Nadine Babu STrib blog: Gopher Football – Who is to blame? Start with Maturi

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This is exactly why I admire GopherLady...she tells it like is is without any excuses and/or bull$hit.
 

the first reply post.

Do you have to be so obvious Dr?
 

Amen! Season ticket holders need to bombard the Pres with e-mails calling for a new AD. We have become even more of a joke on the football field. Hockey? Tubby Smith getting big bucks with little to show for it. No AD at a school that took football seriously would have survived the Brewster debacle.
 

I offer two suggestions:

OCCUPYUNIVERSITYAVENUE

or

OCCUPYNORTHROPMALL
 


The knowing Kill had health problems was a confusing take on Nadine's part to me. Why mention if it can't be a criticism? Furthermore, if Kill said no, who would have said yes? Paul Chryst, Marc Trestman, Jeff Horton, etc? I believe Kill was as good as we were going to get here.

No tales of Bobby Ross, Gary Patterson, Bo Pelini this time as could of had coaches.
 

blame starts in the 60s when the football program was marginalized so the school would be know for academics rather than as a football school. From that point they started investing a lot less and suppressing the program. Partially the FB program up to that point had realized its fair share of success, but what was not understood was how important that was to the school and the state.

Much like the Vikings if they move from the state, how important they are will not be appreciated by some until after they are gone.

Kill I think was not made aware of how bad it was when he first came in.

Maturi has made more then his fair share of mistakes, no doubt. How much is him and how much is the powers over him could be up for debate and an unknown IMO. Maybe the firing of Brew when he was may have been because of the academic issues were coming to the surface as well as the on and off the field issues.

Kaler realizes the value of a strong competitive program, but the culture has had to endure the humiliation in order to realize it does the school no good. It will take some time and a willingness to believe and invest. Not popular words on this board right now, but regardless it needs to happen.

Basically the slate that most needs to be wiped clean is our expectations for this group and start the building over.
 

Nadine is pretty much right on the money

@&!??@$&@&&@!?@@&$?! Macturdi!!! That is all. Thank you.
 




I think it has become clearly obvious that it is time for JM to go. Is their anyone backing him at this point.

I am confident he will be gone by the end of his contract.
 

At the end of Murray Warmaths reign, the football dept was given about 1/2 the alotted amount of money to recruit. We put kids in the dorm and Neb. was putting themin the Husker Downtown. That was the start of the deemphasis.
 

And to think...this whole time, I was under the impression that Nadine loves Maturi. I am shocked.

(Funny side note...my phone autocorrected "Nadine" to "Masonry". I didnt realize that phones had Freudian slips.)
 

littlebigboy said:
At the end of Murray Warmaths reign, the football dept was given about 1/2 the alotted amount of money to recruit. We put kids in the dorm and Neb. was putting themin the Husker Downtown. That was the start of the deemphasis.
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Yep. As I keep saying, it's a real deep hole that was dug years ago. Once we got into it, it's become progressively harder for the next coach to get us out. No problem with Maturi firing Mason. People sort of forget the circumstances of Mason campaigning openly for the Ohio State job, basically refusing to be nice to the powers that be, and too many games of blowing big leads. The thing I keep feeling more and more stupid about is wanting to believe so much that Brewster was worth the gamble. Very apparent that it was too much of one, and hiring a recruiter instead of a coach totally squandered whatever advantage the new stadium gave us. Now it's also apparent how much of that reputation as a recruiter was smoke and mirrors. I could afford to be fooled, but Maturi couldn't. Still, given our sorry history and the money he had available, I can still see why Maturi went that way. His critics like to portray him as this cautious, dithering character who is just a paper pusher. The irony is that his biggest mistake came about because he made such a big gamble on Brewster.
 



