Real reason Claeys was let go....

[alchemy2u]

Ok, now that we have all vented, let's get real about the reasons why Claeys was let go.

(I will start by stating that I thought that he should have been retained.)

The more I think about it and the more you look how this all took place, the more I think that Coyle is just using the current situation as an opportunity to bring in his vision for a HC at the U.

Let's look at the pluses and minuses of having Claeys as the HC:

Pluses

+There is no doubt that Claeys is an excellent X's and O's defensive coach.
+He loves his players and they love him
+All the high school coaches love and respect him.

Negatives
-He is the not the face of the program. All good HC need a little Lou Holtz salesmanship in them.
-attendance is down and dropping even with a very good team and record. Of course a good portion of the problem can be blamed on the ticket policies, but Claeys did not get out and sell it to the fans.
-poor in game adjustments at time. Of course Claeys was still learning.
-lackluster recruiting.
-etc.

I know I missed several points, but it just feels like Coyle wants a HC that is more of a program leader and let the assistants do the XO's. I would guess that there has been some conflict between them as to selling the program to fans and boosters. The stuff that Kill used to do.

Remember, there was quite a bit of doubt when Claeys was chosen about if he could handle the big picture.

Let's have a good open discussion.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[GoodasGold]

Well now I feel better..thanks!!

 

[Go4]

i think you are right. at the end of the day, coyle wants his own guy. as ad, that's his right. it's just his process and communications style have been clunky at best.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

I don't doubt Coyle wanted his own guy, he kinda piled on the excuses for a while there, said it wasn't "one thing" but another statement it was about the meetings and then the tweet....


If Coyle's "own guy" wins lots of games... problem solved.

 

[monk10]

Ticket Sales is like 90%. The mistake is that they hire a new coach and people will come back and buy tickets at the same price. If this new coach doesn't come with a reduction of ticket cost we will still have crappy ticket sales.

 

[GG Allen]

Claeys put his bosses into a tough position when he tweeted support for the players boycott. It was very unlikely they were going to sign him to an extension after he just pulled that, especially in the wake of the Baylor scandal. If they let him coach another year without an extension he'd be lame duck and it would hurt recruiting. That gave them all the excuse they needed to fire him.

And like OP shows above, Claeys got this job under unique circumstances. It's very unlikely he gets a Power 5 HC job if Kill doesn't resign mid-season. Claeys was won of the worst positioned coaches in the country to go against him bosses like that.

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

Negatives
-He is the not the face of the program. All good HC need a little Lou Holtz salesmanship in them.
-attendance is down and dropping even with a very good team and record. Of course a good portion of the problem can be blamed on the ticket policies, but Claeys did not get out and sell it to the fans.
-poor in game adjustments at time. Of course Claeys was still learning.
-lackluster recruiting.
-etc.

Very underrated point. Claeys defensive adjustments after half time as a defensive coordinator under Kill were usually very good. When Claeys moved onto the field as a head coach, the halftime adjustments did seem to suffer. Claeys will always be a good defensive coordinator. But it's unlikely he'll ever get back to a P5 head coaching job because of the things you mentioned.

 

[everybody knows my name]

Real reason Claeys was let go....

When Claeys tweeted what he did, my instant reaction was that he had just gotten himself fired. If you didn't think the same thing, I don't know what to say.

I don't know 10% of what Claeys knows about football, but I know better than to publicly undercut my employer. If Claeys had known that, he wouldn't have given Coyle a reason (or a pretext) for firing him.

 

[CentralGopher]

Ticket Sales is like 90%. The mistake is that they hire a new coach and people will come back and buy tickets at the same price. If this new coach doesn't come with a reduction of ticket cost we will still have crappy ticket sales.

When we dont have 10 and 11 win seasons in years 2 and 3 and dont win the rivalries they will all be gone again. Let the rebuilding continue forever.

Big ten wins are still good wins regardless of who those teams are. The people who thought we should have beaten wisconsin this year have their heads in the clouds.

 

[PMWinSTP]

Claeys put his bosses into a tough position when he tweeted support for the players boycott. It was very unlikely they were going to sign him to an extension after he just pulled that, especially in the wake of the Baylor scandal. If they let him coach another year without an extension he'd be lame duck and it would hurt recruiting. That gave them all the excuse they needed to fire him.

And like OP shows above, Claeys got this job under unique circumstances. It's very unlikely he gets a Power 5 HC job if Kill doesn't resign mid-season. Claeys was won of the worst positioned coaches in the country to go against him bosses like that.

Well those two were willing (but not able) to offer the boycotting players reinstatement of five of the suspended players...think they would have done that without TC's tweet? The fact that they offered it as a resolution tells me they absolutely know they overreached. More shoes will be dropping as long as Coyle and Kaler continue their self-serving spin.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

When Claeys tweeted what he did, my instant reaction was that he had just gotten himself fired. If you didn't think the same thing, I don't know what to say.

I don't know 10% of what Claeys knows about football, but I know better than to publicly undercut my employer. If Claeys had known that, he wouldn't have given Coyle a reason (or a pretext) for firing him.

I think Coyle and Claeys easily could have gotten together, delete the tweet, come up with something new to say together. At 850k, shouldn't be hard to do if you want to.

What happened between them I have zero clue, but Coyle doesn't seem very proactive, or hasn't been lately.

He said he communicated clearly and was very transparent but didn't say how or with whom or etc. We just don't know if Coyle saw his chance and just threw up his hands or not.

 

[Johnny Olson]

Fire a nine win Coach and your future will be tied to the next one.
Coyle will not have a chance to fire the next Coach.

 

[Breakin' The Plane]

I think there were several reasons, but the biggest is the sexual harassment issue. Coyle brought up having a coach who put players out there who were "socially" excellent. The EEOA had expressed several concerns about behavior of the football team before Kill retired.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/10/15/university-of-minnesota-sexual-harassment

I think the September incident was the last straw and Hewitt forced Coyle to wipe the slate clean.

 

[tikited]

Ticket Sales is like 90%. The mistake is that they hire a new coach and people will come back and buy tickets at the same price. If this new coach doesn't come with a reduction of ticket cost we will still have crappy ticket sales.

Pretty important issue that won't be taken care of. I think there is a better chance ticket prices go up before they go down.

 

[everybody knows my name]

I think Coyle and Claeys easily could have gotten together, delete the tweet, come up with something new to say together. At 850k, shouldn't be hard to do if you want to.

What happened between them I have zero clue, but Coyle doesn't seem very proactive, or hasn't been lately.

He said he communicated clearly and was very transparent but didn't say how or with whom or etc. We just don't know if Coyle saw his chance and just threw up his hands or not.

As Jerry Kill would say, "I hear what you say, but I see what you do." Sure, Claeys could have deleted his tweet, but he had already aligned himself publicly with the players, against his bosses. He was a dead man walking after that.

 

[bga1]

Ok, now that we have all vented, let's get real about the reasons why Claeys was let go.

(I will start by stating that I thought that he should have been retained.)

The more I think about it and the more you look how this all took place, the more I think that Coyle is just using the current situation as an opportunity to bring in his vision for a HC at the U.

Let's look at the pluses and minuses of having Claeys as the HC:

Pluses

+There is no doubt that Claeys is an excellent X's and O's defensive coach.
+He loves his players and they love him
+All the high school coaches love and respect him.

Negatives
-He is the not the face of the program. All good HC need a little Lou Holtz salesmanship in them.
-attendance is down and dropping even with a very good team and record. Of course a good portion of the problem can be blamed on the ticket policies, but Claeys did not get out and sell it to the fans.
-poor in game adjustments at time. Of course Claeys was still learning.
-lackluster recruiting.
-etc.

I know I missed several points, but it just feels like Coyle wants a HC that is more of a program leader and let the assistants do the XO's. I would guess that there has been some conflict between them as to selling the program to fans and boosters. The stuff that Kill used to do.

