Kluwe: TCF Bank field is unplayable, a trainwreck

Donate To GopherHole
GopherJake said:
Am I the only one here that thinks this game will have ZERO positive impact on recruiting? Does anyone really think this game will tip the scales to us in a recruiting battle? On the contrary, I think, if anything, it will hurt us. Particularly if conditions worsen and/or punter guy is right.

I just don't see how it will *help* us.
Click to expand...

Tip the scales? No. Does it maybe get a kid in Florida/Texas/California who barely knew where Minnesota was before to let Coach Kill into the living room where maybe he'd have passed before? Maybe. Then it's all on Kill.
 

howeda7 said:
Tip the scales? No. Does it maybe get a kid in Florida/Texas/California who barely knew where Minnesota was before to let Coach Kill into the living room where maybe he'd have passed before? Maybe. Then it's all on Kill.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. I also read this, in the interim:

" I think the national exposure this week has at least put the Gophers on some people's radar that never would've noticed us"

on another thread (basically your point). I can dig that. Carry on.
 

The Florida kids will just love the whiteout tonight, but I'm sure they will realize that no college Football is played in Minnesota on December 20th.
 

Yeah, I'm not sure this is the weather you want to broadcast to every kid in Texas, Cali, Florida, etc.

Weather is not a real big deal if you've lived in the midwest for your entire life but it might be perceived well by kids who have never seen anything less than 40 degrees.
 

FireCosgroveGuy said:
Weather is not a real big deal if you've lived in the midwest for your entire life but it might be perceived well by kids who have never seen anything less than 40 degrees.
Click to expand...

I'm sure no kid from those areas has ever heard or seen before today that it snows or gets cold in MN. I'm also sure no rival recruiters have ever brought it to their attention either.
 


I like Kluwe, really do. But I probably would have just shut up about the whole thing.
 

All this pointless whining about the field conditions for a meaningless game makes me long for the days when everyone didn't feel the need to share every mundane detail about their lives with anyone who would listen. Do you think Reggie Roby would have ever complained about field conditions, gone on the radio to talk about Pitfall and Asteroids or felt the need to tell us all how great Wendy's new fries were? No. He just strapped on his wristwatch, buttoned up his helmet with the single bar facemask and kept his damn mouth shut.
 


This could totally tip the scales for some. Ask any professional recruiter that works for a top-tier institution in the Twin Cities that is competing for national talent what their toughest sell is. They'll tell you it's getting people to move to Minneapolis. They'll tell you how candidates "love the company, love the people, even love the town, but are really concerned about the weather". Like it or not quality of life issues (perceived or otherwise) make a difference. I know because we have that problem in our business. The last thing you want is to remind fence sitters that have other options how lousy the weather can be here.

Yes, they already know it's cold here. When selling, though, you emphasize the reasons the customer WANTS the product, not why they DON'T. When selling an SUV you don't emphasize the gas mileage, you emphasize the toughness. Tonight's game emphasizes the negative. In the overall scheme of things it's probably not that big of deal, but to pretend it's not a negative is ridiculous IMHO.
 




It might be a slight negative, but only a very small one, and outweighed by the positives.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
All this pointless whining about the field conditions for a meaningless game makes me long for the days when everyone didn't feel the need to share every mundane detail about their lives with anyone who would listen. Do you think Reggie Roby would have ever complained about field conditions, gone on the radio to talk about Pitfall and Asteroids or felt the need to tell us all how great Wendy's new fries were? No. He just strapped on his wristwatch, buttoned up his helmet with the single bar facemask and kept his damn mouth shut.
Click to expand...

I've deleted some of my friends from facebook because they update their "status" way too much. There are some that update it every couple of hours. Is it really important to let me know every day that you're going to the YMCA to workout, then tell me how the workout went? I don't care that much.
 

tato2001 said:
In the overall scheme of things it's probably not that big of deal, but to pretend it's not a negative is ridiculous IMHO.
Click to expand...

It also emphasizes the positive, playing in a stadium that the NFL is willing to play a game in. To pretend that doesn't exist is also ridiculous IMHO.

I agree with you that one way or the other its probably not moving the needle. But if one visual display of the cold and snow is enough to keep a kid from coming here then he very likely wasn't coming anyway. Otherwise the "sales" process to a recruit will proceed as normal.

One other thing I haven't seen mentioned. Kill's rep as a recruiter is that he's a straight shooter. Some NIU folks have joked he almost "de-recruits" a kid because he is honest when responding to questions. That leads me to believe he'll likely address the cold issue head on with concerned recruits and that he won't dance around it. If someone is going to come to MN for a guy like that they'll know what they're getting into.
 



