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Silvio

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On this forum we have spent a great deal of time breaking down potential individual coaches. We have debated the background of coaches that have been successful at many different schools. I would like to challenge someone with time and energy (Doogie, MV, LadyGopher, etc.) to look at it from a different angle. Over the last 30 years what have schools similar to the U done to successfully turn around their programs and is there a pattern? We all know what WI and IA have done, but what about others around the nation.

I would define the U as a school with a strong tradition (although that was long ago) a renewed commitment to football, and a bottom dweller in a power conference. What have others done to become successful either again or for the first time?

My suspicion is that the list will mainly consist of first time head coaches who were OC or DC at a successful program at their last stop. This is only my gut feeling.
 

I'll give you 2 to start off with: Mike Leach at Texas Tech fits your gut feeling. Howard Schnellenberger at Miami doesn't quite fit because he was an NFL head coach for one year before saving Miami.
 

There. Is. No. Magic. Formula.

The situation at the U is different than rebuilding a team from the SEC or Pac-10, different than Iowa, different than Wisconsin.

We must address the specific challenges we face, instead of focusing on Iowa or Wisconsin did it. I'm not saying we should ignore completely what IA and WI did, but everyone is so obsessed (including Maturi) with Iowa or Wisconsin.

We would be much better served to try to build a competitive advantage over those teams rather than to copy them. If we try to strictly copy them, it will be much harder to compete and surpass them.
 


josh087 said:
There. Is. No. Magic. Formula.

The situation at the U is different than rebuilding a team from the SEC or Pac-10, different than Iowa, different than Wisconsin.

We must address the specific challenges we face, instead of focusing on Iowa or Wisconsin did it. I'm not saying we should ignore completely what IA and WI did, but everyone is so obsessed (including Maturi) with Iowa or Wisconsin.

We would be much better served to try to build a competitive advantage over those teams rather than to copy them. If we try to strictly copy them, it will be much harder to compete and surpass them.
Click to expand...

I agree there is no magic formula, but it is probably prudent to look at places that have faced similar obstacles to see what has worked and what has not worked and determine if their are reasons for that. I also don't know if my gut feeling will be correct, there may be no pattern or the pattern may be different.
 


glovedgopher said:
Howard S also saved Louisville a few years later.
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I keep hearing his name thrown out by certain people. You realize he was born during the great depression right?

I hope you are not suggesting he be the next coach. Are you?

He would be more likely to die of old age on the sideline than win a Big Ten title. Guy has been collecting social security for 10 years.
 

Rosemountian said:
I keep hearing his name thrown out by certain people. You realize he was born during the great depression right?

I hope you are not suggesting he be the next coach. Are you?

He would be more likely to die of old age on the sideline than win a Big Ten title. Guy has been collecting social security for 10 years.
Click to expand...

He would bring good age diversity.
 

Rosemountian said:
I keep hearing his name thrown out by certain people. You realize he was born during the great depression right?

I hope you are not suggesting he be the next coach. Are you?

He would be more likely to die of old age on the sideline than win a Big Ten title. Guy has been collecting social security for 10 years.
Click to expand...

You may recall, his FAU Owls beat our favorite rodents a couple of years back...don't worry, I'm not even remotely saying he should be a candidate. I'm just saying the guy has had a lot of success.
 




Rosemountian said:
I keep hearing his name thrown out by certain people. You realize he was born during the great depression right?

I hope you are not suggesting he be the next coach. Are you?

He would be more likely to die of old age on the sideline than win a Big Ten title. Guy has been collecting social security for 10 years.
Click to expand...

No, I'm not. That wasn't the OP's question. I was just giving examples of coaches that have turned programs around like he asked for. Do you read every other word or are you just that eager to attack people?
 

glovedgopher said:
No, I'm not. That wasn't the OP's question. I was just giving examples of coaches that have turned programs around like he asked for. Do you read every other word or are you just that eager to attack people?
Click to expand...

I have dyslexia. Thanks for asking.
 

