Kill on Sport Huddle this a.m.

[imthewalrus]

Only time will tell just how well any of those other...

coaches will do here at Minnesota. The Big Ten record will tell us all we need to know. The Big Ten record will provide us with "...the truth..." ; 0 ) Good luck and best wishes to Coach Kill. This is one tough gig, and I am hoping for the very best for the coach, his staff and all of his players. I know he is a coach and I know he will work to improve this football program. Time will fill in all the details.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

coaches will do here at Minnesota. The Big Ten record will tell us all we need to know. The Big Ten record will provide us with "...the truth..." ; 0 ) Good luck and best wishes to Coach Kill. This is one tough gig, and I am hoping for the very best for the coach, his staff and all of his players. I know he is a coach and I know he will work to improve this football program. Time will fill in all the details.

Yep, I completely agree. The Big 10 record is what Coach Kill will be judged upon. It is a tough job and hopefully he can do it at a satisfatory rate.

 

[station19]

Holy Jesus Martha. Both Mason and Brewster are gone. Can we please dwell on the future instead of arguing about the past?[/QUOTE]

Who will be the coach after Kill?

 

[MaxyJR1]

Holy Jesus Martha. Both Mason and Brewster are gone. Can we please dwell on the future instead of arguing about the past?[/QUOTE]

Who will be the coach after Kill?

Tony Dungy no wait Adam Weber... no wait hopefully some coach in waiting from Kill's staff 15 years down the road.

 

[Rescooter]

coaches will do here at Minnesota. The Big Ten record will tell us all we need to know. The Big Ten record will provide us with "...the truth..." ; 0 ) Good luck and best wishes to Coach Kill. This is one tough gig, and I am hoping for the very best for the coach, his staff and all of his players. I know he is a coach and I know he will work to improve this football program. Time will fill in all the details.

You've got to be kidding Wren, Walrus, or whatever animal name that starts with a W you are.

Saying that Big 10 wins are good and Big 10 losses are bad is horribly redundant. You continually bring up Mason and his record. Here's one record:

Texas Tech in the 2006 Insight Bowl (as quoted):

The 2006 Insight Bowl saw the biggest comeback in NCAA Division I FBS postseason history, as Texas Tech came back from a 38–7 third-quarter deficit to defeat Minnesota 44–41 in overtime.

Mason never prepared his team physically for 4-quarters of football. He also coached "not to lose" rather than beat the other team. He lacked a "Killer" mentality.

Move on from Mason and be happy.

 

[nsmike]

Instead of dwelling in the past, I prefer to watch how Coach Kill is building the program, brick by brick. Questions arise about his ability to recruit BCS quality players, he retains a proven recruiter from the previous staff (Hammock) and hires a second (Miller). He meets with High School Coaches, and gets them on board, previous team captains, ditto. Major holes at WR and S he gets a couple of JUCO's that are potential answers. We need to wait for next year before we will see anything concrete but so far so good.

 

[corcoran1]

Mason was a good coach and lazy recruiter, in my opinion. He had some early success, and if he had busted his ass a little, he would still be coaching.
That said, Kill has three good recruiters on his staff, which is 1.5 more than Mason ever had. He'll do fine with recruiting if he can steal some games from the big guys in his first three years, and he continues to focus on defense, which Mason never did. The most amazing thing about Mason was that his best defense was led by of Wacker recruits and transfers. That says a lot about how hard he recruited defense.

 

[WAGopher]

The most amazing thing about Mason was that his best defense was led by of Wacker recruits and transfers. That says a lot about how hard he recruited defense.

He recruited them okay ... and then moved the better ones to offense.

 

[EG#9]

Can someone fill me in on the joke now? Someone is trying to bash Brewster and defend Mason by talking about Big Ten records? Mason was 32-48 over an entire decade. People are honestly interested in arguing about who was the bigger failure? They both left with terrible recrods, one had a longer time to establish his and the other had worse individual seasons.

 

[oak_street1981]

Can someone fill me in on the joke now? Someone is trying to bash Brewster and defend Mason by talking about Big Ten records? Mason was 32-48 over an entire decade. People are honestly interested in arguing about who was the bigger failure? They both left with terrible recrods, one had a longer time to establish his and the other had worse individual seasons.

Please stop it.

