Joe Rossi: Fabricated Coaching Bio

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I think there’s one person upset and then some others mildly amused and then some others outraged this was brought up because it’s a little embarrassing.
 

With Rossi, it comes down to this:

(1) If the defense continues to stink, who cares about his resume, we are going to go out and find a DC;
(2) If the defense improves under him, who cares about his resume, we should probably keep him (depending upon who is available).

Lying on your resume is an issue and if he was a fresh hire, I think it would bother me more.
 

I think the most concerning thing about Rossi is the PPG allowed in Big Ten games in his second and final season as Rutgers defensive coordinator.

2015
28
31
52
49
48
49
31
46
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
With Rossi, it comes down to this:

(1) If the defense continues to stink, who cares about his resume, we are going to go out and find a DC;
(2) If the defense improves under him, who cares about his resume, we should probably keep him (depending upon who is available).

Lying on your resume is an issue and if he was a fresh hire, I think it would bother me more.
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Just to be clear, we have no idea if he lied on a resume in any way. The info on his gophersports bio appears to be misleading or wrong in some cases but there is no way for any of us to know if that info was on his resume or not. Points 1 and 2 are all that really matter to most outside of the 1 or 2 truly offended by this clear and deliberate deception being perpetrated on the unknowing fan base of the Gophers. :)
 

Winnipegopher said:
Sorry bud. It is not bigger than average. It is just an average crank.
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How did this go from lying on coaching biography posting to lying about crank sizes? Really weird analogy. This is a weird thread even by gopherhole standards.

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MNVCGUY said:
Just to be clear, we have no idea if he lied on a resume in any way. The info on his gophersports bio appears to be misleading or wrong in some cases but there is no way for any of us to know if that info was on his resume or not. Points 1 and 2 are all that really matter to most outside of the 1 or 2 truly offended by this clear and deliberate deception being perpetrated on the unknowing fan base of the Gophers. :)
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You're right.

Inaccuracies from his bio are troubling. If they are the result of people at the U, it's really stupid. If they are the result of his own storytelling, it's also troubling.

That said, I don't really care all that much.
 

No way to know if this is malicious, an honest mistake, or someone taking creative license to try and make a coach's record sound more impressive.

But, my guess is something like this: Assistant SID is in charge of FB media guide. He or she tells a flunky/intern - "write bios of the assistant coaches." flunky/intern goes to wikipedia, copies whatever they find, and pastes it into Rossi's page in the media guide. I doubt that the flunky/intern fact-checked anything. Especially if they're some millennial who spends most of their day staring at their phone.

I seriously doubt that anyone said "let's falsify information to inflate the coaching resume of some guy most people have never heard of."
 

goldy93 said:
Just so I am clear, is this what started this whole thread? Wow.
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No. That was the lesser of the two fabrications. The other ones cannot be argued as exaggerations, but instead, are clearly lies.
 

MNVCGUY said:
It amazes me the length some people will go to to find things to be outraged about. So what if they fudged the bio a little bit on the website, is it really worth getting that bent out of shape about?

1. It doesn't mean he lied to get the job or that some massive conspiracy has been uncovered. If some random poster can dig up this info so easily then I would hope the people that hired him would know what he had or had not done at previous stops. I highly doubt they were relying on his bio when they made the decision to hire him.

2. As others have pointed out he probably had very little to do with the writing of his bio. Someone in sports information crafted it and he probably gave it a once over.

3. Is anyone really hurt by this? Clearly Hit Harder feels deceived and the SID should probably take a look at whoever is responsible for the bios to make sure they are fact checking things a little better but to me this feels like a non-issue.
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I'm hardly outraged about it. Instead, I'm simply pointing out that a well-funded athletic department with plenty of SID help is dropping the ball. Just as troubling, both the SID and AD have been aware about these fabrications for three days. Even though they acknowledged them and claimed they would look into them and make the changes to be more honest in his bio, they have yet to do it. It's less than a 15 minute process to verify the claims in the bio. I would hope that accuracy and honesty coming from an SID's office would be worth finding 15 minutes over three days.

On top of that, it does beg the question of where the lies originated. Since those same lies can be traced back to at least his Rutgers bio, they weren't created by Minnesota. However, that doesn't mean Rossi didn't create the lies or perpetuate them. That's why it would be interesting to see if he used them on his application/bio.

And yes, lying on an application/resume about your accomplishments for a state position is more of an issue than many on here are making it appear to be.
 



Hit Harder said:
No. That was the lesser of the two fabrications. The other ones cannot be argued as exaggerations, but instead, are clearly lies.
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1. There's almost zero chance he wrote his own bio in the media guide.
2. I would wager almost anything that coaches pay no more than a cursory glance at the media guide.
3. You have no idea if he actually "lied" either on a resume or verbally when he was hired.
4. Why are you so incredibly upset by this?
 

Someone at the U of M clearly copy and pasted the Rutgers bio and then dropped a few sentences to shorten it. Probably should have double-checked, but not a big deal.
 

Hit Harder said:
I noticed that Joe Rossi’s coaching biography on the Minnesota football webpage makes the claim that “Maine annually had one of the top defensive units in the Football Championship Subdivision under Rossi.” By no reasonable and logical measure can this claim be made.

By far, the top two statistics used to rank defenses are total yards allowed (total defense) and defensive points allowed (scoring defense). According to his bio, Rossi was Maine’s defensive coordinator from 2009-2011. In 2009, Maine’s total defense was 60th out of 118 teams, which is the bottom half. In 2010 it was 60th out of 117, which is also in the bottom half. In 2011, it was 51st out of 120. Scoring defensive rankings are not much different for Maine during those years.

How could anyone claim that those results lead to being one of the top defenses in the country?

Moving on, his bio also claims that while the DC at Thiel College, his defense led the conference in 2006 in scoring defense, total defense, rush defense, and pass defense. These are also bogus claims.

In 2006, Thiel was behind Washington & Jefferson (a fellow conference member) in scoring defense both in only conference games and in overall games. In total defense, Thiel allowed 255.8 yards to finish 41st nationally. Thomas More, a fellow conference school, finished 25th in the country allowing fewer yards at 244.8 yards per game.

Thiel was also behind Thomas More in rushing defense, so that claim is also bogus.

Now, one can claim that they're only referring to games within the conference, but in that case, it would still be false based on the scoring defense claim as I already pointed out.

All of these things are easily verified both on the conference’s official statistics page and the official NCAA statistical archives.

At small schools, these coaching bios follow a coach and are not verified for accuracy or honesty simply due to having small SID staffs. Minnesota has the resources to verify this stuff, especially for such a major sport. It would be interesting to file a FOI request to get Rossi's resume/application that he would have had to submit based on state requirements to see if he lied by using this false information.

https://gophersports.com/coaches.aspx?rc=149&path=football
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Congratulations you found a mistake. Big #####deal. Now tell me, wo really cares. It’s not like he will be here next year anyway. I am sure your resume - if you even have one - is all true. Doubtful.
 

Let's say they did fire him over this. One defensive staffer is already gone. We'll be down to interns from the ticket sales office breaking down film of Wisconsin.

Does anyone want that?
 



fmlizard said:
Let's say they did fire him over this. One defensive staffer is already gone. We'll be down to interns from the ticket sales office breaking down film of Wisconsin.

Does anyone want that?
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Depends whether they lied if they were one of the top ranked or more middle of the pack regarding their ticket sales numbers......
 

Hit Harder said:
I'm hardly outraged about it. Instead, I'm simply pointing out that a well-funded athletic department with plenty of SID help is dropping the ball. Just as troubling, both the SID and AD have been aware about these fabrications for three days. Even though they acknowledged them and claimed they would look into them and make the changes to be more honest in his bio, they have yet to do it. It's less than a 15 minute process to verify the claims in the bio. I would hope that accuracy and honesty coming from an SID's office would be worth finding 15 minutes over three days.

On top of that, it does beg the question of where the lies originated. Since those same lies can be traced back to at least his Rutgers bio, they weren't created by Minnesota. However, that doesn't mean Rossi didn't create the lies or perpetuate them. That's why it would be interesting to see if he used them on his application/bio.

And yes, lying on an application/resume about your accomplishments for a state position is more of an issue than many on here are making it appear to be.
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Have you found discrepancies in any of the other U of M coaches bios?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Inaccuracies from his bio are troubling. If they are the result of people at the U, it's really stupid. If they are the result of his own storytelling, it's also troubling.
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Below is troubling. This thread is asinine. Started by someone with a clear ax to grind and nothing more.

I'll reserve my "outrage" until after OP scrubs every other D1 website to discover this is the only "lie" and reports back.

Federal authorities have given NCAA officials their approval to move ahead with an investigation of alleged rules violations that came to light during the first of three federal criminal trials involving pay-for-play schemes and other corruption in college basketball, ESPN has confirmed.

