No - you can't defend Brewster and neither can I.
Maturi will most likely give him another year and most likely will fire him at the
end of next season. I would not give him a contract extension unless there were
escape clauses where I could fire him with a minimal buyout.
This is what you get when you hire someone who has never coached or even
been a coordinator before -- I do not know of any teams that do this except
for maybe the Vikings with Tice and they fired him fairly quickly, too.
The ONLY thing that is saving Brewster at this point is the U of M probably does
not want to pay the extra buy out cash and his recruiting. However, take a look
at Ron Zook's recruiting at Illinois this year and you will get a preview of what
the Gophers recruiting will look like if Brewster doesn't post some very positive
results very soon. Unfortunately, he scheduled USC in a year that is his make or
break year - that probably wasn't too smart and the extra loss he will probably get
in that game could very well be the extra loss that costs him his job.
A lot of people are blaming Weber and he certainly has his share of the blame, but it
isn't just his fault. The offense is a complete mess right now and ranks near the bottom
in every NCAA category -- it's a joke three years running. Now I know what it is like to be
a Cleveland Browns fan. The defense IS getting better but remember we lose our whole front 7 next year.
If I were Maturi and I am not, I would not be happy I hired Brewster at this point. He
would make a great recruiting cordinator for someone, but I don't know if I would even
hire him for a coordinator's job at this point. His next job won't be as a head coach if
he gets fired here - it will be an assistant either in the pros or college and most likely
not as a coordinator either. If I were Maturi I would be talking quietly with a few people
and seeing if I could possibly land a big fish like a Tubby Smith type of hire just to
see if they would be interesting in talking and if I didn't get any nibbles, probably stick
with Brewster another year. However, it would be the short leash and I would be really
working overtime to bring in a coach after next season if there was still no improvement.
