season with Mason because he's a better coach and we would have continued with the same system, but that season was going to be really tough regardless of who was coaching.

Brew left Kill with a fairly talented group of JRs. He left very little talent in the SO and FR ranks, but it's kind of beside the point. The point is that Brew's two bowl seasons were influenced by Mase recruits. The two most important players on those teams were Weber and Decker. We also got a lot from WVS, Triplett, Campbell, Jacobs, Bennett, etc. I do probably agree with you that Brew left Kill with more players than Mase left with Brew, but that is kind of just semantics. The point is that they both could attribute some of their early failures to empty cupboards but also could attribute some of their success (if Kill has success) to some of the prior coach's recruits.
 





Go4Broke, this is interesting, but if you want to compare apples to apples, you really need to flesh out Brew's recruits who started at least 1 game for Kill in 2011. You said you rest your case, but I'm not even sure if you're arguing for or against Mason's talent level. Just showing # of starts is mostly irrelevant. Any new coach is going to get the vast majority of his starters from the remaining players - what matters is how good those players are.

I've always thought that Mason did leave a pretty bare cupboard, and I maintain he would've been fired after not going to a bowl game in 2007 if he had remained as coach. That said, a big chunk of talent did leave with Dom Jones, Alex Daniels & 2 other guys who were more depth-type players. Also, Mason would've had all-B1G Greg Jones at LB, who instead went to Michigan St. But I'd still maintain that the team was at a trough in talent when he left. You look at those 03, 04, 05 & 06 classes - no offense to anyone, but the only really strong near-all-B1G players I see there are Dom Barber, Decker, Brinkhaus, Pinnix & Campbell (and that's being pretty loose with near-all-B1G).

It's very hard to compare this talent level with what Brew left Kill. You'd have to break it down position by position - maybe someone could do this, but I don't have the time or inclination.
 

Golden Elephant said:
Go4Broke, this is interesting, but if you want to compare apples to apples, you really need to flesh out Brew's recruits who started at least 1 game for Kill in 2011. You said you rest your case, but I'm not even sure if you're arguing for or against Mason's talent level. Just showing # of starts is mostly irrelevant. Any new coach is going to get the vast majority of his starters from the remaining players - what matters is how good those players are.

I've always thought that Mason did leave a pretty bare cupboard, and I maintain he would've been fired after not going to a bowl game in 2007 if he had remained as coach. That said, a big chunk of talent did leave with Dom Jones, Alex Daniels & 2 other guys who were more depth-type players. Also, Mason would've had all-B1G Greg Jones at LB, who instead went to Michigan St. But I'd still maintain that the team was at a trough in talent when he left. You look at those 03, 04, 05 & 06 classes - no offense to anyone, but the only really strong near-all-B1G players I see there are Dom Barber, Decker, Brinkhaus, Pinnix & Campbell (and that's being pretty loose with near-all-B1G).

It's very hard to compare this talent level with what Brew left Kill. You'd have to break it down position by position - maybe someone could do this, but I don't have the time or inclination.
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+1

Being a starter doesn't mean a whole lot if the guys you beat out didn't even belong on a D1 roster.
 



I have made necessary corrections and included additional information to my previous posts.

The first observation that needs to be made is that in 2007 Brewster played seven (7) true freshman and three (3) red shirt freshman who each were in the starting line-up for a minimum of 5 games and as many as 12 games.

The second observation is that 8 of the 10 freshman players who had never before been on a college football field were in the starting line-up for between 5 and 12 Gopher games at one of the following positions:

- Quarterback
- Running Back
- Wide Receiver
- Defensive Back

Needless to say there will be further information and observations to come. Among other things, I will be looking at the 11 sophomores who started at least 1 game for the Gophers to determine how much previous college football experience they had in 2007.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gopher football players who started at least one game during the 2007 season (Brewster's first year):

2003 Recruits (out of 27)

- Neel Allen (RS Sr) (3 games)
- Tony Brinkhaus (RS Sr) (12 games)
- Jamal Harris (RS Sr) (8 games)
- Amir Pinnix (RS Sr) (4 games)
- John Shevlin (RS Sr) (9 games)
- Steve Shidell (RS Sr) (1 game)
- Desi Steib (RS Sr) (5 games)
- Justin Valentine (RS Sr) (1 game)
- Ernie Wheelright (RS Sr) (12 games)

2004 Recruits (out of 26)

- Dominique Barber (Sr) (12 games)
- Matt DeGeest (RS Jr) (7 games)
- Deon Hightower (RS Jr) (8 games)
- Jack Simmons (RS Jr) (7 games)
- Willie VanDeSteeg (RS Jr) (6 games)

Transfers/Walk-ons

- Todd Meisel (Sr) (12 games)
- Mike Sherels (Sr) (7 games)

2005 Recruits (out of 20)

- Steve Davis (Jr) (8 games)
- Eric Decker (RS So) (12 games)
- Ryan Ruckdashel (RS So) (2 games)
- Ned Tavale (RS So) (7 games)
- Jay Thomas (RS So) (1 game)

Transfers/Walk-ons

- Kevin Manion (Jr) (3 games)
- Nick Tow-Arnett (RS So) (2 games)
- Jeff Tow-Arnett (RS So) (1 game)

2006 Recruits (out of 26)

- Dominic Alford (RS Fr) (5 games)
- Garrett Brown (So) (3 games)
- D.J. Burris (RS Fr) (11 games)
- Lee Campbell (So) (12 games)
- Adam Weber (RS Fr) (12 games)

Transfers/Walk-Ons

- Duran Cooley (Jr) (4 games)
- Ray Henderson (So) (1 game)
- Marcus Sherels (So) (1 game)

2007 Recruits (out of 24)

- Duane Bennett (Fr) (7 games)
- Ryan Collado (Fr) (9 games)
- Tray Herndon (Fr) (7 games)
- Ralph Spry (Fr) (6 games)
- Kyle Theret (Fr) (6 games)
- Curtis Thomas Fr) (5 games)

Transfers/Walk-ons

- Eric Small (So) (6 games)
- D. Onwuachi (So) (5 games)
 

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