Pat Reusse Column: Year 3 for Kill could be more of the same — lots of losses

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BleedGopher

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per Reusse:

Jerry Kill’s teams have followed Glen Mason’s blueprint the first two seasons. In Year 3, Mason’s Gophers went 8-4. Don’t expect a repeat.

Entering his Year 3, Kill continues to play down expectations, suggesting it’s more like Year 2 because of a lost recruiting class in 2011. Interesting spin, since Mason started later than Kill and had the turnaround in Year 3.

Can we apply that standard for Kill in 2013?

“Coach Mason and Coach Kill are very similar … discipline, no B.S., trying to get back to recruiting Midwest kids,’’ Shaw said. “I will say this: I think what Jerry inherited at Minnesota might be more along the lines of what Jim Wacker had to work with at the start than what Coach Mason inherited.’’

Interpretation: The Gophers duplicating that final No. 20 rating might be a reach in expectations for Kill’s third season.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/218783211.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

Go Gophers!!
 

could be. maybe P. Nelson will surprise us and find a few more wins.
 

gotta love Pat Reusse. He knows how to stir the witch's brew.
 

Really not too bad an article. Highlights the colossal mess Kill inherited.

Glad that Reusse followed his lazy, throwaway column about the Gophers with one with some actual information. The man can certainly still write.
 

Can't wait for the day when Masons tenure is not the benchmark.

I don't see many predicting a breakout year like 1999. For me, make a bowl game this year and its still progress. Year four is the key....Mason's team in 2000 despite beating Ohio State lost to Ohio at home and had an embarrassing loss at Indiana and snuck into a bowl game (another bad loss). If Kill can keep the upward trajectory through year four he's ahead of Mason.
 



I can't wait for the day when a columnist actually writes something that isn't lazy and only intended to stir the pot.
He starts by bringing up Holtz, who hasn't coached here for nearly 30 years. Then works through every coach since Holtz. This narrative has already been written several times by every columnist in town. We get it, Holtz left in 86, followed by Gutey, then Wacker, then respectability under Mason, followed by some guy named Brewster. Whichever columnist is writing this then takes calls Brewster a disaster. I've read it so many times I think Reusse just cuts and pastes it every 6 months.
Then, in order to get a current and unbiased perspective, he interviews Gordie Shaw. A guy who was fired 7 years ago. I'm sure he is an expert on the 2013 Gophers. Shows how good Pats contacts are in Dinkytown.
No mention of how things look this year at practice, because he hasn't been there. He based his opinion on what happen 17 years ago.
I don't mind cheap shots or negative opinions as much as knowing he doesn't put in the effort to get a fresh negative opinion based on watching a practice.
 

Excellent point about Pat not talking to anybody on the current staff about this team's team. Now he can go back and write about town baseball in some small MN city.
 

BleedGopher said:
per Reusse:

Jerry Kill’s teams have followed Glen Mason’s blueprint the first two seasons. In Year 3, Mason’s Gophers went 8-4. Don’t expect a repeat.

Entering his Year 3, Kill continues to play down expectations, suggesting it’s more like Year 2 because of a lost recruiting class in 2011. Interesting spin, since Mason started later than Kill and had the turnaround in Year 3.

Can we apply that standard for Kill in 2013?

“Coach Mason and Coach Kill are very similar … discipline, no B.S., trying to get back to recruiting Midwest kids,’’ Shaw said. “I will say this: I think what Jerry inherited at Minnesota might be more along the lines of what Jim Wacker had to work with at the start than what Coach Mason inherited.’’

Interpretation: The Gophers duplicating that final No. 20 rating might be a reach in expectations for Kill’s third season.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/218783211.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

I also hope we don't see a repeat of years 4-6 under Mason then.
 



From Reusse's blog on the Star Tribune:

I talked to Gordy Shaw for a column on Gophers football that will be in Thursday's Star Tribune. This one does not figure to cause apoplexy among the maroon-sweater crowd, although you can never be sure about that. That's a sensitive bunch.

I said to Shaw: "I thought Sumlin was the guy the Gophers should have pursued relentlessly after they fired Tim Brewster in 2010. I guess Kevin was too wise to come here.''

Shaw was non-commital on that, although we did agree on this: With some imagination, Gophers AD Joel Maturi could have gotten an offer to Sumlin's agent that would have been worthy of Kevin's consideration.
 

Sumlin was not going to come here. He already had what was at worst a slightly lesser job than Minnesota, with a much better team than Minnesota, and got a much better job a year later. He was barely more realistic than Harbaugh or Dungy.
 

