Pat Reusse: Gophers failed to take hint from 2016 team: When schedule is easy, win

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Spoofin said:
Yes, of course. This site has already done an outstanding job of documenting a long list of things we can't expect from PJ and his staff in their first year.


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I'm not making excuses for PJ. Just responding to a comment and pointing out that the two situations are not similar. If you don't like it that is certainly your right.
 

Have you ever had a new boss that didn't change anything, yet the climate/culture of the place changed simply by being a different person? Simply having different people in new positions and others not around changes things.

Just b/c someone is a disciple of somebody else doesn't mean things don't change.

Thus, comparing them is legitimate. TC didn't get a chance to put his stamp on things b/c change takes time; yet, many here don't want to acknowledge that TC didn't get the same courtesy as they argue Fleck should get.

FTR...I'm not a Fleck fan, but I do believe, "It'll get worse before it gets better," Dalton (Patrick Swayze) from Roadhouse.

However, I didn't think they'd be as bad as what I'm seeing.
 

OddStack said:
Grumps-
You have far more faith in Coyle than I do. I'll bet Coyle had ZERO conversations with Claeys similar to that. Claeys was a lame duck coach from the minute Coyle was hired; unless, they went to B1G Championship game or beyond. (I believe Coyle wouldn't have had the guts to fire him. He barely had the guts to do it with 9 wins: shown by the reasons he gave for the firing...see recruiting rankings, attendance, etc. Btw..those are also the same reasons for the statement below.)

He wanted a PR Coach first and foremost and one with some success secondarily.
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This is probably where we disagree.
You're looking for quick failure to blame Coyle and get him out.

Regardless of whether Claeys was lame duck, qualified, not qualified, etc., I would have fired him too if I was the AD.
Even if I wanted to just fire him because I thought he was too overweight, I would have done it. I would have used other reasons when publicly explaining it, but if I think this obese man can not recruit athletic kids, then I need to make a change. Especially if I get the coach I'm targeting from the start, which it appeared Coyle did. So you have to give him some credit for that.

Expecting Coyle to have a longer leash on his own hire over a hire of someone else is understandable. I think most of us see that with our everyday jobs. New manager hires a new employee and likes that employee more than the person who has been there.

Not sure what else you want us to admit to other than that.
 

OddStack said:
Have you ever had a new boss that didn't change anything, yet the climate/culture of the place changed simply by being a different person? Simply having different people in new positions and others not around changes things.

Just b/c someone is a disciple of somebody else doesn't mean things don't change.

Thus, comparing them is legitimate. TC didn't get a chance to put his stamp on things b/c change takes time; yet, many here don't want to acknowledge that TC didn't get the same courtesy as they argue Fleck should get.

FTR...I'm not a Fleck fan, but I do believe, "It'll get worse before it gets better," Dalton (Patrick Swayze) from Roadhouse.

However, I didn't think they'd be as bad as what I'm seeing.
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Claeys was the interim head coach for the final half of the previous season, and had been acting head coach on multiple occasions prior to that. TC had been coaching and recruiting for the Gophers for five years before he was named head coach.

I never said everything was the exact same when we transitioned from Kill to Claeys, but I don't think it is a stretch to say the change from Claeys to PJ was much more drastic than going from Jerry to Tracy.
 

Last season was probably the Gophers best chance of going to the Rose Bowl in a long time. Claeys led them to a 9-4 season. In 3 of 4 games, they were ahead at the half and we outcoached in the 2nd half. That was the best Claeys was ever going to do. So, maybe he gets the gophers 6 or 7 wins this season, next season and for the next 5 years 6-8 wins. Is that considered success?
I'd rather take a few lumps now with a chance to be exceptional down the road. But that's just me.
 


Chucklehead said:
Last season was probably the Gophers best chance of going to the Rose Bowl in a long time. Claeys led them to a 9-4 season. In 3 of 4 games, they were ahead at the half and we outcoached in the 2nd half. That was the best Claeys was ever going to do. So, maybe he gets the gophers 6 or 7 wins this season, next season and for the next 5 years 6-8 wins. Is that considered success?
I'd rather take a few lumps now with a chance to be exceptional down the road. But that's just me.
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This is your opinion. Mine is Claeys would have won 8 games this year, then we would be playing in the BIG title game the following. In recruiting, we would have maintained the same type of ranking that we had in prior years. He learned quite a bit about being a head coach last year and since he was highly intelligent and very focused on the job, he would have really grown into a great HC here.

Not surprised by the move to fire Claeys as Coyle never really supported him in the first place.
Would rather not have to see the team fall back like they have so far this season. Hoping that PJ can move us back in the direction Kill was taking us and then once we get there, he can exceed what they did.
 

OddStack said:
However, I didn't think they'd be as bad as what I'm seeing.
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They're 4-4 and have lost one game in which they were favored - Maryland.

They have been in every game going into the 4th quarter except for Michigan St when they rallied late. People don't like Fleck so they go straight to hyperbole in how bad the team has been the first 8 games.
 

grumps said:
I don't think Claeys was fired for wins or losses.
He was fired because he was a horrible marketer of the program.
Awful figurehead for football in the year 2017.
He was under-qualified to be head coach of a Big Ten program. (Compare the head coaching records of Fleck and Claeys prior to coming to Minnesota, and it evident Claeys never grew anything from scratch).
Claeys was coasting on a ship propelled by Kill. That boat ride was ending.

Claeys could have won a Rose Bowl last year but I still think he would have been fired by 2019 no matter what.
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Underqualified? How do you figure? Plenty of Big Ten coaches are hired without ever having head coaching experience. Was Bret Bielema underqualified? How about D.J. Durkin? Chris Ash?

Coming in as a head coach from a lower-level program is not the only way to be a successful Big Ten coach, or everyone would hire using that route.
 

grumps said:
This is probably where we disagree.
You're looking for quick failure to blame Coyle and get him out.

Regardless of whether Claeys was lame duck, qualified, not qualified, etc., I would have fired him too if I was the AD.
Even if I wanted to just fire him because I thought he was too overweight, I would have done it. I would have used other reasons when publicly explaining it, but if I think this obese man can not recruit athletic kids, then I need to make a change. Especially if I get the coach I'm targeting from the start, which it appeared Coyle did. So you have to give him some credit for that.

Expecting Coyle to have a longer leash on his own hire over a hire of someone else is understandable. I think most of us see that with our everyday jobs. New manager hires a new employee and likes that employee more than the person who has been there.

Not sure what else you want us to admit to other than that.
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Cruze, is that you?
 



Good take but incredibly poor reasoning on fat mans part


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GFBfan said:
Tracy was HC for 1 year and had 9 wins. How can a 4 win season be 1 worse or even 4 worse than 9?
A 4 game difference is a big one.

The article is spot on.
A PR coach will get some fans to attend, but in the end wins are going to matter more than anything.
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I give the 5-7 two years ago to Claeys. If you give it to Kill the analysis would change.

If you give it to nobody, that also changes the analysis.
 

scools12 said:
They're 4-4 and have lost one game in which they were favored - Maryland.

They have been in every game going into the 4th quarter except for Michigan St when they rallied late. People don't like Fleck so they go straight to hyperbole in how bad the team has been the first 8 games.
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The fact that we won't be favored in any of the remaining games shows that we've underachieved in the eyes of many (including me) and Vegas. We were 12.5 favorites against Maryland and lost which affects not being favored against a BAD PURDUE TEAM AND BEING ALMOST A DOUBLE DIGIT DOG TO A MEDIOCRE IOWA TEAM.

Currently, we have a week schedule. Our B1G opponents are 9-16 in conference (4 of those wins are against us; thus 5-15 after removing our games); 20-20 including the "cream puffs" on their schedule.

The fact that we haven't been favored shows how bad we are!!! We can't be favored against mediocre to poor teams.

edit--bad math (after removing our games our opponents are 5-15 not 6-15)

"In every game"....typical Minnesota sports fan, loser mentality; morale victories are still losses.
 

grumps said:
Oh, right.
It takes years to see a program get installed and see wins result.


My point about Claeys isn't about winning on the field, I think it had more to do with direction of the program.

In the interview with PJ, I can imagine PJ presented how he would direct the program, how he would influence recruiting, how he would put basically a whole learning plan around how he would teach players on the field and off, and how he would reach outside the program to the other athletic groups, and how he would reach out to media, etc. (basically all the crap we've been hearing since he got hired).

Whereas in my mind, I'm sure Coyle had similar conversations with Claeys prior to firing in which Coyle maybe asked about what Claeys goal and direction for the program might be, and it was probably something like.

"Well, we're going to practice hard and we're going to win football games".

The Coyle maybe asked about academics.
"We're going to make sure those kids go to class".

Then Coyle maybe asked how we'll market the program.
"We're going to win more games".

Then Coyle maybe asked about recruiting.
"We're going to recruit hard and coach players up who come here".



Basically, I think Coyle probably was getting answers, and they weren't wrong answers, but they weren't answers that were providing Coyle and confidence that it was going to transcend what was going on. So even if we waited for 3 more years, Coyle probably had low confidence anything transcending was going to happen.

Kind of like having someone tell you how to make bread and they never mention yeast. "We're going to mix up ingredients and bake it!"
Coyle could have waited 3 years to see if the bread was going to rise, but if there isn't any yeast, it's just going to be a waste of time.

I can't blame a new AD for hiring his guy and for firing someone he didn't have faith in who was making substantial PR missteps. The timing for that should be short at the point you discover he's not your person.
Just like Maturi did the same thing with Brewster. After two bowl games, 7 games into Brewster's third season he was gone.
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End if the day you can't conclusively make this argument after one year
 




grumps said:
I don't think Claeys was fired for wins or losses.
He was fired because he was a horrible marketer of the program.
Awful figurehead for football in the year 2017.
He was under-qualified to be head coach of a Big Ten program. (Compare the head coaching records of Fleck and Claeys prior to coming to Minnesota, and it evident Claeys never grew anything from scratch).
Claeys was coasting on a ship propelled by Kill. That boat ride was ending.

Claeys could have won a Rose Bowl last year but I still think he would have been fired by 2019 no matter what.
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Is Dantonio or Chryst or Ferenz a good marketer. I don't see it. But they've won a crap load of games. Winning is the only marketer in Sports.
 

Hell, what about Saban? When I think marketing guru, he's the first guy that comes to mind...said no one ever!
 

OddStack said:
The fact that we won't be favored in any of the remaining games shows that we've underachieved in the eyes of many (including me) and Vegas. We were 12.5 favorites against Maryland and lost which affects not being favored against a BAD PURDUE TEAM AND BEING ALMOST A DOUBLE DIGIT DOG TO A MEDIOCRE IOWA TEAM.

Currently, we have a week schedule. Our B1G opponents are 9-16 in conference (3 of those wins are against us; thus 6-15 after removing our games); 20-20 including the "cream puffs" on their schedule.

The fact that we haven't been favored shows how bad we are!!! We can't be favored against mediocre to poor teams.

"In every game"....typical Minnesota sports fan, loser mentality; morale victories are still losses.
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It really is interesting how 9-4 against a weak schedule by last year's first-year head coach was and is derided as a joke by many, and yet a probable 4-8/5-7 record against a weak schedule by this year's first-year head coach is rationalized and defended to death.

People are ignoring the fact that we aren't playing two of the better Big Ten teams in recent memory and yet, barring some minor miracle, won't even approach .500 in the conference.
 

Yet, "realists" like us "apparently" bury our heads in the sand and ignore short-comings of previous regimes. Weird how things get ignored now, huh?
 

dpodoll68 said:
It really is interesting how 9-4 against a weak schedule by last year's first-year head coach was and is derided as a joke by many, and yet a probable 4-8/5-7 record against a weak schedule by this year's first-year head coach is rationalized and defended to death.

People are ignoring the fact that we aren't playing two of the better Big Ten teams in recent memory and yet, barring some minor miracle, won't even approach .500 in the conference.
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A 1st year head coach with a 1st-time defensive coordinator, a new offensive coordinator, and a new offensive line coach.
 