Well it's difficult to find programs that compare to ours, in my opinion, mainly because Minnesota football has seen such great heights and such awful depths, and has endured such a long and painful drought since we last had true success. The easiest thing is to look around at some of our Big 10 competitors like the highly obvious IA and Wisc., but also at schools like Purdue and Northwestern. None of those schools even comes close to our past history of success way back in the day, but still, it can be instructive to look at how they managed to lift themselves out of dreg status and how they each found their respective measures of success.

One school that does come immediately to my mind though as being a somewhat close comparison to us would be Syracuse University, because at one time they were a college football heavyweight and a serious national power, year after year after year starting in the mid '50s and culminating in winning the national championship in 1959, and they continued with great success throughout the 1960's, primarily behind an incredible line of running backs starting out with Jim Brown, then on to Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, and Larry Csonka.

But then the 1970s hit, and their program fell into a major rut. That situation lasted until the arrival of Dick McPherson in 1981. He stopped the bleeding, started bringing great players in again, and within seven years had the Orange at 11-0-1, with the 16-16 tie coming in the Sugar Bowl against Auburn. And then Paul Pasqualoni took over the helm from McPherson after he left to coach the Patriots in 1990, and the Orangemen continued their run of success for the rest of that decade by bringing in wonderful players like Donovan McNabb (who had only received offers from two schools as a QB, Syracuse and Nebraska), Marvin Harrison, Dwight Freeney, Keith Bullock, Tebucky Jones, and on and on and on.

But Dick McPherson, the architect of Syracuse' turnaround and the guy who lifted them out of the college football dumpster, he was a defensive coach, linebackers and defensive backs. He was the head coach at U-Mass for seven years in the 1970s, compiling a very respectable 45-27-1 record at a school that was a notorious coach killer, then he headed to the NFL to coach LB's for three years in Cleveland, and then Syracuse came calling and the rest as they say is history, and that history resulted in him being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last year as a coach.

Is that even relevant to your question, Silvio? I'm not sure, because sometimes I tend to go off on tangents. :) But there are at least surface level similarities between Syracuse Orange football history and our own.
 

Silvio said:
On this forum we have spent a great deal of time breaking down potential individual coaches. We have debated the background of coaches that have been successful at many different schools. I would like to challenge someone with time and energy (Doogie, MV, LadyGopher, etc.) to look at it from a different angle. Over the last 30 years what have schools similar to the U done to successfully turn around their programs and is there a pattern? We all know what WI and IA have done, but what about others around the nation.

I would define the U as a school with a strong tradition (although that was long ago) a renewed commitment to football, and a bottom dweller in a power conference. What have others done to become successful either again or for the first time?

My suspicion is that the list will mainly consist of first time head coaches who were OC or DC at a successful program at their last stop. This is only my gut feeling.
Click to expand...

That would not be me! And from knowing Doogie, he hasn't got a whole lot of time either...that leaves MV for this - good luck. Or...better yet, I'm going to nominate you, Silvio! :)
 



Seany said:
Well it's difficult to find programs that compare to ours, in my opinion, mainly because Minnesota football has seen such great heights and such awful depths, and has endured such a long and painful drought since we last had true success. The easiest thing is to look around at some of our Big 10 competitors like the highly obvious IA and Wisc., but also at schools like Purdue and Northwestern. None of those schools even comes close to our past history of success way back in the day, but still, it can be instructive to look at how they managed to lift themselves out of dreg status and how they each found their respective measures of success.

One school that does come immediately to my mind though as being a somewhat close comparison to us would be Syracuse University, because at one time they were a college football heavyweight and a serious national power, year after year after year starting in the mid '50s and culminating in winning the national championship in 1959, and they continued with great success throughout the 1960's, primarily behind an incredible line of running backs starting out with Jim Brown, then on to Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, and Larry Csonka.