Slightly better written article by fatty but with the same anti football/gophers slant. Sorry fats, it's not a spin if Jerry doesn't feel like he has had a full 3 years and should expect a much better result this year. That's just how the coach feels. If he thinks he needs another year then that's how he feels. I'll trust the coaches word over some hack with a constant anti gopher/football slant any day. Just because grinin glen didn't come out and say it doesn't mean he didn't think it either.
 

drinks at Northpoint said:
I can't wait for the day when a columnist actually writes something that isn't lazy and only intended to stir the pot.
He starts by bringing up Holtz, who hasn't coached here for nearly 30 years. Then works through every coach since Holtz. This narrative has already been written several times by every columnist in town. We get it, Holtz left in 86, followed by Gutey, then Wacker, then respectability under Mason, followed by some guy named Brewster. Whichever columnist is writing this then takes calls Brewster a disaster. I've read it so many times I think Reusse just cuts and pastes it every 6 months.
Then, in order to get a current and unbiased perspective, he interviews Gordie Shaw. A guy who was fired 7 years ago. I'm sure he is an expert on the 2013 Gophers. Shows how good Pats contacts are in Dinkytown.
No mention of how things look this year at practice, because he hasn't been there. He based his opinion on what happen 17 years ago.
I don't mind cheap shots or negative opinions as much as knowing he doesn't put in the effort to get a fresh negative opinion based on watching a practice.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. Reusse columns have become a tedious summary of the history of his subject. It is basically filler. This column has some minor insights that any Gopher football fan would already be aware of.
 



I like what Shaw said about Cockerham. Billy C is one of my all-time favorite Gophers.
 

denguegopher said:
I like what Shaw said about Cockerham. Billy C is one of my all-time favorite Gophers.
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Reusse could write Don Quixote or War and Peace, and a bunch of resentful pansy-ass babies on this board would complain about it.

This was a good article, well written, complimentary to the current coach, and serves to downplay expectations.
 

Why doesn't Reusse take the time to interview Limegrover or Claeys?

I think Kill is similar in attitude and how he runs a practice to coach Mason but that is about the end of the comparison. Kill is a lot more available to the media even in the off season and way more approachable by fans. Coach Mason was always really distant to the fan base.
Reusse thinks Kill is underselling the Gophers, I don't see it that way, he is measured in what he says to the media because he has to be, and knows where the program is at expectations wise. He definately expects more out of this group than he did the previous two years.
All of the other media at least interview the coordinators of the current Gopher program and both seem very willing to
do interviews even over the phone. One thing I will agree with, and I am old enough to remember the teams and players , which this Reusse article points out is that talent wise the program was more similar to what coach Wacker inherited from coach Gutey, Brewster to Kill, than what Mason inherited from coach Wacker. Wacker could recruit talent from Florida and Texas and he did leave coach Mason a lot more players to work with, especially the defensive side of the ball, than what coach Brewster left behind for coach Kill. Coach Kill already has a lot more of the players from his recruiting classes in the two deeps than coach Mason did after taking over for Coach Wacker.
The similarities I see from now to then is the turn began on the defense for the Gophers. In 1998, they started to hold the opposition to a lot less points and scoring opprotunity's, and began to stop other teams and force a lot more punts.

I see this years team being a bit similar to the 1998 team in that were going to have players on defense that can stop the other side from scoring points but the offense is going to have trouble sustaining drives, making plays and scoring.
We have a lot of inexperience still at QB and WR, and the offensive line, similar to the 1998 team. Hoepfully Phillip Nelson has a little bit of Billy Cokerham in him as far as being a leader and being able to turn a few plays in to big gains that helped the Gophers upset some teams. Billy C willed that victory against Michigan State. The Gophers got some bounces and luck too but you could tell Cockerham wanted that game bad on the field.
Billy C he didn't have a great arm but the guy had gutts and a strong will and sometimes gutts matters. Reusse could do better than interview an old position coach.
 

Why doesn't Reusse take the time to interview Limegrover or Claeys?
Click to expand...

As a former writer myself, I'm sensitive to this question. He didn't interview Limegrover or Claeys for his own reasons. Probably because that isn't the article he chose to write. Maybe he will in the future. Get over it.
 

everybody knows my name said:
As a former writer myself, I'm sensitive to this question. He didn't interview Limegrover or Claeys for his own reasons. Probably because that isn't the article he chose to write. Maybe he will in the future. Get over it.
Click to expand...

Good luck on that.:rolleyes:
 

GophersInIowa said:
I also hope we don't see a repeat of years 4-6 under Mason then.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And this pretty much highlights Reusse's myopic view when writing about Gopher football.

