A big part of the Gophers failures, especially when you compare them to rivals Wisconsin and Iowa lie with poor choices for coaches as well as lack of support for them. We finally have a guy in Coyle who looks like he is pretty good at making the right choices for his coaches.
Going back to 1984, their extended search committee yielded Les Steckel who turned down the job to take the Vikings job and go 3-13. They then announced Lavelle Edwards from BYU who probably would have been a great choice except he never put in for the job at all!!! They were then going back to square one and starting all over again but got lucky when Lou Holtz fell into their lap in late December. From there, Bobby Ross really wanted the job and would go on to win a national championship at Georgia Tech but they chose John Gutekunst who turned a team on the upswing into a .500 team and never was a head coach again. Jim Wacker was a disaster but Glen Mason wasn't a bad choice. If he would have recruited defense and placed a priority, he could have been a fantastic coach. Then you have the Brewster hire which was an epic disaster, literally the worst possible choice and you can see why this team has had such a hard time winning games. Jerry Kill was a better choice than I thought he would be, but I am on record for saying we should have gone with Mike Leach. That would have been interesting to say the least.
So a lot of our problems have come from inept athletic directors who ALWAYS seem to get it wrong!!
