Jim Souhan column: A guide for U to replacing Brewster

[jerdogg1]

All Souhan had to do to research this column was read Gopherhole, as his article suggests nothing that those around here haven't already suggested. Then add a dash of idiot, and his normal d-baggery, and you get this garbage.

Souhan is no different than Ruesse, he only writes about Gopher football when he's out of other ideas, and he has absolutely no original thoughts on the subject that aren't already being discussed by the bobo's at KFAN or Ruesse himself.

 

[jerdogg1]

OK, so let me get this straight... Two of the sports "columnists" at the StarTribune have gone on record endorsing the following coaches to replace Brewster: Lou Holtz and Glen Mason? Just making sure.

Aren't we all just waiting for Reusse to suggest John Gagliardi as the next Gopher coach?

 

[wdgold]

If the losing continues they need to get rid of him before the end of season, to delay this because of the buyout is not the way to go here. Why delay the inevitable. If he loses saturday he needs to be gone.

 

[50PoundHead]

I usually like what Souhan writes, but to even consider Mason as an option is dumb.

We have got the best of Mason. Yes he beat teams he should have (I doubt he would have lost to South Dakota or Northern Illinois), but the program topped out under him.

Mason's guys won the game, but people tend to forget that he was a blocked chip-shot field goal away from losing to North Dakota State. Had he lost that game, we wouldn't have been bowl-eligible and the Texas Tech second-half debacle never happens. In that event, what would have happened to Mason?

As thaileagle suggests, time to call M. Night Shyamalan. I suppose the appropriate line would be "I see dead football coaches."

PS--I think the only thing Souhan can accurately comment on as an observer of sports and sports personalities is which butt is smoother--Tom Kelly's or Ron Gardenhire's--seeing he has had his lips firmly planted on each of these backsides.

 

[Breakin' The Plane]

LOL. Both Glen & M. Night had one big hit, and it was downhill from there.

Granted, Souhan's idea to bring back Mason is idiotic. I even wonder if he was serious, or just trying to make a point that ANYONE would be an improvement over the current situation with Brewster. What I roll my eyes at, however, is that whenever one of the local columnists writes something deragatory about the UofM football program, there's a knee jerk reaction on this board:

A)the writer is a hack
B)he has an agenda
C)he has a pathological hatred of Brewster that clouds his objectivity
D)his paper is a commie pinko fag liberal publication that hates football and all things American
E)all of the above

In the case of a certain rotund scribe, maybe most of these are true, some of the time. What seems to be lost in this thread, though, is that Souhan makes three very valid points (IMHO):

1. Brewster is going to be fired
2. The sooner the better, particularly from the standpoint of finding a new coach
3. There's not a high degree of confidence that Maturi can hire the right person (although Souhan didn't give Joel ANY credit for hiring Tubby)
4. Waiting to pull the pin runs the risk of Timmy pulling something out of his azz and winning a couple of games, which will greatly complicate the firing process

That last point in particular is what I think Souhan was trying to get across in his column. What if we had S-canned Mason in early November 2006, after he had repeatedly crapped the bed? Or at least publically said he wasn't coming back. As I mentioned in another thread, there's at least a chance Dantonio would be on our sideline rather than MSU's. Instead we waited until Glen had poohed on the metaphysical bed one last time vs. TTech, and the candidate pool was a heckuva lot shallower. That's how we wound up in our current mess.

I agree that this wasn't one of Souhan's finest efforts (esp. the Glen redux part), but look past the paranoid initial reaction to anything in the local press that's perceived as anti-Gopher. Sometimes the truth hurts, and its time to face up to it. If you've got a decaying tooth, putting off going to the dentist doesn't help. And we need a root canal. And maybe a pair of pliers (or a door and a piece of string).

There's a reason guys like Miller and Fuller get a little more slack when they write about the program. They actually follow the team and watch the games. More often than not, I'd be willing to wager that Reusse, Souhan, Sansevere, etc. get their info on the Gophers from watching the two minute recap on the Saturday evening news. Doogie gets ripped to shreds on here when he criticizes the program, but I'll give him a much longer leash since it's pretty apparent that he's actually seen more than a quarter of Gopher football this season.

 

[Hates Monikers]

LOL. Both Glen & M. Night had one big hit, and it was downhill from there.

