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Pewterschmidt

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I've been a season ticket holder (2 tickets) for the past 7 years, all but the last I lived in either Madison, WI or Houston, TX (now a resident of the Twin Cities). I've been devoted to the program, spending alot of money on travel alone just to see the Gophers play, all in the name of hope.

I've got a pretty sweet ticket group of 12 (6 couples in our group_. We've gone far enough to purchase an old '70's Van 3 years ago and turned it into a tailgate machine decked out in Maroon and Gold.

The fact that Maturi was allowed to head the coaching search and this is what the public gets in a coach has convinced me and others in my group to drop many of our tickets. I'm losing one and I'd bet collectively we get down to 7 or 8 tickets.

Those that want to move down will have an opportunity. I just can't endorse this hire with my pocketbook in the short run. It would be an endorsement of Maturi, the Lame Duck AD, and the administrators that put him in this position.

Jerry Kill may turn out to be exactly the type of coach this program needs. Or he could be an complete failure. I hope it's the former. However, he needs to show me before I'm a believer and right now I'm skeptical to the point where I'm dropping one of my tickets as are others in my group.

This hire smells of either being cheap, incompetent, or deaf to public perception. I'm still a Gopher fan and will show up on gamedays but I won't be bringing a guest any longer.
 

Pewterschmidt,
Ticket renewals aren't for a few months now.

My guess (hope) is that we will all calm down a little, look at the situation a little more rationally, hear good things from anyone that's ever been around Kill, like what we hear from him and eventually view the hire as "safe" at worst. By that point in time, I sincerely hope everyone in your group wants to renew.

If not, I guess I should count myself lucky that I've moved 12 seats closer to the 50-yard-line.
 

So this is all about Maturi and the hurt feelings of the gang? Sad.

Here I thought you truly enjoy going to Gopher games and really put a lot of heart and love into your efforts. Sounds kinda like conditional love to me.

People wonder what they can do to help the program. Staying away is not one of them.
 

None of us know how Kill we do but we do know this hire has 0% marketability as far as selling tickets goes.

The internet rubes wanted leach, a strong group of alumni wanted Trestman, some wanted Al Golden. Nobody, it seems, wanted this guy.
 

stevedave23, I agree on the marketability issue and we don't know how much of a role that's going to play in all of this.
 


I took a quick look at Badgernation & The Hawkeye Report.....seemed like they both had the same opinion: "Good coach who's won everywhere he's been & a solid hire." Had the tone of being objective.

People are upset because we didn't get Chris Petersen, Jim Harbaugh or Gary Patterson to leave their current posts for our gig. We act like the U is a bunch of idiots because we didn't devote $25 million over the next 5 years to Dan Mullen without thinking about it.

Questions can be asked, such as why was Leach blackballed from the start by Bruininks (his call, not Maturi's. Maturi can be question, but lay off him on this one) and why not consider coordinators from the start of the process (Gus Malzahn will be a superstar). But Kill has a resume of football success, don't think it's a bad hire, and will be there every single Saturday cheering.

Next order of business: finding a replacement for Dave Lee.
 

"This hire smells of either being cheap, incompetent, or deaf to public perception."

Spot on
 

I'm still going but I'll be the owner of 1 season ticket now, not 2. Everyone in my group buys 2 tickets for a total of. 12. That number will decrease to 7 or 8 next season. We were ripped off this year when we were paying full price for the benefit of each owning an extra ticket to bring guests. The market value of those tickets after this hire is just too low to justify carrying the extra ticket. At least 2 members of my group are considering dropping both and save a ton of money and just buy from a scalper.
 

There are a lot of people that want people to validate their feelings. This happens a lot in the gaming community.

Dear Blizzard,

You nerfed my class. I'm going to quit until you buff it.

Signed a former player
 



I have been to 4 games at TCF the last 2 years and have never paid more than $15 for a ticket and 3 of those games I sat in the lower level. I've had similar luck with basketball tickets albeit those tickets were always free since nobdy seems to want to use their tickets....
 

empty-stands.JPG



goodbye student section, maybe in a couple years.
 

Art Vandelay said:
I have been to 4 games at TCF the last 2 years and have never paid more than $15 for a ticket and 3 of those games I sat in the lower level. I've had similar luck with basketball tickets albeit those tickets were always free since nobdy seems to want to use their tickets....
Click to expand...