Excellent points by 'drinks at Northpoint' as well. Nothing like getting your perspective through the prism of dusty old contacts and not knowing anything about the 2013 team's personnel and progress.
 

“Coach Mason and Coach Kill are very similar … discipline, no B.S., trying to get back to recruiting Midwest kids,’’ Shaw said. “I will say this: I think what Jerry inherited at Minnesota might be more along the lines of what Jim Wacker had to work with at the start than what Coach Mason inherited.’’

I think this is spot on. The 2009 recruiting class was complete disaster. Of the twenty recruits that year, only Ra'shede Hageman and Ed Olson are contributing members today. So there is very little left of what should have been the senior class.

Do any of you know what kind of player carryover did Mason have from Wacker's teams in 1999?
 


EE_Gopher said:
Do any of you know what kind of player carryover did Mason have from Wacker's teams in 1999?
Click to expand...

There were several Wacker recruits who played for Mason in 1999 and eventually went on to the NFL - guys like Tyrone Carter, Derek Rackley, and Jimmy Wyrick. There were also a lot of Mason-recruited future NFLers on that squad. Believe it or not, there were 15 guys on that team who went on to play in the NFL (16 if you count Thomas Hamner, who was drafted but never played). They had 5 (!) players in that secondary play in the NFL (Carter, Wyrick, Lehan, Brewer, and Middlebrooks), 3 DL (Schlecht, Riley, and White), 2 WR (Bruce and Johnson), 2 OL (Hamilton and Haayer) and the starting RB was drafted. Utecht and Tapeh would also play in the NFL eventually, but that team was so good that they were redshirted.

That season was the biggest disparity between talent and record in several decades of Gopher football. I still shake my head every time I think of that team. THAT team was the one that should've gone to the Rose Bowl.
 

Attention all Gopher football fans. You are a resentful, pansie-ass baby if you don't like Mr. Reusse's latest Pulitzer piece.
 

Not a fan of "snark" anywhere, neither in Ruesse's columns, on the radio or here on Gopherhole. If you read to the end of the column, and Bleed got a good chunk of it, the last section could have been written by Kill himself. It's Pat lowering expectations, not complaining that Kill is doing it.

Is anybody here really upset that he's saying that what Kill inherited is closer to what Wacker got? Or that expecting Kill to have the kind of success that Mason had in 1999 is unrealistic?

"Gordy Shaw was among two assistants retained by Mason from Wacker’s staff. The other was Kevin Sumlin, who now has the privilege and anguish of being quarterback Johnny Manziel’s head coach at Texas A&M.

“My personal opinion is that Coach Mason, talent-wise, inherited a much-different situation than what Wacker inherited,’’ Shaw said. “I’ve believed that if Jim wasn’t forced to fire his defensive coaches, we would’ve squeezed into a bowl game in 1996. But he got orders from above to fire his defensive staff, and everything went to hell.’’

… Shaw said one factor that must be mentioned was the play of senior quarterback Billy Cockerham, a Wacker holdover..

Entering his Year 3, Kill continues to play down expectations, suggesting it’s more like Year 2 because of a lost recruiting class in 2011. Interesting spin, since Mason started later than Kill and had the turnaround in Year 3.

Can we apply that standard for Kill in 2013?

“Coach Mason and Coach Kill are very similar … discipline, no B.S., trying to get back to recruiting Midwest kids,’’ Shaw said. “I will say this: I think what Jerry inherited at Minnesota might be more along the lines of what Jim Wacker had to work with at the start than what Coach Mason inherited.’’

Interpretation: The Gophers duplicating that final No. 20 rating might be a reach in expectations for Kill’s third season."

 

i haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate that sob... when hes proven wrong he doesnt admit it... and when hes right he gloats.. fat prick god i wish he would take another job somewhere else
 

EE_Gopher said:
“Coach Mason and Coach Kill are very similar … discipline, no B.S., trying to get back to recruiting Midwest kids,’’ Shaw said. “I will say this: I think what Jerry inherited at Minnesota might be more along the lines of what Jim Wacker had to work with at the start than what Coach Mason inherited.’’

I think this is spot on. The 2009 recruiting class was complete disaster. Of the twenty recruits that year, only Ra'shede Hageman and Ed Olson are contributing members today. So there is very little left of what should have been the senior class.

Do any of you know what kind of player carryover did Mason have from Wacker's teams in 1999?
Click to expand...

To be fair, Michael Carter, Josh Campion (first time around), and Jeff Wills were in that class as well. With that said, point taken.
 

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