DoubleAlum said:
Is Dantonio or Chryst or Ferenz a good marketer. I don't see it. But they've won a crap load of games. Winning is the only marketer in Sports.
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Yep - get a winning coach and then just hire the right people to advertise and market. You don't need to have both in the head coach.

It would be nice if we had a charismatic athletic director that could market (or complete a sentence without sounding like it's the first public speech he's ever given).
 

OddStack said:
The fact that we won't be favored in any of the remaining games shows that we've underachieved in the eyes of many (including me) and Vegas. We were 12.5 favorites against Maryland and lost which affects not being favored against a BAD PURDUE TEAM AND BEING ALMOST A DOUBLE DIGIT DOG TO A MEDIOCRE IOWA TEAM.

Currently, we have a week schedule. Our B1G opponents are 9-16 in conference (4 of those wins are against us; thus 5-15 after removing our games); 20-20 including the "cream puffs" on their schedule.

The fact that we haven't been favored shows how bad we are!!! We can't be favored against mediocre to poor teams.

edit--bad math (after removing our games our opponents are 5-15 not 6-15)

"In every game"....typical Minnesota sports fan, loser mentality; morale victories are still losses.
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Who said anything about moral victories. It’s you dumb assertion that they’re getting blown out simply because you don’t like the head coach.

And hate to break it to you they still would be underdogs to these teams you think are beneath the Gophers with Claeys as the coach.


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Word said:
Yep - get a winning coach and then just hire the right people to advertise and market. You don't need to have both in the head coach.

It would be nice if we had a charismatic athletic director that could market (or complete a sentence without sounding like it's the first public speech he's ever given).
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Coyle is too busy being fully puckered, trying to remember the last lies he told.
 

scools12 said:
Who said anything about moral victories. It’s you dumb assertion that they’re getting blown out simply because you don’t like the head coach.

And hate to break it to you they still would be underdogs to these teams you think are beneath the Gophers with Claeys as the coach.


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Yup they would be underdogs.

And they would have at least 1 more in the W column too.
 



scools12 said:
They're 4-4 and have lost one game in which they were favored - Maryland.

They have been in every game going into the 4th quarter except for Michigan St when they rallied late. People don't like Fleck so they go straight to hyperbole in how bad the team has been the first 8 games.
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Yay! Be proud...implied morale victory. People like Fleck "so they go straight to hyperbole in how" things don't look as bad as they are.
 

Chucklehead said:
Last season was probably the Gophers best chance of going to the Rose Bowl in a long time. Claeys led them to a 9-4 season. In 3 of 4 games, they were ahead at the half and we outcoached in the 2nd half. <b>That was the best Claeys was ever going to do. </b>So, maybe he gets the gophers 6 or 7 wins this season, next season and for the next 5 years 6-8 wins. Is that considered success?
I'd rather take a few lumps now with a chance to be exceptional down the road. But that's just me.
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Easily the worst take I've seen in a while. What on earth makes you know this? Wishing? TC had much less HC experience than PJ and we are asked to be patient with him yet you knew TC was at his top. When people ask me why I spend so much time on GH, I always reference #hottakes like this.


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OddStack said:
Yay! Be proud...implied morale victory. People like Fleck "so they go straight to hyperbole in how" things don't look as bad as they are.
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You can't expect them to win games in his first year.


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So pretty clear that Reusse is going to name PJ Fleck as one of the finalist for the "Turkey of the Year" award in the paper. Which fine suit do we thing Fleck will wear to his press conference that week and will he comment on being invited to the "Turkey of the year" award banquet. Fleck can take solace in the fact that Reusse name Pittino as a finalist and has had him fired a few times already. I'm looking forward to the Turkey trophy on his nice shoes the last game.
 

I can't believe the Gophers aren't as good as last year with receivers who can't get open and QBs that can't complete 50% of their passes. Absolutely astonishing that a team attempting to run a spread offense isn't seeing success in the Big Ten with those two factors.
 

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