Thank you for proving what a true Gophers fan you are :rolleyes:
 

There is no question in my mind that my choice to cancel one of my season tickets is directly related to validating my feelings toward Maturi and the administrators that put him in that position. I can financially support 2 tickets but I'd be supporting Maturi indirectly and I just won't do that. I'm voting by cancelling one of my tickets. If the opportunity presents itself later, meaning Kill turned out to be the correct choice and the market value of a ticket actually comes close to face value over the course of a 7 game schedule, I'll try to buy back the ticket. Until then, I'm more than willing to part with the extra ticket at the risk of never being able to get it back.

That and it makes sense from a financial perspective. Scalping an extra ticket or 2 is almost always below face value so if I want to bring my wife or Dad or Bro-in-law, it's cheaper to go that route instead of paying full price for the ticket over a 7 game home schedule.
 



If people are that shallow enough not to renew their football tickets because they don't like the AD here then we don't need you as a fan. Maturi will be gone next year anyways...will you get new season tickets then when we have a new AD? Football season tickets are for supporting the football team. Give the new coach and his staff a chance. I for one am not thrilled of the hire but a coach alone will never get me to NOT renew my season tickets. When the Gophers start winning football games, fans will come back regardless if the coach is named Kill, Leach, or Bellotti.
 

I recall how fired up some were over the prospect of having brewball, the program...

that would be SO successful because the fantasy recruiting rankers thought brewster was a can't miss star stud high school fantasy football recruiting machine. Supposedly the foolish Minnesota High School Football Coaches would love that brewster character (wonder how they felt about his 6-21 Big Ten record, or what ever it was?) That must have made them wonder just a little bit, one would think... ; 0 )

Well, since so many of those same brewball freaks and people who love macturi/prexy b for their great committment to Gopher Football now are being completely rude to Coach Kill, it is time for me to tell you doubters that Coach Kill is a far superior hire to brewster. Coach Kill
is a regular old coach and he will put a team on the field that will grow into a competetive team. Will he shoot the program straight to the top of the Big Ten? No. In fact NO coach was going to do that. You do NOT misplace OSU without doing some very fishy things. We don't want that. We don't need that. Thank heavens we won't even try the kind of stuff that it would take to do that. OSU will be at the top of the conference consistantly for as long as the Big Ten exists. They are like the Steinbrenner Yankees. They have too many resources, too strong a fan base, too much tradition and the entire state of Ohio has too much passion for their Buckeyes.

That whacked out pretend pirate character might have been entertaining for the media and a porition of the fan base for a year or so...but...when things didn't go quite as smoothly as anticipated for WHATEVER reason...the entertainment factor would have turned to the negative risk of hiring a loose cannon whack-job. In the end, TT wasn't big enough (or small enough) for either either Leach or "big daddy" Knight.

However, IF Minnesota can become competetive with wisky and iowa, we can utilize OSU's strength to compete and once in a while make a run. Right now Michigan is down. That happened for a decade in the 50's to early 60's. (Then Bo came around.) Michigan is in our division. Michigan will always have a game with OSU. OSU can help keep Michigan in it's place. Minnesota will play OSU once in a while...but...not all that often. So, OSU can be a big help to Minnesota's ability to make a run.

What Minnesota needs to do is to become a good, solid football team. They need to be able to run the ball and they need to advance to the point of being able to stop the run. They need to be able to win games in late October and November. They need to build their depth in order to do that and they need to play sound, disciplined football. They MUST be competetive with iowa and wisky. IF they can do that, they will also be competetive with Nebraska and MSU. Minnesota is competetive with NU. Sometimes NU wins and sometimes Minnesota wins right now.

Michigan will eventually ditch richrod and then they will become very good again. However, the wild card in dealing with Michigan in the conference standings will always be the OSU factor.

Coach Kill can bring our program back towards stability and our program can become competetive with iowa and wisky. There is a chance to compete. When there is a chance to compete, there IS a chance once in a while to be a bit beyond competetive and a year in which OSU can help the Gophers claim at least a share of their divisonal crown.

That is how it can happen. That is how it may happen. That is why Coach Kill can help it happen. Coach Kill IS a solid football guy who can coach and surrounds himself with coaches he knows and shares a philosophy with.

So IF anyone has an inclination to want the Gophers to succeed in the Big Ten Conference, now is your chance to let the new coach and his staff know that you want them to succeed and you are pleased to have a real football guy in charge again.

We are going to have to work for and earn every single bit of respect that we hope to achieve within the Big Ten Conference. It will be a real battle, but it will be worth every one of the battles we will have to engage in. Nobody will give us anything. We will have to earn every bit of respect we ever have. And that is the way it MUST be. That is good. That will make even the smallest gain something we can all appreciate. Good luck Coach Kill. I think this is going to be really interesting!
 

As I titled this thread...Show me.

