One Coach

Donate To GopherHole
E

EG#9

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
7,242
Reaction score
2,349
Points
113
Since Murray Warmath's tenure ended, Minnesota has hired ONE head football coach with a winning record at a BCS type school on his resume in Lou Holtz. Minnesota has hired two other head coaches who had previous experience at a BCS type school, both of whom had losing records (Cal Stoll, Glen Mason), and both of those coaches had similar records at Minnesota to the records they posted at their previous school. There's this myth that "good" coaches have come to Minnesota and gotten fired, but the reality is that in the last 40 years Minnesota has only had one coach with a history of winning major conference football games. If you want your mind blown, look at the late Jim Wacker's record at TCU prior to getting the Minnesota job (21-48 in conference games in 9 years at TCU). Minnesota hasn't proven to be a "tough place to win", it's been proven to be a tough place to significantly improve your performance as a BCS head coach.

I am not posting this in regards to Jerry Kill, but in response to a few posters who seem to delight in making excuses for why Minnesota can't put a competitive B1G football team on the field. The vast majority of excuses made for failure at Minnesota could have been used at Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, and Purdue. Maybe Jerry Kill is Minnesota's Hayden Fry/Kirk Ferentz, Gary Barnett/Pat Fitzgerald, Barry Alvarez, or Joe Tiller. If he's not, that doesn't mean that someone else couldn't make Minnesota's perceived roadblocks any less small than they look in Madison right now.
 

EG#9 said:
If you want your mind blown, look at the late Jim Wacker's record at TCU prior to getting the Minnesota job (21-48 in conference games in 9 years at TCU).
Click to expand...

Wacker was on the verge of getting TCU rolling but turned his own program in to the NCAA which levied big time sanctions. He had a great season just before that in 1984 and got the program back on its feet when he left for Minnesota.

Amazing to think he was five minutes away from being 4-2 in the Big Ten in his second season. Blew a 20-9 lead at Illinois and 3 BT wins in his next 27 games, the rest is history.
 

Maximus said:
Wacker was on the verge of getting TCU rolling but turned his own program in to the NCAA which levied big time sanctions. He had a great season just before that in 1984 and got the program back on its feet when he left for Minnesota.

Amazing to think he was five minutes away from being 4-2 in the Big Ten in his second season. Blew a 20-9 lead at Illinois and 3 BT wins in his next 27 games, the rest is history.
Click to expand...

This is what always amazes me about college football. It seems like missing one big chance can totally change the trajectory of a program.
 

Can you change the record? I think this one is broken.
 

I'm in. We can fire jerry tomorrow once the inks dries on the contract for Urban Meyer or Nick Saban.

Winning BCS coaches don't come to Minnesota unless they have no other option. Like Phil Fulmer. Somehow I don't think the Fulmer cup would have gone over well in Minnesota.
 


What Minnesota has proven to be is a tough place to attract an established coach to, Lou Holtz being the exception that proves the rule. The overall strategy - whether it's on purpose or not - of rolling the dice with a succession of young or un-established coaches and eventually get lucky with one of them, is probably the only way to do this. Look at Northwestern before they got lucky with Barnett. The Badgers went through a proverbial 40 years wandering in the wilderness before they struck gold with Alvarez. You have to have faith that the gods are eventually going to smile on you, and you have to be willing to kiss some frogs along the way.

It may still work with Kill, or it may not. Fans have to be patient while the jury is out and be at peace and willing to move on if it doesn't turn out.
 

Winnipegopher said:
I'm in. We can fire jerry tomorrow once the inks dries on the contract for Urban Meyer or Nick Saban.

Winning BCS coaches don't come to Minnesota unless they have no other option. Like Phil Fulmer. Somehow I don't think the Fulmer cup would have gone over well in Minnesota.
Click to expand...

Did Holtz have other options? I know he was fired at Arkansas, but I was a teen then and don't know what other big jobs might have been available to him.
 

EG#9 said:
Since Murray Warmath's tenure ended, Minnesota has hired ONE head football coach with a winning record at a BCS type school on his resume in Lou Holtz. Minnesota has hired two other head coaches who had previous experience at a BCS type school, both of whom had losing records (Cal Stoll, Glen Mason), and both of those coaches had similar records at Minnesota to the records they posted at their previous school. There's this myth that "good" coaches have come to Minnesota and gotten fired, but the reality is that in the last 40 years Minnesota has only had one coach with a history of winning major conference football games. If you want your mind blown, look at the late Jim Wacker's record at TCU prior to getting the Minnesota job (21-48 in conference games in 9 years at TCU). Minnesota hasn't proven to be a "tough place to win", it's been proven to be a tough place to significantly improve your performance as a BCS head coach.

I am not posting this in regards to Jerry Kill, but in response to a few posters who seem to delight in making excuses for why Minnesota can't put a competitive B1G football team on the field. The vast majority of excuses made for failure at Minnesota could have been used at Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, and Purdue. Maybe Jerry Kill is Minnesota's Hayden Fry/Kirk Ferentz, Gary Barnett/Pat Fitzgerald, Barry Alvarez, or Joe Tiller. If he's not, that doesn't mean that someone else couldn't make Minnesota's perceived roadblocks any less small than they look in Madison right now.
Click to expand...

What's your recommendation?
 

We can succeed at football and it appears the administration wants to finally. But it will take time and money to do so. Two things we're shot on. At leat the want to and know how are in place. Let's hope fans can be more patient and open their wallets.
 



OddStack said:
Did Holtz have other options? I know he was fired at Arkansas, but I was a teen then and don't know what other big jobs might have been available to him.
Click to expand...

From the Holtz wikipedia page:

Holtz was dismissed following a 6–5 campaign in 1983. At the time, Athletic Director Frank Broyles stated that Holtz had resigned because he was "tired and burned out", and was not fired. Broyles testified 20 years later that he had fired Holtz because he was losing the fan base with things he said and did. Holtz confirmed that he had been fired, but that Broyles never gave him a reason, although reports cited his political involvement as a major reason: controversy arose over his having taped two television advertisements from his coach's office endorsing the re-election of Jesse Helms as Senator from North Carolina at a time when Helms was leading the an effort to block Martin Luther King Day from becoming a national holiday.

What a guy! I'm surprised more teams down south weren't clamoring for him to join them. He also snuck out of town just before the NCAA came in and slapped some sanctions on Arkansas. Same thing he did here, Notre Dame, and South Carolina.
 

Winnipegopher said:
I'm in. We can fire jerry tomorrow once the inks dries on the contract for Urban Meyer or Nick Saban.

Winning BCS coaches don't come to Minnesota unless they have no other option. Like Phil Fulmer. Somehow I don't think the Fulmer cup would have gone over well in Minnesota.
Click to expand...

This. Show me the winning BCS coaches lining up to take this job.
 

Minor quibble but I'd put Wacker in the same class as Stoll and Mason. TCU was in the Southwest Conference back then. That was a major conference at the time.
 

Cal Stoll had a losing record his first season at Wake Forest, but then had winning seasons the next two before coming to Minnesota. He'd previous been a longtime assistant at Michigan State during a fairly prosperous time for the Spartans.
 



Sports_Realist said:
Cal Stoll had a losing record his first season at Wake Forest, but then had winning seasons the next two before coming to Minnesota. He'd previous been a longtime assistant at Michigan State during a fairly prosperous time for the Spartans.
Click to expand...

I remember that the MSU staff had produced a lot of winning head coaches - it looked like a good hire at the time (plus Stoll had played for Bierman). Hiring the right coach is a tough call - would Solich or Craig Bohl have done better at Minnesota? After Holtz, Gutekunst was a big letdown. Salem, Wacker and Brewster were all poor choices, it turned out. Could James Franklin win here? Sumlin? Bud Grant, Bud Wilkinson and Dan Devine all had Minnesota connections, but wouldn't coach here. Hotlz got Alvarez interested in Minnesota (and his system would have been perfect for our material) but we didn't fire Gutekunst for another year and he went to Wisconsin. Iowa has had only two coaches since 1979 - Fry having built a winning program.
 



Kill still gets next year no matter what happens the rest of this season. But the real possibility of 0-8 in the Big10 this year followed by two or less Big10 wins in 2014 pretty much does it for Jerry; he might eke out a fifth season but doubtful. And I like the guy and his system. But I don't hold high hopes for him being here in 2015, much less 2016. Ya gotta win sometime. One Big 10 win this year is enough to get him five seasons. But you gotta win at least one game. Just one. How about Nebraska at home?
 

Major college football is a strange beast. imo, every time a wanna be program breaks through the ncaa compliance folks should be about a step behind and closing fast. I think programs like Boise State, Oregon and a few SEC schools have lots of 'splainin to do. As much as I like Fitzgerald, there might be something cookin' in Evanston, too. And I'm pretty darn sure Wisconsin crawled out on a tiny limb to resurrect their football status. In other words, this system is set up to keep the haves in power and make it darn hard for the have nots to achieve lasting success. When that model gets turned upside down I start looking for culprits. Finding none, it's then likely you'll discover an extraordinarily determined administration and booster organization.

So maybe it makes sense that Minnesota and a bunch of other schools never quite find the formula for lasting success
 

Well, I didn't finish my previous post, but there's enough ranting there to get you to see why I don't think this is all about sub-standard coaches.
 

maxwellsmart said:
Major college football is a strange beast. imo, every time a wanna be program breaks through the ncaa compliance folks should be about a step behind and closing fast. I think programs like Boise State, Oregon and a few SEC schools have lots of 'splainin to do. As much as I like Fitzgerald, there might be something cookin' in Evanston, too. And I'm pretty darn sure Wisconsin crawled out on a tiny limb to resurrect their football status. In other words, this system is set up to keep the haves in power and make it darn hard for the have nots to achieve lasting success. When that model gets turned upside down I start looking for culprits. Finding none, it's then likely you'll discover an extraordinarily determined administration and booster organization.

So maybe it makes sense that Minnesota and a bunch of other schools never quite find the formula for lasting success
Click to expand...


Do you know something about Northwestern and Wisconsin that I don't? I am not that big on following college football news outside of the Gophers, so I really am not sure if you are referring to credible allegations or if you are just hypothesizing that because they are succeeding, they must be cheating. It seems like Wisconsin has found the recipe for continued success (notwithstanding our annual Gopherhole thread explaining why this is the year it all unravels for them, which I am eager to believe every year), and the only thing they had that we didn't at the time was an AD who was smart enough to identify Alvarez as a talent and hire him.
 

Holtz>Kill>Mason>Wacker>Brewster. Now I know everyone will agree with me (/open the Mason romanticizing discussion)
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom