Shama: There might not be a more frequent supporter of various Gopher sports than retired U athletic director Joel Maturi

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go4rob said:
Like it or not, AD's are judged by their coaching hires and the number of championship banners they hang, especially in the "major sports". How else would you prefer to judge an AD??? IMHO you can't go 10 years without even a sniff of a conference championship in either football or basketball and be considered a "success".
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I dunno; go back further and ask #2Gopher.
 

Gophers1992 said:
That's the whole point! Illinois didn't hire him because he wasn't qualified to be a B10 head coach. I think Tim is a great guy and I hold no ill will towards him, but we absolutely can and should judge Joel by a hire than set our most important athletic program back many years.
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This is an oft-repeated canard here, and it is wrong. He was absolutely qualified to be a Big Ten head coach. He had 20 years of coaching experience when hired, including a stint as an NFL assistant head coach among multiple NFL position coaching jobs. Just because his tenure didn't work out doesn't mean he was unqualified - qualified people perform poorly at their jobs all the time.
 

dpodoll68 said:
This is an oft-repeated canard here, and it is wrong. He was absolutely qualified to be a Big Ten head coach. He had 20 years of coaching experience when hired, including a stint as an NFL assistant head coach among multiple NFL position coaching jobs. Just because his tenure didn't work out doesn't mean he was unqualified - qualified people perform poorly at their jobs all the time.
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I dunno man ... no head coaching or coordinator experience, at any level ... most often a position coach...

Man that's not a B1G HC resume IMO. Plenty of schools could hire him as a HC but B1G seems like a stretch.

Now I don't mind taking a chance on a guy, but that resume just wasn't HC type material.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I dunno man ... no head coaching or coordinator experience, at any level ... most often a position coach...

Man that's not a B1G HC resume IMO. Plenty of schools could hire him as a HC but B1G seems like a stretch.

Now I don't mind taking a chance on a guy, but that resume just wasn't HC type material.
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He had head coaching experience in high school. Not ideal, yes, but you did say "at any level."

I suppose Dabo Swinney wasn't qualified either? Pat Fitzgerald? Ed Orgeron?
 

Urban Meyer went straight from WR coach to HC.
 


dpodoll68 said:
This is an oft-repeated canard here, and it is wrong. He was absolutely qualified to be a Big Ten head coach. He had 20 years of coaching experience when hired, including a stint as an NFL assistant head coach among multiple NFL position coaching jobs. Just because his tenure didn't work out doesn't mean he was unqualified - qualified people perform poorly at their jobs all the time.
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I agree. I think what hurt Brewster the most was that he was hired at a very bad time for a "new" head coach. He had to assemble a staff and rush to close out recruiting. It appeared that he made many compromises in assembling his first staff. I often wonder if Dunbar, and Withers would have been on his staff if he didn't have to rush the hires. It appeared to me that Dunbar had a different approach to running the spread. I don't think Brewster really wanted to run the spread that way. Withers seemed to want to run a complex scheme and maybe wasn't real willing to adapt to the personnel he had? Maybe just a difference in philosophies?

Regarding Maturi, He really seemed to care/ value each student athlete as a human first. He was also very strong in networking. Good or bad, he truly was everywhere. Nice man, who IMHO walked his talk/ faith.
 

STPGopher said:
I agree. I think what hurt Brewster the most was that he was hired at a very bad time for a "new" head coach. He had to assemble a staff and rush to close out recruiting. It appeared that he made many compromises in assembling his first staff. I often wonder if Dunbar, and Withers would have been on his staff if he didn't have to rush the hires. It appeared to me that Dunbar had a different approach to running the spread. I don't think Brewster really wanted to run the spread that way. Withers seemed to want to run a complex scheme and maybe wasn't real willing to adapt to the personnel he had? Maybe just a difference in philosophies?

Regarding Maturi, He really seemed to care/ value each student athlete as a human first. He was also very strong in networking. Good or bad, he truly was everywhere. Nice man, who IMHO walked his talk/ faith.
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I have mixed feelings about this theory as a HC's JOB is to assemble a staff, maintain it, make the necessary changes, etc.

LIke there are harder times to do assemble one, but if you can't assemble a staff... then you kinda suck at a critical part of being a HC too.
 

dpodoll68 said:
He had head coaching experience in high school. Not ideal, yes, but you did say "at any level."

I suppose Dabo Swinney wasn't qualified either? Pat Fitzgerald? Ed Orgeron?
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Dabo is strange case. Pat was a quick hire at a school not really trying that hard at football in the wake of the death of their coach.

Ed's resume is pretty beefy...

I'm not going to list all the failed HCs with poor resume ... i'm willing to bet there are more than you listed.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I have mixed feelings about this theory as a HC's JOB is to assemble a staff, maintain it, make the necessary changes, etc.

LIke there are harder times to do assemble one, but if you can't assemble a staff... then you kinda suck at a critical part of being a HC too.
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Fair points. He did pull in some good coaches/ Ted Roof, and Jeff Horton come to mind. It just seemed that between coach instability and the pressure to field a good team fast (Very heavy lean on JUCO's) pretty much sunk him. Mason, Kill, and Fleck were smart and experienced enough to say, we are going to need time to build the program up the way we think it needs to be built up.

BTW I think that those of us that were around when Mason had Elliot Uzelac can agree that even a well established Head Coach can miss on coordinators from time to time. Most of us have a hard time trying to forgive Mr. Uzelac for trying to turn Cory Sauter into an option QB. Square Peg meet Round Hole.
 



A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Dabo is strange case. Pat was a quick hire at a school not really trying that hard at football in the wake of the death of their coach.

Ed's resume is pretty beefy...

I'm not going to list all the failed HCs with poor resume ... i'm willing to bet there are more than you listed.
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Orgeron had never been more than a position coach (in college, not even the NFL) when he was hired as head coach by Ole Miss. And to this day, he (like Swinney) has never been a coordinator, and yet both have national championships.

Brewster failed here because he wasn't good enough, not because he was unqualified. There are plenty of failed coaches who were qualified, and plenty of successful coaches who got a Power 5 job with a pretty light resume.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Orgeron had never been more than a position coach (in college, not even the NFL) when he was hired as head coach by Ole Miss. And to this day, he (like Swinney) has never been a coordinator, and yet both have national championships.

Brewster failed here because he wasn't good enough, not because he was unqualified. There are plenty of failed coaches who were qualified, and plenty of successful coaches who got a Power 5 job with a pretty light resume.
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What's the difference?

This guy is totally qualified, but he sucks....
 


dpodoll68 said:
If you don't understand the difference between experience and ability, there's no point in having this conversation.
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Brewster didn't have enough of either to qualify as a HC.

Years as a position coach years is not anything like a HC.... not even a coordinator.

It's hard to take seriously an argument that someone is qualified even after they proved they can't do the job.
 



A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Brewster didn't have enough of either to qualify as a HC.

Years as a position coach years is not anything like a HC.... not even a coordinator.

It's hard to take seriously an argument that someone is qualified even after they proved they can't do the job.
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He had more than enough experience to be a head coach. Twenty years isn't enough? How much time does one need?

Among many others - here's a great example. Sylvester Croom was the first black head coach in the SEC. He had 27 years of coaching experience, including as an NFL OC, before getting the job. But he was terrible, finishing 10-30 in the conference and being fired after 5 years. I suppose you'll say that a guy with 27 years of coaching experience, 17 in the NFL, with 4 as a coordinator, was unqualified to be an SEC head coach?
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Brewster didn't have enough of either to qualify as a HC.

Years as a position coach years is not anything like a HC.... not even a coordinator.

It's hard to take seriously an argument that someone is qualified even after they proved they can't do the job.
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Brewster and to a small degree Fleck had/ have more of a CEO approach. Kill and Mason seemed to have more of a teaching coach style. Strong coordinators can make it work.
 


There are several very good head coaches out there who skipped from position coach to head coach without a stop at coordinator. The red flag for Brewster was not that he had only been a position coach it’s that he had only ever been a tight ends coach in his 20 years of coaching when he was hired. I have heard it said more than once TE coach is generally regarded as the position you put your weakest or least experienced coach because it intersects with the OL and WRs so the extra eyes can cover up any shortcomings or learning curve. Brewster definitely has some fine qualities and if some of his more prized recruits had actually qualified he might have had a very different tenure here. The biggest drag on this program has always been talent so I can understand why Maturi did what he did. The theory at the time was he could get the talent and we would invest in a coaching staff that could develop them. In the end it didn’t work.
 

No disrespect to Maturi but to answer Shama's question, Yes. Many. Bob McNamara immediately comes to mind.
 

I thought this guy was Joel, but it must be a son, since he looks a little too young to be our former AD.

 

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