Ranking the Big Ten ADs With Jeff Goodman and Brett McMurphy (#3. Mark Coyle, Minnesota, A-)

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Goodman and McMurphy:

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Analysis: When Mark Coyle left Syracuse for Minnesota, SU football coach Dino Babers — who Coyle had hired just five months before — first found out the news from Stadium’s Brett McMurphy during the ACC spring meetings. Babers was not thrilled. However, fans of Coyle’s three schools (Boise State, Syracuse and Minnesota) have been happy with Coyle’s football hires. At Boise State, Bryan Harsin has six bowl appearances in as many years (and three Mountain West titles), Babers had Cuse’s first 10-win season in 17 years and P.J. Fleck just guided Minnesota to its first top-10 final ranking in 58 years.

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Go Gophers!!
 

Where are all the Coyle haters? The Football Board used to be overrun with them.
 

It would have been A+ if the 3 fields had heating coyles.
 

Go4Broke said:
Where are all the Coyle haters? The Football Board used to be overrun with them.
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I can't speak for every Coyle hater, but my opinion has changed as the facts have changed.

He handled one situation terribly. There were few people defending his actions in 2016, and I believe much of the animosity was earned. That entire situation was the result of poor communication.

From there, he hired very well, doubled down on the football program, and seems to have provided good support to a good coach.
 



Personally, I hate these kind of articles because they are so superficial in nature. While virtually everyone focuses on just football and basketball due to the revenue involved, an AD's job is far more complex and nuanced than simply answering the question of "how did his hires do in football and basketball?" There's a heckuva of a lot more to it if you truly want to evaluate how an AD has performed.
 

MRJ said:
Personally, I hate these kind of articles because they are so superficial in nature. While virtually everyone focuses on just football and basketball due to the revenue involved, an AD's job is far more complex and nuanced than simply answering the question of "how did his hires do in football and basketball?" There's a heckuva of a lot more to it if you truly want to evaluate how an AD has performed.
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Agreed. Personally I believe Coyle has done much better than what people give him credit for.
 
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The only people who think Coyle hasn’t done a good job are people who clearly thing that when your subordinate publicly embarrasses you and undercuts you it is your fault and not the fault of said subordinate
 

Other than Fleck has he made any home run hires here? Motzko was a good (safe) hire and I think it will turn out. McCutcheon was already here. Jury is out on Whalen. Many here badly want Pitino gone (although I think I am one of the few Pitino fans).
 



MRJ said:
Personally, I hate these kind of articles because they are so superficial in nature. While virtually everyone focuses on just football and basketball due to the revenue involved, an AD's job is far more complex and nuanced than simply answering the question of "how did his hires do in football and basketball?" There's a heckuva of a lot more to it if you truly want to evaluate how an AD has performed.
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As far as the university is concerned the only two sports that matter is football and basketball.
 


Word said:
Other than Fleck has he made any home run hires here? Motzko was a good (safe) hire and I think it will turn out. McCutcheon was already here. Jury is out on Whalen. Many here badly want Pitino gone (although I think I am one of the few Pitino fans).
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Has he made any bad hires? The PJ hiring is enough to outweigh any bad moves and then some. Motzko was a great hire IMO, though it probably didn’t take much convincing to get him to take the job.

The PJ hire is the best move an AD has made here in my lifetime, so that earns him a high grade by itself, and buys him a few mistakes elsewhere.
 

Cedar Rapids Gopher said:
As far as the university is concerned the only two sports that matter is football and basketball.
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Actually, and this may surprise you, the university does care about other sports besides football and basketball. That's why there are 23 varsity sports on campus. If you doubt it, I suggest you talk to athletic department staff. Trust me, Coyle's daily work log doesn't center on football and basketball all day, every day. Not even close.
 



Coyle handled the big scandal in his tenure terribly. Coyle is a horrible communicator and a proven liar. Coyle hit a home run on his Football HC hire.

I guess one’s view of him comes down to what parts of his job you care about and/or feel are most important. He could resign today and I wouldn’t blink an eye. I might smile.
 

Some other parts of the AD's job that are critically important:
- fundraising / schmoozing with big donors and coaxing $$$ out of them
- how well he works with and gets $$$/support out of the president

Any idea how he compares there?

Obviously neither of those are exactly in his control. And I think Gabel wants to be supportive of football and athletics generally, which can only help. Also think Kaler seemed to be supportive as well.
 