Tarkenton was just talking to Reusse on 1500. Said Met stadium field was covered and heated and never frozen. Said he thinks the field tonight will be "unbearable".
 

tato2001 said:
This could totally tip the scales for some. Ask any professional recruiter that works for a top-tier institution in the Twin Cities that is competing for national talent what their toughest sell is. They'll tell you it's getting people to move to Minneapolis. They'll tell you how candidates "love the company, love the people, even love the town, but are really concerned about the weather". Like it or not quality of life issues (perceived or otherwise) make a difference. I know because we have that problem in our business. The last thing you want is to remind fence sitters that have other options how lousy the weather can be here.

Yes, they already know it's cold here. When selling, though, you emphasize the reasons the customer WANTS the product, not why they DON'T. When selling an SUV you don't emphasize the gas mileage, you emphasize the toughness. Tonight's game emphasizes the negative. In the overall scheme of things it's probably not that big of deal, but to pretend it's not a negative is ridiculous IMHO.
Click to expand...

I think you have a point if we're talking about MSP as a whole. Is tonight a positive? No probably not. Is it a positive for the U? I still think so. Millions of people will see TCF that have never seen it before and hear the U discussed that have never given it another thought. In net, I think it outweighs 'oh look it's snowing again in Minnesota' negatives. The national perception already is that Minnesota is a barren, frozen, waste-land, 10 months per year. It can't really get much worse. At least the U is getting some specific publicity.

Put it this way, it would be much worse for the U if they were playing this at Target Field. All the negatives and none of the positives.
 

station19 said:
Tarkenton was just talking to Reusse on 1500. Said Met stadium field was covered and heated and never frozen. Said he thinks the field tonight will be "unbearable".
Click to expand...

If that actually comes to pass, I hope someone will let us know how much the U saved by not putting heating coils in. It better have been millions given what they have bought themselves in negative publicity this week.
 


howeda7 said:
If that actually comes to pass, I hope someone will let us know how much the U saved by not putting heating coils in. It better have been millions given what they have bought themselves in negative publicity this week.
Click to expand...

If they would have put them in - people would have complained that they were spending money when it wasn't necessary.

Dammed if they do - dammed if they don't IMO.
 

97alumni said:
If they would have put them in - people would have complained that they were spending money when it wasn't necessary.

Dammed if they do - dammed if they don't IMO.
Click to expand...

How would anyone know? It wouldn't have been mentioned either way, IMO. The topic never even came up until last week. It's not as if there would have been an expose in the Star Tribune about the U needlessly wasting money on heating coils at the new stadium, driving the cost from $288 million to $288.1.
 

howeda7 said:
If that actually comes to pass, I hope someone will let us know how much the U saved by not putting heating coils in. It better have been millions given what they have bought themselves in negative publicity this week.
Click to expand...

Well, I found this link saying that it cost 1 million to put a system like that into Gillette Stadium (where the Patriots play) but that a more typical install could cost more like 700K. If you do the "today's dollars" calculation (using this calculator) between when Gillette (2000/2001) and when TCF was built (2007/2008) that's closer to $850,000. Then again, Gillette cost $325 million to build back then so it sure seems like the costs of building a stadium could be inflated even further given the fact that TCF was built for $289 million less than a decade later (and TCF while awesome isn't built like a true NFL venue).

Even if we're talking $700,000 it's a much larger amount than the school had available in their budget (obviously room could have been made by cutting somewhere else had they really wanted it in the first place).
 

GoAUpher said:
Well, I found this link saying that it cost 1 million to put a system like that into Gillette Stadium (where the Patriots play) but that a more typical install could cost more like 700K. If you do the "today's dollars" calculation (using this calculator) between when Gillette (2000/2001) and when TCF was built (2007/2008) that's closer to $850,000. Then again, Gillette cost $325 million to build back then so it sure seems like the costs of building a stadium could be inflated even further given the fact that TCF was built for $289 million less than a decade later (and TCF while awesome isn't built like a true NFL venue).

Even if we're talking $700,000 it's a much larger amount than the school had available in their budget (obviously room could have been made by cutting somewhere else had they really wanted it in the first place).
Click to expand...

I understand that's not an insignificant amount. But it's also a pretty small addition to something that cost almost $300 million. It would already would have come into play for the Iowa game and likely will for many Gopher games over the decades, not to mention for the unforseen situations like this. I'd say they've already bought themselves far more then $700K in negative publicity with the shots that have been taken at the stadium in the national media, fair or not.
 

howeda7 said:
How would anyone know? It wouldn't have been mentioned either way, IMO. The topic never even came up until last week. It's not as if there would have been an expose in the Star Tribune about the U needlessly wasting money on heating coils at the new stadium, driving the cost from $288 million to $288.1.
Click to expand...