The right coaches can win here, as Holtz proved - and Mason did about as well here as he had at Kansas, which was a big improvement at both schools. Other coaching hires have been suspect: Salem and Kill did not coach at the top level; Wacker had a losing record in 1A (despite championships at lower levels); Gutekunst and Brewster had no head coaching experience. We could have had Alvarez, Pelini, Bobby Ross, Frank Solich, maybe even Bud Wilkinson way back. For a long time we lagged in facilities, had a dome field that gave us no home advantage, and suffered from Maturi's weird timing in firing and hiring coaches, combined with the huge financial losses in buyouts. Problem now is that after nine coaches we have little patience with the kind of garbage football we're seeing from Kill & staff and many of us are reluctant to grant him the customary four or five years to fix things.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
The right coaches can win here, as Holtz proved - and Mason did about as well here as he had at Kansas, which was a big improvement at both schools. Other coaching hires have been suspect: Salem and Kill did not coach at the top level; Wacker had a losing record in 1A (despite championships at lower levels); Gutekunst and Brewster had no head coaching experience. We could have had Alvarez, Pelini, Bobby Ross, Frank Solich, maybe even Bud Wilkinson way back. For a long time we lagged in facilities, had a dome field that gave us no home advantage, and suffered from Maturi's weird timing in firing and hiring coaches, combined with the huge financial losses in buyouts. Problem now is that after nine coaches we have little patience with the kind of garbage football we're seeing from Kill & staff and many of us are reluctant to grant him the customary four or five years to fix things.
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Alverez, Pelini or Solich had no head coaching experience either.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
The right coaches can win here, as Holtz proved - and Mason did about as well here as he had at Kansas, which was a big improvement at both schools. Other coaching hires have been suspect: Salem and Kill did not coach at the top level; Wacker had a losing record in 1A (despite championships at lower levels); Gutekunst and Brewster had no head coaching experience. We could have had Alvarez, Pelini, Bobby Ross, Frank Solich, maybe even Bud Wilkinson way back. For a long time we lagged in facilities, had a dome field that gave us no home advantage, and suffered from Maturi's weird timing in firing and hiring coaches, combined with the huge financial losses in buyouts. Problem now is that after nine coaches we have little patience with the kind of garbage football we're seeing from Kill & staff and many of us are reluctant to grant him the customary four or five years to fix things.
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Ummm, how did Holtz prove this? He had one 6th place and one 8th place BT finish. If he had stayed a few more years he may have proved it, but no way did Holtz prove anything. Mason had more success than Lou.

Go Gophers!!
 

True for Alvarez and Pelini- but they had been with great programs and mentors (Alvarez - Fry and Holtz ,and Pelini at Nebraska, plus Pelini had been head coach for one game there - a bowl win). Solich was head coach at Nebraska and was fired after a 9-3 season!
 

You are right on the money with this observation BleedGopher!

The "myth" that lou hoax did anything except leave the football program in trouble with the NCAA after his very short stay here is utter nonsense. And, the way he ripped the heart out of the bandwagon fans who all walked away from this program just as quickly as hoax bagged tail for South Bend left the Gopher Football Program in WORSE shape than before he showed up here. hoax may very well have bee just about the WORST thing to ever happen to Golden Gopher Football. When the going got tough...lou hoax always "got going...somewhere else..." They don't think much of him in Arkansas...the ny jets chwed him up and scared the hell out of him...he bailed so fast on the Gopher Program and knew that the NCAA would soon be hot on his trail...After Notre Dame, it seems as though he also left South Carolina in a bit of a mess and with a few NCAA problems.

hoax did Minnesota NO favors...

; 0 (
 

Could you imagine the abuse Maturi would have taken if he hired Chryst to coach this team? And make no mistake about my intentions for bringing him up, because had Kill turned us down Chryst might have been the next best candidate possibly willing to take the job.
 

If blame is to be decided at some point in regard to this hire NONE of it what so ever belongs to Joel Maturi. Blame should rest squarely on the shoulders of the previous president. Maturi should have never been allowed to make the hire. No candidate with better options would even consider the U with a lame duck AD.
 

I recall discussing this very fact in a post or two about prexy b and badger joel macturi. The problem, Sportsfan24, in part was the fact that prexy b was also a lame duck.

The minute that bjm fired brewster, he should have also been fired. (Probably prexy b. also should have been fired at that moment in time, as well.) The Board of Regents would have had a real delema then.

It really points back to the fact that MUCH better planning should have happened at the administrative level going all the way back to the 2006 firing of Glen Mason. prexy b. did that impulsively. bjm took the fall for prexy b. on that one. Very unfortunately, this led the the hire of brewster, a coach who NEVER should have drawn a paycheck from the University of Minnesota. From 2006 through the present time the "lame-duck-Era" of administration of the revenue sports programs at the Unviersity of minnesota has been the dominant factor. This period of time in which prexy b and badger joel macturi "lamed" here and "ducked" there will coincide with a not too happy period for the revenue sports at the U of M. The U has NOT covered itself in glory with the administrative blunders of prexy b and badger joel macturi.