Granted, Souhan's idea to bring back Mason is idiotic. I even wonder if he was serious, or just trying to make a point that ANYONE would be an improvement over the current situation with Brewster. What I roll my eyes at, however, is that whenever one of the local columnists writes something deragatory about the UofM football program, there's a knee jerk reaction on this board:

A)the writer is a hack
B)he has an agenda
C)he has a pathological hatred of Brewster that clouds his objectivity
D)his paper is a commie pinko fag liberal publication that hates football and all things American
E)all of the above

In the case of a certain rotund scribe, maybe most of these are true, some of the time. What seems to be lost in this thread, though, is that Souhan makes three very valid points (IMHO):

1. Brewster is going to be fired
2. The sooner the better, particularly from the standpoint of finding a new coach
3. There's not a high degree of confidence that Maturi can hire the right person (although Souhan didn't give Joel ANY credit for hiring Tubby)
4. Waiting to pull the pin runs the risk of Timmy pulling something out of his azz and winning a couple of games, which will greatly complicate the firing process

I'll agree with you on one point: this board goes overboard on any negative Gopher-related column written by anybody. As for the "valid" points he made, only the "fire Brewster now" angle has not been discussed much in print, at least not that I have seen. (Even though it certainly has been here.)

But any small nuggets of insight were completely overshadowed by idiocy and laziness. There's no chance that Mason would come here as a temp, from the perspective of either side. Then he writes, "Most important, hire someone who doesn't believe in the excuses too many Gophers coaches and supporters trot out every time they lose a game." Then goes on to suggest Mason for the second time. That was Mason's worst trait, as far as I'm concerned. Trestman and Sumlin? The first two names that came up a month ago ... that's "casting a wide net?"

Come on, Jim. At least TRY.

 

[imthewalrus]

It looks to me as though Souhan is having a lot of fun...

He is probably targeting those people over at Gopher Illustrated or on the strib sites who always tried to blame Mason for Brewster's lack of success here at Minnesota.

You know there are a lot of different ways to write an opinion column. I'd say that Souhan is just having fun with this current "lame duck" situation. Lame duck coach...lame duck president...lame duck ad...

So many people wanted Mason gone and he had a .400 winning percentage in Big Ten play. Just yesterday we all learned that the Conference winning percentage here at the U of M is roughly 484. So, in reality, Mason was only .084 off the all time average winning percentage in Conference play.

Now we have a situation in which Brewster has a .2307 winning percentage in conference play. His winning percentage is .1693 LESS than Mason. That is the sad truth of the matter. So Mason was fired for being incompetent by a mere .084 winning percentage and he was replaced by a guy who is quite a bit worse than he was.

The really ironic thing is the fact that it sets up an entirely lame duck situation for all of the characters. Brewster, Prexy B and Maturi are ALL lame ducks. The real time frame here is June of 2011 when Prexy B. turns the keys of the University over to the nex prexy of the U of M.

We appear to have a stalemate here. Who will blink first? Prexy B? Maturi? The Board of Regents? Season ticket holders who will be faced with the question of whether to renew their season tickets? Big buck boosters? Will we have action...or...inaction? It is, indeed an existential question or will there be action...or, will the action look like inaction?

Souhan is laughing at the impossible nature of the current situation, I think. I think he is also laughing at those people on GI, those people who participate in the strib blogs...and maybe even all of us here at GH. Sometimes things get SO bad that all you can do is laugh about the situation just a little.

I think the guy in the real hot seat is Joel Maturi. He has made a habit of "zigging" when he should have been "zagging." He doesn't move when he should move and he makes moves when he shouldn't make a move. Let's all just be good sports and go ahead and have a good laugh at ourselves. That would probably make a lot more sense than trying to blame Souhan for the current mess we have in the football program at the University of Minnesota. ; 0 )

 

[Goldmember]

Mason's guys won the game, but people tend to forget that he was a blocked chip-shot field goal away from losing to North Dakota State. Had he lost that game, we wouldn't have been bowl-eligible and the Texas Tech second-half debacle never happens. In that event, what would have happened to Mason?

Lots of what-ifs. We'll never know. But we can't play that game. The 2006 team beat NDSU, despite it being the program's worst game in several years. Almost doesn't count for anything. If it did, just think how many "almost-W's" Mason's teams had.

And to put things in further perspective, Wisconsin 2008 needed several breaks to beat Cal Poly. Not just 1 blocked field goal.

But, yeah... Souhan is being a complete prick by suggesting Mason replace Brewster. Locally, Souhan was easily one of the most influential voices rallying public outcry against Glen Mason. And he's being even a bigger prick for suggesting people who care about Gopher Football should actually want the team to lose.

 

[Governor Sibley]

Souhan's not a hack. He's just a baseball writer.

 

[Iceland12]

- "Write a column on Gopher Football problems."
- "All I know is that Brewster is going to be fired."
- "Who will replace him?"
- "How the hell do I know? Sid says Trestman, Ruesse says that guy down in Houston. Maybe Mason could come back. He's not coaching. Oh, and Dungy won't take it. Did you know he went to Minnesota?"
- "Anybody else?"
- "I'm the wrong guy to ask. I know there should be a playoff, Ohio State and Michigan are the class of the Big Ten and Holtz did a great job at Notre Dame. Oh yeah this year Texas, Florida and USC are going to fight it out for the National Championship."
-" Yeah...Go with what you know."