Remember, there was quite a bit of doubt when Claeys was chosen about if he could handle the big picture.

Let's have a good open discussion.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lackluster recruiting is probably the straw that broke the camel's back here, just as it did for Tubby Smith a few years back. A new AD looks at the long term trajectory. In this case the scandal was a big irritation and the Claeys response was a further irritant. However, if you have a coach in place that is knocking it out of the park on the recruiting trails and you think 9-4 is only the start- then all of that gets papered over quickly, everybody hugs it out and you keep the coach. When you have a guy who people think that 9-4 is the top of the expectations chart, who has the 77th ranked recruiting class coming, who is not exciting to the fans and who didn't react perfectly to the big scandal, then you start thinking that the future trajectory of the program is not so good.

Coyle had to ask himself this question: If I was out there hiring a coach to bring the program to the next level would I hire Claeys? If the answer to that was no- which it obviously was- then he did what he had to do. That said, I would think it would have been a lot better to make that decision right after the regular season was over and not wait until after the Holiday Bowl. So while I think Coyle might have made the right decision it appears to me that he botched a lot of the steps along the way, making this a bigger fiasco than it had to be.

 

[Wally]

Well he better have a guy.

Is Brewster free?

 

[STPGopher]

Very underrated point. Claeys defensive adjustments after half time as a defensive coordinator under Kill were usually very good. When Claeys moved onto the field as a head coach, the halftime adjustments did seem to suffer. Claeys will always be a good defensive coordinator. But it's unlikely he'll ever get back to a P5 head coaching job because of the things you mentioned.

Well is it Claeys or a younger and also still learning Sawvel? With Claeys as a DC Kill was free to promote the program to all that would listen. For the price they were paying Claeys, Coyle and staff should be expected to do the marketing. Afterall, that is what Coyle did the first time he was here.

Claeys failed himself by not hiring an agent that would have pushed the U to either commit to him or give him a huge buyout if they didn't. He trusted them. I think the fix was in (Kaler) prior to Coyle coming in. Coyle just played along. Poor Beth was never given a chance either. They can take their title nine bs and %@^T# it. They had a chance to support it at the highest level and they(Administration) chose not to. And the poor alleged victim? The administration $crewed her over worse than ever(Ironic that she allegedly is from Wisconsin?). I highly doubt they have anything in place to stop the event that occurred on Sep 2nd from happening again.

End of rant.

Coyle(Kahler) will get his guy. That is what this is really about. That new guy better hope that the new facilities is enough, because I doubt he'll get top dollar to build the program in a broad encompassing manor.

 

[tmvander]

Personally if ticket sales and recruiting are two of the main reasons he's fired I would be beyond shocked.

We just had one of our most successful seasons in many years. What does Coyle know about these recruits? Does he go to camps? Follow their game tapes? Make late night phone calls to understand these young guys' hopes, goals, etc.? Besides, we haven't exactly been a top 3 recruiting team in the Big Ten recently and our win totals are very respectable. Outside of win totals we've been in just about every game including Ohio St twice. If the coaches can get wins with lower ranked guys so what? Of course we all want 10 5 star guys per class but come on.

As far as attendance goes I would rather have 8 and 9 win seasons with the stadium at lower attendance than a 6-6 team that has higher attendance with a new flashy coach every few years.

 

[exiledinduluth]

The real reason is that he inadequately responded to the initial crisis by not making a statement on how his team would be run. All involved should have been suspended by him for "violation of team rules" and representing the U of M in a crappy manner with a minor recruit. He lost the job when he didn't make a stand for appropriate behavior immediately after the event. That would have kept admin and EEOA off his back

 

[STPGopher]

Lackluster recruiting is probably the straw that broke the camel's back here, just as it did for Tubby Smith a few years back. A new AD looks at the long term trajectory. In this case the scandal was a big irritation and the Claeys response was a further irritant. However, if you have a coach in place that is knocking it out of the park on the recruiting trails and you think 9-4 is only the start- then all of that gets papered over quickly, everybody hugs it out and you keep the coach. When you have a guy who people think that 9-4 is the top of the expectations chart, who has the 77th ranked recruiting class coming, who is not exciting to the fans and who didn't react perfectly to the big scandal, then you start thinking that the future trajectory of the program is not so good.