The sadest part is that lame-duck prexy b managed to reward lame-duck bjm for taking the fall by extending him well into the new prexy's tenure. prexy k was stuck with the now "lamer-duck" badger joel macturi. We will soon discover if prexy k, our NEWEST chief administrator is either a man or a mouse when it comes to putting the now "lamest duck" badger joel macturi out to pasture or just letting him collect his pay check even longer and extend the pam bortons, lucia's, et al. and oversee the golf program fiasco.
 

Does the Strib not check for spelling and grammar errors?
 

The real question is:

Would there have been a "Saturday Night Massacre" type scenario if Maturi had refused to fire Mason?

If you remember, in 1973 Nixon ordered AG Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox as Special prosecutor. He resigned in protest rather than doing that, then William Ruckelshaus resigned. finally Robert Bork acted as Nixon's yes man on fired Cox.

The point is Mason would have still been fired, but what kind of person would take a job where the president micromanages your department?
 

Gopher football was hurting before Maturi showed up. The problem with Maturi is he showed up with a 10-gallon can of gas and now we have an out of control raging fire. To contain this fire we need to fire Joel. The Gophers cannot begin to heal until Joel is gone.
 

To say we couldn't do better than Kill is ridiculous. It was up to the AD to SELL the job to someone and he couldn't do it. Harvey Mackay and others sold Holtz on the job, if only for awhile.
 

Firejumper said:
To say we couldn't do better than Kill is ridiculous. It was up to the AD to SELL the job to someone and he couldn't do it. Harvey Mackay and others sold Holtz on the job, if only for awhile.
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And 2011's Harvey Mackay was?
 

It' easy to blame Maturi...

...because he is to blame. We had a competitive football program under Mason. We were a national joke under Brewster and continue to be under Kill, though I do think Kill will eventually move us a step or two closer to respectability than we are now.

Whatever put the Gopher program in the dumpster is history...Maturi has done absolutely nothing to dig us out. We are worse off now than we were when he started and that is pathetic.

I cannot imagine him still having a job if he was AD anywhere but at Minnesota. No doubt Joel is a good and kind man and that is likely what Brunnicks liked about him but he is a failure as AD (unless of course you buy into the non revenue sport success crap).
 

Dave, the "pr guy" Mona...

Having to hire a "pr guy" to represent your ad is so incredibly pathetic...but, in this case, probably necessary.
 

prexy b liked maturi because he was a cheap and convenient fall guy for prexy b's bonehead moves as a "...mover & shaker calling the shots for the football program guy..." But, prexy b made sure bjm was taken care of for his "loyalty" That's why bjm is still the ad in spite of all the problems with the revenue sports.

; 0 )
 

Interesting comment left on the comments section of the blog by "Loon03":

I have been a Gopher football fan since 1966 when I first started dating my future wife here at the U. Since then I have been in 50 different stadia in 49 different towns. I agree with this article 90%. My only complaint is the one category of blame incorrectly left off this opinion piece for very self serving reasons by GopherLady: Gopher football fans. Allow me to explain at some length. By 2003 Coach Mason had built up this program to the his high water mark of 10 wins and 3 losses. We were no longer the hopeless program he had inherited from Jim Wacker. Mason did this without TCF Bank Stadium, the single biggest improvement in our program in my 45 years as a fan, by far. By very far. So what happened from there? Amazingly, stunningly, mystifyingly to me, the fans decided that even without TCF Mason had somehow failed them. He had somehow built up their expectations to such a point that he had failed them. They decided that unlike Jesus Christ, he, Glen Mason was too imperfect to get us "to the next level". A common mantra of that majority view was that "just because he led us to only 10-3, we just know he will never get us to 11-2" even with a new stadium. Stunning logic. I was at nearly all of those games, nearly all of those ranting, male, complaint sessions. The internet and the young turks which controlled it, even banned people with any contrary or opposing views. Mason had to be undercut by Maturi until he left, changed his evil ways or was fired. GopherLady was an important part of that movement. She insisted on the very orthodoxy she attacks today in this article. Joel Maturi was the man in charge and the buck stops at his desk for sure, but it is purely disingenuous to pretend he was not pushed very hard by the majority of Gopher fans that she helped to lead and control.
 

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