Well there you go. The only way it would come up is if something crazy like this happens. You can only plan for so much.

This would be like if I were building a new house, I should build on an extra bedroom because there's a chance my brother and his wife will get a divorce down the road, and he would need a place to stay for awhile until he gets his life back together.
 

howeda7 said:
I understand that's not an insignificant amount. But it's also a pretty small addition to something that cost almost $300 million. It would already would have come into play for the Iowa game and likely will for many Gopher games over the decades, not to mention for the unforseen situations like this. I'd say they've already bought themselves far more then $700K in negative publicity with the shots that have been taken at the stadium in the national media, fair or not.
Click to expand...

The same argument was made about the brick around the field. Cost 500K and was left out b/c of no room in the budget (happened only b/c of a generous donation). When I took my tour of TCF Phil Esten stressed that cost overruns were not going to be looked kindly upon (for whatever reason, probably that the U would have to cover the tab).

Given the fact that the U's studies probably said the heating wasn't needed for Gopher football and that the U likely planned to force the Vikes to cover the cost should they need to share TCF for 2 seasons I think it was an understandable decision. I mean, we're talking about an extraordinary circumstance here that the U has done its best to help out in. It's not like this kind of situation is something the U could or should have been planning for.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Well there you go. The only way it would come up is if something crazy like this happens. You can only plan for so much.

This would be like if I were building a new house, I should build on an extra bedroom because there's a chance my brother and his wife will get a divorce down the road, and he would need a place to stay for awhile until he gets his life back together.
Click to expand...

I understand that. Though I doubt you could add a bedroom for 0.03% of the cost of the house. The cost was the eqivalent to passing on a $750 item on a $250K house, not adding a bedroom.
 

howeda7 said:
How would anyone know? It wouldn't have been mentioned either way, IMO. The topic never even came up until last week. It's not as if there would have been an expose in the Star Tribune about the U needlessly wasting money on heating coils at the new stadium, driving the cost from $288 million to $288.1.
Click to expand...

R U kidding me? The 2 Strib Trolls would be on this like flies on crap. They'd go on and on about how stupid it was, waste of taxpayer money (which it would be), etc.

We're doing the Vikes a favor. They want a home game, they got it. They want heat under a field that we're never going to need, they can pay for it. If their players and fans can't handle a real football game, that's the Vikes problem!
 

GoAUpher said:
The same argument was made about the brick around the field. Cost 500K and was left out b/c of no room in the budget (happened only b/c of a generous donation). When I took my tour of TCF Phil Esten stressed that cost overruns were not going to be looked kindly upon (for whatever reason, probably that the U would have to cover the tab).

Given the fact that the U's studies probably said the heating wasn't needed for Gopher football and that the U likely planned to force the Vikes to cover the cost should they need to share TCF for 2 seasons I think it was an understandable decision. I mean, we're talking about an extraordinary circumstance here that the U has done its best to help out in. It's not like this kind of situation is something the U could or should have been planning for.
Click to expand...

I'm not even saying the U was wrong at the time per se. But it has certainly come to pass that the negative publicity has outweighed the savings and the Iowa game further illustrates that in hindsight it was probably a mistake.
 

GRGOPHER said:
R U kidding me? The 2 Strib Trolls would be on this like flies on crap. They'd go on and on about how stupid it was, waste of taxpayer money (which it would be), etc.
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt it would have ever been mentioned. It's not as though there were daily updates on every minor detail of stadium contruction.
 

The Vikings had the option to play somewhere else. Before the building of TCF they would have.
No one forced them to come to the U for help. They should stop the complaining and SHUT UP.
(Paul Allen included)
 

howeda7 said:
I'm not even saying the U was wrong at the time per se. But it has certainly come to pass that the negative publicity has outweighed the savings and the Iowa game further illustrates that in hindsight it was probably a mistake.
Click to expand...

It is only a mistake in hindsight if you think cost overruns should be routinely undertaking for something you can never foresee. I'm not saying we or the U can't look back and say "It would have been nice..." but I don't think you can call the original decision a mistake given the facts at the time.

This assumes our postulations accurately encompass all the factors involved in the decision making of course. And since we are all awesome I think we can safely assume that this is true. ;)
 

How dare the U not have the foresight to install heating coils for this game!
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom