Mark May: "Who do they ("U" Admin) think they are?"

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dinkything

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Most of us remember when Glen Mason was terminated at the end of the 2006 season. ESPN football analyst Mark May led the national pundits' outrage by loudly deriding the "U" decision makers: "Who do they think they are?"

Can you imagine the incredulity - far and wide - if future Hall-of-Fame coach Tubby Smith, on his way to another 20-win season and an NCAA bid, gets jettisoned by the "U" after this season?:rolleyes:
Especially when one recalls the crash-and-burn state of the program that Tubby inherited, as Monson/Molinari departed...and also considering the thought of another multi-million dollar coach's buy out?!

With 3-1/2 minutes to go and a 64-59 lead over Indiana, I don't think Tubby is going anywhere....

With under 1 minute to go, a 70-63 lead...
 

A great win for Tubby. Still, the game has passed him by. He won't be let go because the U has to
many buyouts on the table ( Mason, Monson, and Brewster) This win should get the Gophers in the dance and give Tubby at least another year.
 

ruppertflywheel said:
A great win for Tubby. Still, the game has passed him by. He won't be let go because the U has to
many buyouts on the table ( Mason, Monson, and Brewster) This win should get the Gophers in the dance and give Tubby at least another year.
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Gopher AD Teague should use Tubby's buyout package toward the construction of the practice facility promised to Tubby...:clap:
 

Got another year with this win, IMO. Hopefully they build on it
 

we would be fine if guys like cobbs iverson stuck around depth has killed us all year
 



zambam said:
Iverson would have graduated. Point stands on Cobbs though.
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True. How would last year have looked with Cobbs, Iverson, 402, and Royce White? I think we would have been able to overcome the Mbakwe injury.
 


Coaches out there hear that stuff when it goes around. The U may build on that reputation that was started when we fired Glen Mason, if we fire Tubby Smith, and in time, down the line, we may find it very hard to find any coach that would be willing to come here, because no coach wants to go somewhere with unrealistic expectations for success where you will get fired despite having success.
 



#1nHkyCfbBsbDncSolarDebat said:
Coaches out there hear that stuff when it goes around. The U may build on that reputation that was started when we fired Glen Mason, if we fire Tubby Smith, and in time, down the line, we may find it very hard to find any coach that would be willing to come here, because no coach wants to go somewhere with unrealistic expectations for success where you will get fired despite having success.
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So Mason's .400 BT winning percentage and Tubby's zero NCAA tourney wins in five plus seasons would be considered "success".

Charlie Strong would've crawled here to follow in the legendary footsteps of Glen Mason despite all that "pressure".
 

Compared to their NON-cheating predecessors? YES!!

We've been to how many bowl games? And how many of those bowl games did Mason get us to?! How many have we won? How many that we won were when Mason was coach?!

How many individual Natl Award winners do we have in our history, and how many of them won those awards while Mason was coach?

How many NCAA records do we have? And how many of those records were accomplished while Glen Mason was the coach?

Do we have a new football stadium now? Who helped bring that to be?


Gophers came 1 missed FG away from going to the Rose Bowl. Who was the coach that put us that close to going to Pasadena?!

Gophers had double digit players in the NFL all at the same time recently. Who did they play for? How long ago before Mason got here was it that we had that many players in the NFL?



When have we ever had a Top 20 rated RPI team before?! OR a #1 SOS rating?

What former bb coach had double digit wins over EOS Top 10 rated teams in 6 years as a coach? ANYONE??? That didn't cheat?

Anyone? Bueller?! Bueller?!
 

And where did our athletic program rank among Big Ten fb and bb programs as far as admin support, facilities, etc.?! While Mason and Tubby were here?!
 

Tubby saved his job last night IMO unless the Gophers lose 2 of next 3 and suck in tournaments.
 





Wasn't that game in early October? How is that close to going to the Rose Bowl?
 

This is NOT true at all. The vast majority of analysts noted Glen Mason's PATHETIC Big Ten record when covering his termination. The idea that FINALLY winning won game as an underdog somehow makes up for what we've seen in Big Ten play for 3 years is ridiculous.
 

EG#9 said:
This is NOT true at all. The vast majority of analysts noted Glen Mason's PATHETIC Big Ten record when covering his termination. The idea that FINALLY winning won game as an underdog somehow makes up for what we've seen in Big Ten play for 3 years is ridiculous.
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Winning won?

eeyore61_5881.jpg
 

B1GSportsGuy said:
Wasn't that game in early October? How is that close to going to the Rose Bowl?
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I don't think he meant that they would have clinched a Rose Bowl berth at that moment but that we win that game, we eventually would have gone to the Rose Bowl.
 

Gold Vision said:
Winning won?

eeyore61_5881.jpg
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I have a horrible habit of doing that. I don't proofread on message boards and the voice in my head is saying "one" and my fingers type "won". I will leave it in the post and take the ridicule for it.
 

#1nHkyCfbBsbDncSolarDebat said:
Coaches out there hear that stuff when it goes around. The U may build on that reputation that was started when we fired Glen Mason, if we fire Tubby Smith, and in time, down the line, we may find it very hard to find any coach that would be willing to come here, because no coach wants to go somewhere with unrealistic expectations for success where you will get fired despite having success.
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Something approaching a .500 record in conference play over a six year period is an unrealistic expectation of success?
 


GophersInIowa said:
I'm assuming he is talking about 2003 where if we beat Michigan, there's a good chance we're in the Rose Bowl.
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Actually 1999 Wisconsin game. Also probably would have gone in 2003 if we don't choke the Michigan game, but impossible to say for sure. It's a lot harder to succeed at MN in football than basketball. Mason had more relative success than Tubby's had. Not close. Maybe that changes this year.

Bottom-line, not many coaches get fired after going to a Bowl/making the NCAA tournament. Especially not at places like MN. If you're going to fire coaches in those types of situations, expect some heat.
 

Coaches have big egos. There are plenty of coaches that believe they can win where others have failed.

Picking the right one is never guaranteed.
 

howeda7 said:
Actually 1999 Wisconsin game. Also probably would have gone in 2003 if we don't choke the Michigan game, but impossible to say for sure. It's a lot harder to succeed at MN in football than basketball. Mason had more relative success than Tubby's had. Not close. Maybe that changes this year.

Bottom-line, not many coaches get fired after going to a Bowl/making the NCAA tournament. Especially not at places like MN. If you're going to fire coaches in those types of situations, expect some heat.
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I hate this attitude. Minnesota is a Big Ten university and should expect to compete in the Big Ten. There's no reason why Minnesota should look at itself in the light you suggest it should. Good luck getting donors for any of the projects Teague would like to complete with the idea that Minnesota has to "settle" for less than competing for conference titles.

Going to a "bowl" is also not the equivalent of the NCAA tournament, since the explosion of bowl games occurred 15-20 years ago. Mason was a cumulative 8th out of 11 (and closer to 9th than 7th) in the Big Ten during his 10 years at the helm...him vs Tubby is closer than you think though I'd agree he had more relative success.
 

1999 --

Wisconsin wins Big Ten outright, with a 7-1 record. Michigan and Mich St tie for 2nd place at 6-2.
Minnesota finishes alone in 4th place, at 5-3.

Game vs Wisconsin, went into OT where we lost. But before it went into OT, Gophers missed a FG attempt that would have given us the W, and a 6-2 conf record.

This would have resulted in a 4 way tie for the Big Ten Title. At the time, Big Ten rules would have sent Minnesota to the Rose Bowl, for at the time, it was still the Big Ten's policy in the case of a tie, to send the team who had been absent from the Rose Bowl the longest.


Hence, Glen Mason got us 1 missed fg away from going to the Rose Bowl.
 

Also, and this is far more speculative, but winning begets winning. And a Big Ten Title winning coach probably would have gotten just a couple more of those 4 and 5 star recruits that we wanted but didn't nab.

Now had he gotten that Big Ten Title, trip to the Rose Bowl, and those recruits that probably would have followed. Just maybe we win 1 or 2 more games each year after that, putting us into just a little big better bowl games each season, may have given us the edge to win those games we lost to Michigan and Wisconsin, etc..


Just saying, that one missed fg may have been what eventually led to Mason's being fired.


It's not unheard of in sports, that one player gets injured at the wrong time, which basically ends a team's dream season, which then leads to maybe some missed recruits, some lost confidence, some frustration, etc..


Winning begets winning, and losing begets losing. Look at Illinois after we beat them in Illinois?! And now since they got the big win vs Indiana. Look at us after getting the win over Memphis, and then after losing to NW.


Tubby bringing the boys to church and having them eat lunch together and bringing in that psychologist, were all smart ideas, and they paid off. Lets just hope, like it has with Illinois so far, that this renewed confidence has some staying power.


If Tubby gets to the Elite 8, then what coach in Gopher bb history will be able to match his resume here?!
 

#1nHkyCfbBsbDncSolarDebat said:
1999 --

Wisconsin wins Big Ten outright, with a 7-1 record. Michigan and Mich St tie for 2nd place at 6-2.
Minnesota finishes alone in 4th place, at 5-3.

Game vs Wisconsin, went into OT where we lost. But before it went into OT, Gophers missed a FG attempt that would have given us the W, and a 6-2 conf record.

This would have resulted in a 4 way tie for the Big Ten Title. At the time, Big Ten rules would have sent Minnesota to the Rose Bowl, for at the time, it was still the Big Ten's policy in the case of a tie, to send the team who had been absent from the Rose Bowl the longest.


Hence, Glen Mason got us 1 missed fg away from going to the Rose Bowl.
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It's always nice and convenient when you can cherry pick any one game (especially one that happened Oct. 9, the 2nd conference game) and say a team was "only a FG away from the Rose Bowl." Did you apply the same cherry picking to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Michigan State, or only to the Gophers?
 

SS --

No, I did not. Feel free to go and look at those 3 teams scedules and find for me the ONE missed fg that would have won them one more game.


The whole point is that sports is about that ONE MISSED THIS OR THAT.


One missed shot as the clock ticked down in New Orleans sent the Gophers home for the season in 1990. I know, I was there, I watched the shot while holding my breath.


With as much attention as teams that go to the Final Four get, I can only imagine how much easier recruiting players might have been for Clem had we gotten to the FF in 1990.




But, the shot was missed, and we all know how that story has played out since then.



Sports history is chock full of 1000s of these stories, missed fgs, final second drives that come up 1 yard short of the endzone, 3 pt shots at the buzzer that DO, and DON'T go in.

History has been shaped by this missed and MADE shots and opportunities.



Doesn't change the fact that if just that ONE THING happened differently, things would be different.


Isn't it called the Butterfly Effect?! Great movie btw. Can't say as much for the 2 sequels though. lol
 

#1nHkyCfbBsbDncSolarDebat said:
1999 --

Wisconsin wins Big Ten outright, with a 7-1 record. Michigan and Mich St tie for 2nd place at 6-2.
Minnesota finishes alone in 4th place, at 5-3.

Game vs Wisconsin, went into OT where we lost. But before it went into OT, Gophers missed a FG attempt that would have given us the W, and a 6-2 conf record.

This would have resulted in a 4 way tie for the Big Ten Title. At the time, Big Ten rules would have sent Minnesota to the Rose Bowl, for at the time, it was still the Big Ten's policy in the case of a tie, to send the team who had been absent from the Rose Bowl the longest.


Hence, Glen Mason got us 1 missed fg away from going to the Rose Bowl.
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How can you say that with a straight face?

The Gophers lost to Wisconsin in OT in the 2nd game of the B1G season in early October. It's not like it was the last game of the season.
 

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