Glen Mason would have won 10 games again by 2010. He would have done it sooner than later with the new stadium coming, and a supporter, not a rat as AD. Maturi had an agenda, and it involved getting rid of GM. If anyone wants to argue that JM did not have an agenda involving removing Mason, I'd sure like to hear it. With Moe, Dienhardt, and and new stadium on the way, Mason would have won in a large fashion.

Tim Brewster was a blowhard, and incompetent, who never would have done squat. A blown opportunity for sure that I will never stop being quick to blow up about.

Mason was not at all a failure. His AD was a complete failure who did not support him at all. Joel Maturi, please join your inept coach in some place far away, so none of us will ever hear your name again.

Tom Moe and Mark Dienhardt were heavyweights who backed Mason. Maturi is a clown; everyone now knows that.

Despite Joel Maturi, Coach Kill will do very well here.

 

[imthewalrus]

And eg9: Mason's record in the Big Ten was the best since the last 3 years of Murray and Cal Stoll's 7 year stint when the Gophers went something like 36-42 in Big Ten play. You people just don't get it. It is HARD to win a lot of Big Ten Football games. It has been hard for a LONG time. Mason was the best coach since Cal Stoll in terms of winning Big Ten football games. Add up the ten years before Mason which included the Wacker and Gutey years and they fell far short of Mason. lou hoax only won a total of 7 Big Ten games at Minnesota. Obviously, Salem didn't win a lot of Big Ten games during his stint. And, it is going to be mighty tough for the ten year period following Mason for Coach Kill to last six seasons and win at least 25 Big Ten games in those six seasons. brewster won 6 Big Ten games in his 3 1/2 year stint. The replacement for brewster went 2-3 in Big Ten play. So, for the four years of brewball/replacement of brewball there were 8 Big Ten wins and 24 Big Ten losses. In order to top Mason, Coach Kill will have to win 25 Big Ten games in the next six seasons. He will need to win 25 out of 48 Big Ten games or would need to compile a 25-23 Big Ten record. That would be an average of four plus Big Ten wins per season. I really hope he can do that! That would be an outstanding job of coaching here at the University of Minnesota.

Will you people accept that kind of effort from Coach Kill as a truely outstanding accomplishment? At that rate,IF he can survive ten seasons, in those 10 seasons, he would have 41 or 42 Big Ten wins. He would be the FIRST since Murray Warmath to have compiled a .500 winning percentage in Big Ten play. Now THAT would really be something. I am pulling for Coach Kill to last at least 10 seasons and hope he can become the best coach since Coach Warmath. But, I have a hunch some of the mobbing and bashing types will not be happy if coach Kill only wins 25 Big Ten games in the next six seasons.

People like you, eg#9 just don't quite seem to realize how difficult it is to win Big Ten football games. People like you try to mock a man who managed to survive 10 seasons playing in the damn dome who had the best 10 year record since Warmath/Stoll.

I really do hope that people realize that while the new stadium will help...the addition of Nebraska to the schedule along with iowa, wisky, Michigan, MSU and NU plus two more random Big Ten games per season will make the task even more difficult. And, just think how tough it will be when they add that 9th Big Ten game per season.

You people do need to start realizing just how difficult it is to win Big Ten football games.

 

[hyaluronic]

I like ice cream.

 

[60's Guy]

100%

100%, in my opinion, Glen Mason deserved to be fired. It was clearly time. Mason did some good things. Brewster did some good things. Mason did some bad things. Brewster did some bad things.
They both deserved to be fired. Neither is coming back.

Let's hope coach Kill does a better job. Of the coaches hired this off season...I believe we may have gotten the best one. The big name guys stayed put. I'd clearly rather have Kill than Hoke or Edsall. Bashing Maturi is too convenient. He didn't go 32 and 48 in the Big Ten and he didn't schedule Buffalo and Troy State etc in the non conference schedule.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Just so you know....

It's possible that Mason deserved to be fired AND Brew didn't deserve to be hired (deserved to be fired once he was hired). It isn't an either/or thing.

 

[EG#9]

Please stop it.

Glen Mason would have won 10 games again by 2010. He would have done it sooner than later with the new stadium coming, and a supporter, not a rat as AD. Maturi had an agenda, and it involved getting rid of GM. If anyone wants to argue that JM did not have an agenda involving removing Mason, I'd sure like to hear it. With Moe, Dienhardt, and and new stadium on the way, Mason would have won in a large fashion.