 

[50PoundHead]

Lots of what-ifs. We'll never know. But we can't play that game. The 2006 team beat NDSU, despite it being the program's worst game in several years. Almost doesn't count for anything. If it did, just think how many "almost-W's" Mason's teams had.

And to put things in further perspective, Wisconsin 2008 needed several breaks to beat Cal Poly. Not just 1 blocked field goal.

But, yeah... Souhan is being a complete prick by suggesting Mason replace Brewster. Locally, Souhan was easily one of the most influential voices rallying public outcry against Glen Mason. And he's being even a bigger prick for suggesting people who care about Gopher Football should actually want the team to lose.

Yeah, you can't go back with the "what if's." We can only deal with what the situation is now. I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't have been surprised if Mason would have been fired after the season if they had lost to NDSU. And as I've said before, if I were Maturi, I would have fired him when he was playing hardball on his contract the previous year (I think it was the previous year). I like Maturi more than most, but I lost all expectation of him dealing with the football program successfully after that decision. Not whether or not it was the right decision, but how he didn't put his foot down and get the negotiations done or simply cut bait. The tail was wagging the dog and that doesn't happen at big-time programs.

What does make me laugh--and I think Barreiro has been a bigger hypocrite on this than Souhan--is that the sporting press that used to deride Mason (and deride him fairly heavily) now looks at him as some sort of misunderstood demigod.

 

[Khaliq]

Souhan's not a hack. He's just a baseball writer.

If you know sabermetrics you know he's a hack at that too.

 

[Goldy247]

sing along now

FIRE SUE HAN. CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP FIRE SUE HAN.

SUE HAN = TOOL

 

[Formo]

Wow. Souhan is a HUGE d-bag. I like to call him a d-nugget.

And that article is the stupidest thing I have ever read.

 

[BeerBibleBullets]

What a lazy column. No way you bring Mason back, he's been smirking about this for weeks on BTN. Sumlins next move will be a higher profile program than Minnesota, he's well thought of in Houston.

Time to look for an established winner at a smaller school, or an OC or DC from a 'contender', who many think is ready. Have Dungy help with the search...his last suggestion was Mike Tomlin, guess hes done OK...

 

[Silvio]

Time to look for an established winner at a smaller school, or an OC or DC from a 'contender', who many think is ready. Have Dungy help with the search...his last suggestion was Mike Tomlin, guess hes done OK...

If you think Mike Tomlin as a realistic suggestion then by all means have TD help. I hope you don't really think that MT was narrowing his coaching choices down to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers do you?

 

[Replacement Gopher]

Remember last year when Souhan suggested the Twins trade Liriano for Adrian Beltre? Pretty much quit taking him seriously after that.

Just we would would have needed. No Liriano in the rotation and Beltre watching Valencia from the bench.

 

[dpodoll68]

Beltre watching Valencia from the bench

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Beltre's 28 HR, 102 RBI, and .321 would've been sitting on the bench for a rookie. Even when slumping offensively the last few years, Beltre is still one of, if not THE, best defensive 3B in baseball. And Liriano completely sucked the last couple years before (somewhat) returning to form.

Souhan's a dick, but that trade is not that ridiculous, then or now. And back to your regularly scheduled programming...

 

[RodentRampage]

Why would Mason come back? He's got a very well paying, low pressure job. Would he give that up to be an interim coach? Or even if he was made the permanent head coach, the contract would have to be very favorable for him to give up his cushy job. In any case, he's falling into the mistake of assuming that if hiring Brewster was a mistake, then firing Mason must also have been a mistake. This is illogical, because there were other choices besides hiring Brewster or keeping Mason.

 

[Silvio]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Beltre's 28 HR, 102 RBI, and .321 would've been sitting on the bench for a rookie. Even when slumping offensively the last few years, Beltre is still one of, if not THE, best defensive 3B in baseball. And Liriano completely sucked the last couple years before (somewhat) returning to form.

Souhan's a dick, but that trade is not that ridiculous, then or now. And back to your regularly scheduled programming...

That trade would appear ridiculous then if you were the team giving up Beltre.

 

[BeerBibleBullets]

If you think Mike Tomlin as a realistic suggestion then by all means have TD help. I hope you don't really think that MT was narrowing his coaching choices down to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers do you?

No. Gophers didnt want him, so he went to the Steelers a year later.
No way MT looks at Gopher job.

 

[Silvio]

I think by a year you mean about a week.