This was a leap of faith hire. In my opinion, Maturi doesn't have the clout to make another one of those type of hires. I believe his standing and history was a hindrance to hiring a quality coach. In the business world, an out-going CEO would never be allowed by the Board to make drastic and important decisions to the company, especially when their past decisions put the company in such a bad spot to begin with.

Therefore I'm scaling back my level of financial support for the program until I'm shown this was a good hire. Show me this wasn't a cheap hire. Show me that the decision-makers didn't make a historical blunder by allowing Lame Duck Maturi to make a very important hire once again. Until then, I'm getting cheaper with the program by letting one of my 2 season tickets go.
 

All I can say is the results that Jerry Kill has shown proves that he is a good football coach. He meets Maturi's criteria of someone who has built a program and has a winning record as a college head coach. Was he the best we could do? I honestly have no idea. We must have gotten 10 or so no's in order to get to Jerry Kill on the list. If you look at his results he's every bit as good as a Hoke, Sumlin, or Niumatololo hire.

People can be mad at Joel Maturi but don't take it out on our players and Jerry Kill by not supporting the team. I except to see improvements next year and a hard nosed football team. Mr. Gray should look might nice in Kill's offense.
 

Tricks said:
All I can say is the results that Jerry Kill has shown proves that he is a good football coach. He meets Maturi's criteria of someone who has built a program and has a winning record as a college head coach. Was he the best we could do? I honestly have no idea. We must have gotten 10 or so no's in order to get to Jerry Kill on the list. If you look at his results he's every bit as good as a Hoke, Sumlin, or Niumatololo hire.

People can be mad at Joel Maturi but don't take it out on our players and Jerry Kill by not supporting the team. I except to see improvements next year and a hard nosed football team. Mr. Gray should look might nice in Kill's offense.
Click to expand...

Word.

A head coach who has proved he can win at a division 1 level. What makes him a worse coach than anyone else on our "list". You could make an argument for recruiting purposes, but good luck trying to convince me that any other potential coach would have made our current team perform better.
 

It is well worth my money to continue to purchase extra tickets so my kids will have seats in the future. For now the money will be cashed in with liberal use of Bond imagery.

license-to-kill.jpg
 

Having had season tickets in my third stadium now, I wonder how many of the negative postings are from younger fans and how many are from older fans. The U of M seems to have a solid core of around 25,000 to 30,000 people of my age, ( in my mid 60's ) and older that show up for the games regardless of who is the coach or how good or bad we are. During the Holtz and Mason years a lot of younger people seemed to show up when the team was playing good and vanish when they hit bad times. I hope coach Kill can put a product on the field that is consistantly competative that will draw a strong younger crowd that will become the fan base of the future. As us older fans pass away there needs to be someone to replace us with passion for the U.
 

Minnesota peps want a top program but don't want to support it. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

Thats Pewtershmidt way to "Show me".

I guess we are truly Minnesota.
 

stocker08 said:
Word.

A head coach who has proved he can win at a division 1 level. What makes him a worse coach than anyone else on our "list". You could make an argument for recruiting purposes, but good luck trying to convince me that any other potential coach would have made our current team perform better.
Click to expand...

This is exactly where I am. I wanted Bellotti, number one. He didn't want to come, and neither did any of the other A listers. Sounds like Fullmer was interested, and I would've taken him ahead of the other "second tier candidates, but many others here wouldn't have.

Among the guys like Hoke, Sumlin, the Navy guy, etc., Kill is right there with them. There's no reason at this point to say that he's any better or worse than any of them, except that even us guys can tell that he's not attractive. If you liked any of those guys, there's no reason not to like Kill. Kill may or may not turn this ship around, but there's no more certainty that any of these other guys could, either.
 

I'm getting sick of all of the crybabies around here.

It never occured to anyone that the Gophers wanted someone esle but they didn't want to come here?

Kill is a competant coach. He know the Xs and Os and can coach up kids very well. We need to see what he can do in recruiting, but the reality is we're not going to be drawing top tier recruits no matter who the coach is. So, IMO, it's a lot more improtant that the coach can coach. I think Kill can do that. Winning will be your best recruiter.

Sure, I'm a bit concerned that he didn't coach in a BCS confernece and does not have a history of beating big time schools like some of the other candidates have. However, he's shown he can build a program.

Kill will not put butts in the seats by name recognition, I think he'll do it via a winning program over the next 5 seasons.

Kill is 100% more qualified than Brewster ever was. In fact he's probably more qualified than more than one of the fan favorites that some wanted hired.

IMO, Kill is as good as any of candidates in the coaching department. From a PR and flash point of view he's an epic fail. However, I'd rather have a coach that can coach and not be total embarassment among division I schools.
 

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