Tim Brewster was a blowhard, and incompetent, who never would have done squat. A blown opportunity for sure that I will never stop being quick to blow up about.

Mason was not at all a failure. His AD was a complete failure who did not support him at all. Joel Maturi, please join your inept coach in some place far away, so none of us will ever hear your name again.

Tom Moe and Mark Dienhardt were heavyweights who backed Mason. Maturi is a clown; everyone now knows that.

Despite Joel Maturi, Coach Kill will do very well here.

You do realize that during Mason's tenure he:
Coached one of only two teams (Indiana being the other) to fail to finish in the top 3 of the Big Ten.
Set a Minnesota school record by losing to Iowa 5 straight times
Was 32-48 in the Big Ten and played nobody of consequence in the non-conference schedule
Never defeated a team that fnished in the top 3 of the Big Ten
Publicly campaigned for the tOSU job killing his recruiting and eaning public criticism from other Big Ten coaches (including the late Randy Walker)

Mason would have won 10 games for the 2nd time sometime between his 11th and 14th year in the program? Would that have been 5-3 in the Big Ten, 4 cupcakes, and a win in some bowl game sponsored by Gaylord Hotels or the Poulan Weed Eater? That would be great!

Your own response and a hypothetical "10 wins" suggests you know Mason would have continued to lag significantly behind Iowa and Wisconsin which is complete unacceptable. I don't see degrees of unacceptable: if you're failing, you're failing and Mason failed to do anything more than consistently put below average Big Ten teams on the field. Two of Brewster's teams were classic Mason teams and the other two years were even less successful.

Blame Maturi for whatever you want (his ineptness may be the only thing we agree on), but explain why Brewster was able to have much more success recruiting the top Minnesota kids immediately? Explain why Brewster was able to immediately vastly improve the quality of recruits signing with Minnesota over a coach who'd had ten years to develop contacts and relationships?

Did you think Mason's record against Iowa and Wisconsin was acceptable?
How about his overall Big Ten record?
How about never sniffing the top of the conference?
How about the graduation rate?

Where were the "check marks" that would suggest Mason was had any type of a successful run?

I'll answer it for you: They are not there. The Gophers were a below average Big Ten team for the majority of Glen Mason's tenure.

 

[60's Guy]

Valid point but

Just so you know....

It's possible that Mason deserved to be fired AND Brew didn't deserve to be hired (deserved to be fired once he was hired). It isn't an either/or thing.

I can agree with that but Brewster was hired. So then we are back to bashing Maturi. Brewster like Mason wasn't that far away from success. Based on his resume, I'm not sure you could predict he'd switch schemes, lose coordinators, make poor decisions and prove he couldn't handle being a head coach. To me, it is plausible to think that Brewster could have been a success by making different decisions. (in spite of his shortcomings)

My bigger point...I just want Kill to succeed. If he can have a 6 and 6 season in his first year and we got all these 2012 MN recruits....we can get a lot of them and be on an all time uptick.

 

[imthewalrus]

eg#9: Minnesota has fired every stinking coach they have had including Bierman, Fessler, Warmath, Stoll, Salem, (hoax cheated, got caught, left for ND and got Minnesota put on NCAA probation) Gutey, Wacker, Mason and brewster.

You live in the state of iowa and you freak out on recruiting stuff. Here is the deal: Mason was the best coach since Stoll. Stoll didn't even manage to survive as long at Minnesota as the admnistrators saw fit to keep Mason employed here. I was in Columbus to witness the first Gopher win there since the late 1940's. I was in Ann Arbor to witness a Gopher win there in 2005. I saw a Gopher win in iowa city. I saw the Gophers beat MSU in East Lansing and in the damn dome. I saw the Gophers beat Arkansas, Alabama and Oregon.

Mason ball was fun to watch. It was worth going to road games when Mason coached here.

I HOPE that Coach Kill far surpasses any other coach that has been here in the past 50 seasons. He will have to be successful starting in year number one. A lot of coaches have tried here, but the success rate has NOT been good. Stoll failed to win 50% of his Big Ten games. Salem failed. hoax failed to win 50% of his Big Ten games. Gutey failed. Wacker failed. Mason failed. brewster failed. Mason and Stoll did the best. Of that bunch, only Bierman and Warmath managed to win over 50% of their games over an extended period of time.

I hope Coach Kill can become the third. Time will tell. We will keep the Big Ten record and the wins minus losses in Big Ten play will tell us how good or how badly Coach Kill is doing compared to other former Gopher coaches and compared to current Big Ten coaches.

