That IS Mason level success. Mason level success is failure. What happened to Brewster in 2010. Look at his contract extension. He wasn't extended to improve his position recruiting. He was extended to lower hos buyout for firing. Every member of his staff knew. They were under immense pressure and folded. Maturi tanked the 2010 football season. Just look how the staff and players responded when Brewster was fired and the pressure of the contract was relieved.
Fire Maturi now! Don't let him ruin Coach Kill. He is the best coach we have had in 40 years and Maturi had to be backed into a corner to hire him. Offered him after 7 weeks of searching after all the names turned away from Maturi and gave him 24 hours to decide. Total and complete incompetence. Coach Kill should have been the first Tier II coach offered and hired the day after the NIU regular season ended. But no, he should not have been contacted until the MAC Championship game. That part was right.
We need to find our Dr. Tom for AD and do so immediately (Kaler is our first hope for that). Unfortunately Bruininks has a standing 2 year extension on Maturi's desk as I type. That is truly sad.
It's amazing how someone can be so sure of himself when he actually hasn't a frickin' clue about what really might have happened. God, where to start.
-Maturi extends Brewster to lower his buyout? Wow! Ya, Maturi had this plan to save a few 100,000 dollars by causing this chaos, opening himself up to a hell of a lot more criticism, and setting the program back yet again. Couldn't be that he was following SOP after a season that merited an extension for the usual reasons? Couldn't be that Maturi wanted Brewster to succeed because he was tied so closely to Brewster and bent over backwards to keep him?
-Proof is how the staff and players responded when the pressure was relieved? How about the players had gotten tired of the BS and had quit on Brewster? Then they finally got tired of being a laughingstock and played inspired football the last one and a half games of their season. But don't let the simple explanation of what could motivate athletes stop you from throwing out your more complicated theories.
-Maturi somehow drove all the name coaches away? I don't doubt that he contacted people who are considered on the A List and they all turned him down. Fact is, none of the big names went anywhere, not even the noted Pirateophile that everyone was lusting after. Over a half dozen other schools must also have awful AD's also if Harbaugh, Patterson, Bellotti, Peterson, etc weren't hired by them. That's the only obvious conclusion to make. Nobody else hires abig name coach, but people here keep claiming it's got to be because of Maturi.
-Then Kill should have been the first Tier II coach offered? And you know this how? Sitting in front of your computer and watching cable undoubtedly makes your more knowledgable than somebody who has the contacts and resources that Maturi does. Kill might have been the first guy actually offered. We have no way of knowing, but Maturi, contrary to the version some people like, didn't just dick around for 7 weeks doing nothing. It's obvious he was thorough and I think ran a good search after the "Tubby type of hire" opening blunder.
-And Kill is the best coach we've hired in 40 years? Again, you know this how before even one game has been played? I love the hire and hope to hell it works, but there's a whole lot of luck involved here. The best coach hired in 40 years might take a few seasons; it'll be determined on the field and not because you say so. Just sort of the way things really work.
-So Maturi in a panic hired Kill as a last resort and lucked into a good hire in the last 24 hours? Hires and contracts don't get done that quickly, not even in your world. Kill said something like, "He (Maturi) knew more about me than I knew about myself," at his introductory press conference. The preliminary work had been done in those 7 weeks of dicking around. Maybe Edsall backed out at the last minute after his team won or maybe he didn't. So what? Hell, if he did, that's even more credit to Maturi. He had a backup plan in place and immediately executed it. Hardly the type of thing a "dithering Joel", as people like to call him, would be able to do.
-Then finally. Bruininks has an extension on his desk for Maturi as you type? Yep, that's exactly how things work at that level. A new president has been hired but the old one is going to extend a very visible and very scrutinized administrator right before he leaves. Ya, nothing wrong with that plan because Bruininks is too dumb to realize what a firestorm that would cause. For someone who is so quick to call people stupid when they don't see the same black and white world as you do, that's really a exceptionally dumb-ass thing to say.