But then the 1970s hit, and their program fell into a major rut. That situation lasted until the arrival of Dick McPherson in 1981. He stopped the bleeding, started bringing great players in again, and within seven years had the Orange at 11-0-1, with the 16-16 tie coming in the Sugar Bowl against Auburn. And then Paul Pasqualoni took over the helm from McPherson after he left to coach the Patriots in 1990, and the Orangemen continued their run of success for the rest of that decade by bringing in wonderful players like Donovan McNabb (who had only received offers from two schools as a QB, Syracuse and Nebraska), Marvin Harrison, Dwight Freeney, Keith Bullock, Tebucky Jones, and on and on and on.

But Dick McPherson, the architect of Syracuse' turnaround and the guy who lifted them out of the college football dumpster, he was a defensive coach, linebackers and defensive backs. He was the head coach at U-Mass for seven years in the 1970s, compiling a very respectable 45-27-1 record at a school that was a notorious coach killer, then he headed to the NFL to coach LB's for three years in Cleveland, and then Syracuse came calling and the rest as they say is history, and that history resulted in him being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last year as a coach.

Is that even relevant to your question, Silvio? I'm not sure, because sometimes I tend to go off on tangents. :) But there are at least surface level similarities between Syracuse Orange football history and our own.
Click to expand...

I think this is an interesting comparison. One of the parallels is that back in the 50's and 60's part of Minnesota's success can be attributed to their willingness to recruit in the South and have a roster with African-American players. Syracuse did much the same with Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little. Once other schools started to integrate and have African-American players both Minnesota and Syracuse no longer were dominant football schools.

I know there are more factors involved, but Murray Warmath is often lauded for the recruiting and playing of African-American players when other schools would not do it. Kudos to Warmath and the University of Minnesota.
 

There's certainly no magic formula, if there was, then everyone would do it. But we can learn from what other schools did to turn their programs around. We do have certain advantages here, we have good facilities, a large student body and alumni base to draw from, and a large metro area population. If a new coach can restore faith, TCF can be filled up again.
 


The syracuse comparison is very close.
A few other parallels:
Mainly a Bball school lately(we are similar in that our Bball/hockey teams have seen success during bad football times)
Long storied history, past success, etc.
Fired a decent coach who had been there a decade(Pasqauloni)
then hired an NFL guy with Texas Ties that failed(Robinson/Brewster)

They hired Doug Marrone, an alum and an NFL offensive coordinator, similar to if we had hired Trestman in 1997 I suppose. TBD if it works out for them, but they are having a nice season so far.
 

Stan The Caddy said:
I think this is an interesting comparison. One of the parallels is that back in the 50's and 60's part of Minnesota's success can be attributed to their willingness to recruit in the South and have a roster with African-American players. Syracuse did much the same with Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little. Once other schools started to integrate and have African-American players both Minnesota and Syracuse no longer were dominant football schools.

I know there are more factors involved, but Murray Warmath is often lauded for the recruiting and playing of African-American players when other schools would not do it. Kudos to Warmath and the University of Minnesota.
Click to expand...


That's very true, and it gave the Northern schools willing to integrate their football teams a big advantage over the Southern schools who refused to do so. And you're right, once that major advantage went away with the integration of the Southern schools, that's when the balance of football power shifted to the South, because all those phenomenal black athletes they had down there no longer had to trek North in order to play football, ya know. From that point forward, they could stay right at home and do so.
 

Ole said:
The syracuse comparison is very close.
A few other parallels:
Mainly a Bball school lately(we are similar in that our Bball/hockey teams have seen success during bad football times)
Long storied history, past success, etc.
Fired a decent coach who had been there a decade(Pasqauloni)
then hired an NFL guy with Texas Ties that failed(Robinson/Brewster)

They hired Doug Marrone, an alum and an NFL offensive coordinator, similar to if we had hired Trestman in 1997 I suppose. TBD if it works out for them, but they are having a nice season so far.
Click to expand...


Plus they're an urban campus like we are too. The comparison is somewhat close, but there are still significant differences, mainly in the time-frames. Syracuse wasn't a dominant power nearly as long as we were, nor were they down nearly as long as we've been. That's why our football situation is so unique in my opinion, to go from having decades worth of brilliance to now going on 50+ years of futility. I can't think of another school that could truly compare to that.
 

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