It's a hard, cold world. But, compared to other former U of M football coaches, Mason did pretty darn well... ; 0 )

 

[60's Guy]

Curious

Mason was a good coach and lazy recruiter, in my opinion. He had some early success, and if he had busted his ass a little, he would still be coaching.
That said, Kill has three good recruiters on his staff, which is 1.5 more than Mason ever had. He'll do fine with recruiting if he can steal some games from the big guys in his first three years, and he continues to focus on defense, which Mason never did. The most amazing thing about Mason was that his best defense was led by of Wacker recruits and transfers. That says a lot about how hard he recruited defense.

"three good recruiters on his staff" just curious who they are? I can make a guess on two...Hammock and Miller? right? wrong? who gets the third vote or maybe we got four?

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

I'll agree with Wren that in my lifetime being a gopher fan that Mason was the best. It really hasn't been close in my lifetime (as a fan) because I am in my 20's. He was a much better Gopher coach than Brewster.

However, that doesn't change the fact that the 2007 football team was incredibly thin (for a variety of reasons, some of which are Brews fault, most of which are Maturi's fault and some of them are Mason's fault). This is the idea that always sends you into one of your defensive pro-Mason rants and that's fine, but it's missing the point on these kinds of discussions.

This team is also far too thin (put the blame where you want, obviously most of it goes on Brew). When people bring up the 2007 team in comparison to this team it isn't always to compare Mason and Brew, it's sometimes to look at the depth of this team and hope to try to predict what to expect in regards to signing JuCo, RS players, and predictions on when we will finally have a normal SR class.

The Mason and Brew debate is boring and it isn't much a debate. Mason was obviously better but neither were good. It's like comparing whose fart smells worst.

Many of the people you have gone on this pro-Mason tirade against (under the false impression that bashing Mason means supporting Brew) have bashed Brewster as well. When this thread took it's Wren-induced Mason/Brew debate, it was because I had made the statement that we are thin, but not as thin as 2007 (almost everyone would agree with that idea), it was two posts after I was bashing for Brew for not retaining a decent percentage of his players.

 

[maxwellsmart]

wren ruined a different board and now here he is again. How about if we all agree you are the top fan of all time and you just go somewhere else.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

"three good recruiters on his staff" just curious who they are? I can make a guess on two...Hammock and Miller? right? wrong? who gets the third vote or maybe we got four?

Jeff Phelps was also considered the best recruiter on the Kill staff and is considered to be a good recruiter in general, and Limegrover seems to be a fairly active recruiter, but i'm not sure who the 4th guy is. But I think most people would agree that Hammock, Miller and Phelps are good recruiters.

 

[diehard]

The Kill Crew has stepped up its recruiting every time they step up to a new level of football. I expect as a group they will step up again. Hammock and Miller make it even better. I don't expect they will recruit with tOSU and the Huskers, but they will recruit at the Wisky and Iowa level pretty quickly. When their recruits hang around for 4 and 5 years it will make a world of difference.

 

[gophmeister]

wren ruined a different board and now here he is again. How about if we all agree you are the top fan of all time and you just go somewhere else.

You can always ignore him.

 

[corcoran1]

Okay, I give up. Glen Mason was the greatest coach in BigTen history. We should have a weekly tribute to the brilliance of his 10 years as coach. No one could have done better, no matter what the circumstances, he was fabulous. Just imagine how good he could have been if the s o b actually worked at recruiting. Especially brilliant was the stacked deck of offensive linemen and running backs he left behind. The talent there was incredible. Anybody but Brewster would have won 10 games easy with the overwhelming talent Mason left for Brewster. It was amazing we didn't have 12 BCS coaches fighting for the job with the talent Mason left.

 

[gophmeister]

Glen Mason would have won 10 games again by 2010.

I started wondering about this during the season. Mason wasn't a top tier coach, but he wasn't as bad as some make him out to be. Still, we'd probably would have only won a couple more games in 2007, had about the same records in 2008 and 2009, and maybe slipped into a bowl this year. Even with the stadium, I think the Big Ten has improved significantly the last few years it would have been tough for Mason as well. He didn't have great records against Wisconsin and Iowa, that's for sure.

Maturi had an agenda, and it involved getting rid of GM.