Gophers1992 said:
Has he made any bad hires? The PJ hiring is enough to outweigh any bad moves and then some. Motzko was a great hire IMO, though it probably didn’t take much convincing to get him to take the job.

The PJ hire is the best move an AD has made here in my lifetime, so that earns him a high grade by itself, and buys him a few mistakes elsewhere.
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Like I said - Whalen still TBD. And while not his hire, many people are livid that Pitino hasn't been fired.
PJ is a home run hire but he was also the no-brainer hire. He was at the top of anyone's coaching list at the time. We (and Coyle) are just lucky our president and BOR finally were willing to pay for a coach that was at the top of the prospect list.
 

Word said:
Like I said - Whalen still TBD. And while not his hire, many people are livid that Pitino hasn't been fired.
PJ is a home run hire but he was also the no-brainer hire. He was at the top of anyone's coaching list at the time. We (and Coyle) are just lucky our president and BOR finally were willing to pay for a coach that was at the top of the prospect list.
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Another aspect you could give Coyle credit for was convincing PJ to come here. He turned down Purdue, and he presumably had other options. It wasn't a forgone conclusion that he would come to Minnesota.
 

Interesting Brett McMurphy didn’t mention the Urban Meyer/Gene Smith media storm and fake consternation in 2018. Water under the bridge.
 

hello-world said:
Another aspect you could give Coyle credit for was convincing PJ to come here. He turned down Purdue, and he presumably had other options. It wasn't a forgone conclusion that he would come to Minnesota.
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I would have turned down Purdue too.
 

Some guy said:
The only people who think Coyle hasn’t done a good job are people who clearly thing that when your subordinate publicly embarrasses you and undercuts you it is your fault and not the fault of said subordinate
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Your comment is patently false.

It does, however display the reason some of the "haters" have moved on.

Why you're still bringing up Tracy Claeys 4 years later is beyond me, but I guess you're so sure of your point, you still feel the need to provide rationale for why someone might disagree with you on Mark Coyle's job performance by rehashing something that should be ancient history.
 

Cedar Rapids Gopher said:
As far as the university is concerned the only two sports that matter is football and basketball.
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Once upon a time, Hockey mattered here, too. One of the only schools in the country that had the opportunity for three revenue generating programs. When we weren't making money in Football, Hockey revenues helped. Thanks to a succession of ADs, we no longer have that "problem" to worry about.
 

hello-world said:
Another aspect you could give Coyle credit for was convincing PJ to come here. He turned down Purdue, and he presumably had other options. It wasn't a forgone conclusion that he would come to Minnesota.
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Word said:
I would have turned down Purdue too.
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Even I’m hesitant to go down this route again, but PJ did not turn down Purdue. Purdue never offered PJ. I have no idea if PJ would have accepted or not, but Purdue chose to offer Brohm over PJ. Ancient history, but history none the less.
 

caliGopher said:
Your comment is patently false.

It does, however display the reason some of the "haters" have moved on.

Why you're still bringing up Tracy Claeys 4 years later is beyond me, but I guess you're so sure of your point, you still feel the need to provide rationale for why someone might disagree with you on Mark Coyle's job performance by rehashing something that should be ancient history.
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There were players on that team on the roster 6 months ago.

The only negative knocks on Coyle are his “bad communication” and his fundraising

the “bad communication” comments directly stem from how people interpret the TC situation




I can mention what a horrible leader of a program TC was all I want. If you want to move on feel free to not read it.
 

Spoofin said:
Even I’m hesitant to go down this route again, but PJ did not turn down Purdue. Purdue never offered PJ. I have no idea if PJ would have accepted or not, but Purdue chose to offer Brohm over PJ. Ancient history, but history none the less.
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Does the same standard hold true for other ancient history situations? Am I okay to talk about things that happened 5 years ago?

what about 3?
 

Some guy said:
Does the same standard hold true for other ancient history situations? Am I okay to talk about things that happened 5 years ago?

what about 3?
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What standard are you talking about? I don’t care what ancient history things you talk about. Go back to the 1800s if you want.
 




Based on performance the AD gets an A from me.

Agree with Philly he is a snake, but he is our snake. I doubt he has any regrets on how he handled TC's departure but I still think it sucked.

That offered, he's 3 for 3 on personal responses to direct emails. I can and will not fault that responsiveness.

He also brought Coach Fleck to the University of Minnesota. That has and will continue to wipe out any level of past transgressions for quite some time. Also look out when Coach Pitino's time runs out...

Progress in foosball for sure...due to Mr. Coyle.
 


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