Coyle had to ask himself this question: If I was out there hiring a coach to bring the program to the next level would I hire Claeys? If the answer to that was no- which it obviously was- then he did what he had to do. That said, I would think it would have been a lot better to make that decision right after the regular season was over and not wait until after the Holiday Bowl. So while I think Coyle might have made the right decision it appears to me that he botched a lot of the steps along the way, making this a bigger fiasco than it had to be.

I will say this. The program was starting to build a rep of putting players, especially DBs in the pros. The bowl win alone should have gained them some traction recruiting wise starting with the class of 2018.

 

[PMWinSTP]

I think there were several reasons, but the biggest is the sexual harassment issue. Coyle brought up having a coach who put players out there who were "socially" excellent. The EEOA had expressed several concerns about behavior of the football team before Kill retired.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/10/15/university-of-minnesota-sexual-harassment

I think the September incident was the last straw and Hewitt forced Coyle to wipe the slate clean.

So why wait 3 months to do it? Didn't Coyle also make comments late in the season about extending Claeys?

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

I will say this. The program was starting to build a rep of putting players, especially DBs in the pros. The bowl win alone should have gained them some traction recruiting wise starting with the class of 2018.

Recruiting DBs wasn't the problem. Recruiting QBs, WRs, OLs, DLs is the problem.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

So why wait 3 months to do it? Didn't Coyle also make comments late in the season about extending Claeys?

Looking back Coyle talked about meeting with Tracy to discuss the future and expectations.

But not explicitly "extension". There was other talk at the time of it, but not from Coyle.

Apparently that future was "none".

 

[Ski U Mah Gopher]

I think there were several reasons, but the biggest is the sexual harassment issue. Coyle brought up having a coach who put players out there who were "socially" excellent. The EEOA had expressed several concerns about behavior of the football team before Kill retired.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/10/15/university-of-minnesota-sexual-harassment

I think the September incident was the last straw and Hewitt forced Coyle to wipe the slate clean.

Thanks for posting the MPR story. It seems Kill did little to end the harassment problems in the program, and Claeys continued that.

 

[STPGopher]

Recruiting DBs wasn't the problem. Recruiting QBs, WRs, OLs, DLs is the problem.

DL's have gotten looks and or contracts as well. OL is what Miller was brought in for. We will never know, because Miller never had a chance to build "his" line. Agree with WRs and QBs.

 

[PMWinSTP]

DL's have gotten looks and or contracts as well. OL is what Miller was brought in for. We will never know, because Miller never had a chance to build "his" line. Agree with WRs and QBs.

Spot on.

 

[PMWinSTP]

Looking back Coyle talked about meeting with Tracy to discuss the future and expectations.

But not explicitly "extension". There was other talk at the time of it, but not from Coyle.

Apparently that future was "none".

Guess I thought it based on these articles. His comment after Wisconsin was interesting as well. If these were accurate at the time, it was what transpired after Nov. 29.

http://www.startribune.com/gophers-...ract-extension-is-next-source-says/403437046/

http://www.startribune.com/extending-tracy-claeys-contract-was-the-only-real-choice/403491166/

 

[DoubleAlum]

DL's have gotten looks and or contracts as well. OL is what Miller was brought in for. We will never know, because Miller never had a chance to build "his" line. Agree with WRs and QBs.

This will sound kinda dumb, but if Leidner had a stellar O-line the last few years, he would've been a much more effective QB. He rarely had enough time, no time to look at all his receivers, had to hurry his throws and often faced 3rd and long. As many, many have said before me, it all starts with the O-line. Hard to be great without a strong one.

 

[LesBolstad]

Personally if ticket sales and recruiting are two of the main reasons he's fired I would be beyond shocked.

Consider yourself beyond shocked because those are the two major drivers of TC's firing