During last month's trials in New York, evidence and testimony were presented that alleged potential rules violations involving coaches and players at Arizona, Creighton, Kansas, Louisville, LSU, NC State, Oklahoma State, Oregon and other programs.

ESPN reported in February that as many as three dozen Division I programs, including many of the sport's traditional powers, might be facing NCAA sanctions once the federal government releases information that it acquired during its clandestine, three-year investigation.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...te-schools-college-basketball-corruption-case
 

Hit Harder said:
I'm hardly outraged about it. Instead, I'm simply pointing out that a well-funded athletic department with plenty of SID help is dropping the ball. Just as troubling, both the SID and AD have been aware about these fabrications for three days. Even though they acknowledged them and claimed they would look into them and make the changes to be more honest in his bio, they have yet to do it. It's less than a 15 minute process to verify the claims in the bio. I would hope that accuracy and honesty coming from an SID's office would be worth finding 15 minutes over three days.

On top of that, it does beg the question of where the lies originated. Since those same lies can be traced back to at least his Rutgers bio, they weren't created by Minnesota. However, that doesn't mean Rossi didn't create the lies or perpetuate them. That's why it would be interesting to see if he used them on his application/bio.

And yes, lying on an application/resume about your accomplishments for a state position is more of an issue than many on here are making it appear to be.
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To the last point I don't think anyone has said lying on his resume wouldn't be a big deal. What is being discussed/dissected is not his resume, it is his bio which does not have to be connected to his resume in any way shape or form.

As to why the athletic department hasn't made the change yet it is probably because they don't view it as a high priority and for good reason. The football season is almost over and the winter sports are just getting started so I am sure the majority of their attention/focus is on those sports not on researching and correcting the bio of an assistant coach who is filling in for a few weeks.

I am sure at some point things will get corrected and for the vast majority of the fanbase they will never even realized that they were led astray by false information and lies. Only the handful of people that actually read his bio and this forum will know the truth.
 

Unregistered User said:
Below is troubling. This thread is asinine. Started by someone with a clear ax to grind and nothing more.

I'll reserve my "outrage" until after OP scrubs every other D1 website to discover this is the only "lie" and reports back.

Federal authorities have given NCAA officials their approval to move ahead with an investigation of alleged rules violations that came to light during the first of three federal criminal trials involving pay-for-play schemes and other corruption in college basketball, ESPN has confirmed.

During last month's trials in New York, evidence and testimony were presented that alleged potential rules violations involving coaches and players at Arizona, Creighton, Kansas, Louisville, LSU, NC State, Oklahoma State, Oregon and other programs.

ESPN reported in February that as many as three dozen Division I programs, including many of the sport's traditional powers, might be facing NCAA sanctions once the federal government releases information that it acquired during its clandestine, three-year investigation.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...te-schools-college-basketball-corruption-case
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Yeah, there are a number of things that are troubling.
 

Urbandale said:
1. There's almost zero chance he wrote his own bio in the media guide.
2. I would wager almost anything that coaches pay no more than a cursory glance at the media guide.
3. You have no idea if he actually "lied" either on a resume or verbally when he was hired.
4. Why are you so incredibly upset by this?
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1. That's not entirely accurate. Early in their careers, coaches almost always have to provide all of their "accomplishments" to put in their bios. That is especially true at small schools that don't have much of an SID office. From there, most of the bios are copied, HOWEVER, at each new stop a coach is usually asked by an SID employee to add in any new info from their previous stop (any of your position unit go to the NFL, win an award, lead the country in a statistic, etc.). That is how a coach's last stop is added to the copied-and-pasted bio. At some point, it is very reasonable to believe that Rossi was the one who created the lies and/or signed off on them.

2. Ehh, not true. In recruiting, it goes a long ways. They will tell everyone they recruit about what they have accomplished. That almost always is reflected in their bio. Every coach has read their bio, especially one that has followed them for years. Any coach knows if the unit they coordinate really did lead the conference, was one of the tops in the country, etc.

3. Agreed. That is why I have repeatedly said it would be interesting to see what was on his application/resume for this position, which all state employees are required to complete. If, in fact, the application/resume contained the same lies, it would not only be an ethical issue but also a legal one. I am sure that he had read his bio at some point which contained the bogus information.

4. Again, I am not "outraged" or "so incredibly upset." I am simply refuting poor arguments that some of you make. I am more appalled that the SID's office (and Coyle) are aware of the fabrications, acknowledged it, and have taken at least three days to invest 15 minutes into making their office more accurate and more honest.
 