I don't think it was Maturi's agenda per se. Mason didn't endear himself to his employer with his continual job hunting. It was obvious that it was affecting recruiting and I think Bruinicks and others were tired of it.

Tim Brewster was a blowhard, and incompetent, who never would have done squat.

Those are some strong words, but yes, Brewster probably never would have achieved his stated goals. However, he didn't wreck the program as some seem to think. There's a lot to build on here than say at Indiana.

Mason was not at all a failure. His AD was a complete failure who did not support him at all.

Maturi was Mason's boss and he had a lot more concerns than whether or not Glen Mason is happy. The transition to a single AD was a lot more work than getting rid of Chris Voelz. Mason should have maybe been a little more loyal and dedicated to his employer than constantly acting like a primadonna.

Despite Joel Maturi, Coach Kill will do very well here.

Agreed.

 

[mplsbadger]

Yep, I completely agree. The Big 10 record is what Coach Kill will be judged upon. It is a tough job and hopefully he can do it at a satisfatory rate.

You hit the ail on the head. The Gophers will start the year with an average schedule that includes Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, and one of Penn State or Ohio State.

I'm curious. What does everyone think is an acceptable winning percentage over say the first four years and the next four years against this schedule. Being completely honest, I think the answer is 3-5 for the former, and 5-3 for the latter. 5-3 puts you on the plane of Iowa in the 80's and 00's, and Wisconsin in the 90's and 00's. To expect more is probably unrealistic.

 

[gophmeister]

I'm curious. What does everyone think is an acceptable winning percentage over say the first four years and the next four years against this schedule.

I would say .500 and then .625 for the next four years if we stay with a eight conference game schedule. If we go to nine I would temper my expectations a bit as far as winning percentage.

 

[WAGopher]

You hit the ail on the head. The Gophers will start the year with an average schedule that includes Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, and one of Penn State or Ohio State.

I'm curious. What does everyone think is an acceptable winning percentage over say the first four years and the next four years against this schedule. Being completely honest, I think the answer is 3-5 for the former, and 5-3 for the latter. 5-3 puts you on the plane of Iowa in the 80's and 00's, and Wisconsin in the 90's and 00's. To expect more is probably unrealistic.

While I think Kill will, and needs, to ultimately be judged on Big 10 wins, it is more important that he starts by getting bowl eligible every single year. I think most casual fans and many recruits look at the whole season to judge a team, and not care to compare success/progress using the conference record. For recruiting and team development getting to a bowl game is huge.

If we're to be considered relevant in the Big 10, then we need to have at least 4 wins a year. Averaging 5 wins a year would be huge and would could get us into a January bowl game in an up year.

How big is averaging 5 conference wins? Consider we haven't averaged 5 Big 10 wins a year since Bierman was coaching, and it's pretty big.

 

[station19]

You hit the ail on the head. The Gophers will start the year with an average schedule that includes Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, and one of Penn State or Ohio State.

I'm curious. What does everyone think is an acceptable winning percentage over say the first four years and the next four years against this schedule. Being completely honest, I think the answer is 3-5 for the former, and 5-3 for the latter. 5-3 puts you on the plane of Iowa in the 80's and 00's, and Wisconsin in the 90's and 00's. To expect more is probably unrealistic.

I'll take the first year expectations/hopes.

We did manage to win two Big 10 games in 2010-one more in 2011 would be three Big 10 wins.

If we can win three NC games in 2011(hopefully we can win the the home games) that would give us a 6-6 record and be bowl eligible. This would be a nice first year turnaround after the Brewster era.

 

[Maximus]

I was in Columbus to witness the first Gopher win there since the late 1940's.

Were you there the next week for a 51-43 loss to 3 win Indiana?

I was in Ann Arbor to witness a Gopher win there in 2005.

Did you enjoy blowing a 10 point lead with less than 3 minutes to play the next week against Wisconsin?

I saw a Gopher win in iowa city.

Hmm....nice phrasing. "A win". A four poiint win over a 1-10 Iowa team. The next three trips to Kinnick?

42-24 (down 42-10 in the 3rd quarter)
40-22 (down 40-6 in the 4th quarter)
52-28 (down 45-7 in the 3rd quarter)

I saw the Gophers beat Arkansas, Alabama and Oregon.

Sweet...wins over 6-6 Arkansas and 6-6 Alabama. The people of Nashville are still talking about 'em.

Do you celebrate mediocrity in your real life or just in college football?