I'm curious why someone would decide to dig into this to begin with.
 


Personally, I was ready to move on from the Rutgers/Robb/Schiano tree before this little Pinocchio brouhaha and it’s just a little more evidence we need fresh blood, fresh ideas, fresh start. Let’s move on from the Rutgers/Schiano/east coast crowd. Ideally look to staff with ties to traditional Big Ten schools or midwestern recruiting grounds.
 

I have spent the last 20 hours looking at bios of every D1 coaching staff on their teams websites. Researching their statements, looking for lies, filing the inaccuracies in a folder on my desk. The results are truly alarming. Once I finish with the last few P5 teams I'll be looking into Group of 5 squads. Its exhausting but clearly necessary work. I cannot wait to release this cache on the dark web where the information will be disseminated to all news outlets. This might be the straw that breaks the back of the NCAA, to be honest.

And I haven't even looked into basketball OR any other sport.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
I have spent the last 20 hours looking at bios of every D1 coaching staff on their teams websites. Researching their statements, looking for lies, filing the inaccuracies in a folder on my desk. The results are truly alarming. Once I finish with the last few P5 teams I'll be looking into Group of 5 squads. Its exhausting but clearly necessary work. I cannot wait to release this cache on the dark web where the information will be disseminated to all news outlets. This might be the straw that breaks the back of the NCAA, to be honest.

And I haven't even looked into basketball OR any other sport.
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:clap:
 

Hit Harder said:
I noticed that Joe Rossi’s coaching biography on the Minnesota football webpage makes the claim that “Maine annually had one of the top defensive units in the Football Championship Subdivision under Rossi.” By no reasonable and logical measure can this claim be made.

By far, the top two statistics used to rank defenses are total yards allowed (total defense) and defensive points allowed (scoring defense). According to his bio, Rossi was Maine’s defensive coordinator from 2009-2011. In 2009, Maine’s total defense was 60th out of 118 teams, which is the bottom half. In 2010 it was 60th out of 117, which is also in the bottom half. In 2011, it was 51st out of 120. Scoring defensive rankings are not much different for Maine during those years.

How could anyone claim that those results lead to being one of the top defenses in the country?

Moving on, his bio also claims that while the DC at Thiel College, his defense led the conference in 2006 in scoring defense, total defense, rush defense, and pass defense. These are also bogus claims.

In 2006, Thiel was behind Washington & Jefferson (a fellow conference member) in scoring defense both in only conference games and in overall games. In total defense, Thiel allowed 255.8 yards to finish 41st nationally. Thomas More, a fellow conference school, finished 25th in the country allowing fewer yards at 244.8 yards per game.

Thiel was also behind Thomas More in rushing defense, so that claim is also bogus.

Now, one can claim that they're only referring to games within the conference, but in that case, it would still be false based on the scoring defense claim as I already pointed out.

All of these things are easily verified both on the conference’s official statistics page and the official NCAA statistical archives.

At small schools, these coaching bios follow a coach and are not verified for accuracy or honesty simply due to having small SID staffs. Minnesota has the resources to verify this stuff, especially for such a major sport. It would be interesting to file a FOI request to get Rossi's resume/application that he would have had to submit based on state requirements to see if he lied by using this false information.

https://gophersports.com/coaches.aspx?rc=149&path=football
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Which Star Tribune writer are you?
 



Pompous Elitist said:
Personally, I was ready to move on from the Rutgers/Robb/Schiano tree before this little Pinocchio brouhaha and it’s just a little more evidence we need fresh blood, fresh ideas, fresh start. Let’s move on from the Rutgers/Schiano/east coast crowd. Ideally look to staff with ties to traditional Big Ten schools or midwestern recruiting grounds.
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Sounds good on paper. Question is ... who all outside of Schiano's extended tree is willing to risk their career on Fleck by coming to Minnesota, at this time?

The suggestion recent was the App St DC. I suppose at some point, if you reach "low" enough, the jump up to a P5 school is simply too good an offer to pass up. Not sure if Sun Belt is "low" enough or not.
 

More “no big deal” posts. Likely an honest mistake. What a joke. Dishonest is dishonest. Says a lot about this “leader”.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Spoofin said:
More “no big deal” posts. Likely an honest mistake. What a joke. Dishonest is dishonest. Says a lot about this “leader”.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The joke is this thread being started in the first place.
 

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