Sid: Only firings in U history worse than Tubby was Stoll in 1978 and Mason in 2006

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This thread should be fun...
 

Can anyone other than Sid, weigh in on why the Stoll firing was a mistake? My first memories were of his replacement who I know set the program back.
 

anything that starts "per sid" should be thrown out the window and never thought of again
 



gopherjay said:
Firing Haskins was the worst. A fine and a suspension was all it should have been. Tubby sucked. can't argue the others.
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The NCAA would never have allowed Haskins to remain employed with simply a fine and suspension, unless you are talking a multi-year suspension
 

WorkingMyTailOff said:
Can anyone other than Sid, weigh in on why the Stoll firing was a mistake? My first memories were of his replacement who I know set the program back.
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Stoll got the boot because he "couldn't take the program to the next level." (sound familiar?) In retrospect, he wasn't a bad coach - .500 record or better in the B1G in 5 of his 7 seasons - but he never broke through with a really big season.

He was replaced with "Smokey" Joe Salem - a popular former player who came in promising a high-powered offense and a return to exciting football. Five years later, he was gone after going 19-35-1, with a stellar 1-10 record in his last season (0-9 in the B1G).

Bottom line - Stoll winds up looking better in comparison, because his replacement flopped. Salem flopping did not make Stoll's record any better, but it gave Stoll's supporters (i.e. Sid) a reason to claim the firing was a mistake. under this line of reasoning, the firing is a mistake because the next coach did worse. If the next coach did better, then the firing is not a mistake.
 

Had Salem been able to keep his staff together he might have done better. We could say the same thing about Mase. Had he held onto Greg Hudson or David Gibbs most would think things would have been different? Maybe. I was having this conversation with a Wisconsin fan I work with and he said "it seems like Minnesota always fires a competent coach with the goal of getting to the next level only to end up worse off." There is a time to fire a coach and it's not after a win in the NCAAs or a trip to a bowl. It's when like Wacker they've not won more than 4 games in a season or perhaps when they've turned in the worst season in school history accompanied by the disgrace of bad behavior on the part of the players.
 

Sid: Only firings in U history worse than Tubby was Stoll in 1978 and Mason i...

I don't think firing Tubby or Mason was a bad decision. The problem was hiring Brewster twice.

Yes, I fully understand that Pitino has the potential to climb out of this. I don't want to fire him yet, but as of now he is Brewster 2.0.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
Stoll got the boot because he "couldn't take the program to the next level." (sound familiar?) In retrospect, he wasn't a bad coach - .500 record or better in the B1G in 5 of his 7 seasons - but he never broke through with a really big season.

He was replaced with "Smokey" Joe Salem - a popular former player who came in promising a high-powered offense and a return to exciting football. Five years later, he was gone after going 19-35-1, with a stellar 1-10 record in his last season (0-9 in the B1G).

Bottom line - Stoll winds up looking better in comparison, because his replacement flopped. Salem flopping did not make Stoll's record any better, but it gave Stoll's supporters (i.e. Sid) a reason to claim the firing was a mistake. under this line of reasoning, the firing is a mistake because the next coach did worse. If the next coach did better, then the firing is not a mistake.
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I really don't disagree with anything you say but will say this for Stoll, he played real non conference opponents including teams from the PAC 10. Although not a spectacular bowl game, he got to one when having a winning record was required and it actually meant something to play in one. It was also the era of the Big 2 and Little 8 when nobody expected the U to seriously challenge Mich or OSU for a title.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Stoll is he was competitive despite having the all time worst facilities. Memorial Stadium was old and tired and the practice facilities were crap. To make matters worse, the U did not have a meeting room big enough to hold the entire football team so Stoll would have to hold team meetings in a hallway.

If any coach in more recent years had the equivalent facilities of Stoll, scheduled the equivalent non conference opponents, and had his B1G and overall record, we would be erecting a statute of him the size of Jesse Ventura's ego.
 

None of these coaches got less than 6 years. None of these coaches finished with a conference record of even .500 (Stall the closest at 27-29). The best conference finish any of the coaches accomplished was 3rd by Cal Stoll in 1973 (he got 5 more years and never finished above .500 in conference play). It's not hard to find justification for moving on from any of the 3.
 

Worst firing: Bernie Bierman in 1950. he would have coached Paul Giel and Bob McNamara, both All-Americans and in the same backfield.
 

WorkingMyTailOff said:
Can anyone other than Sid, weigh in on why the Stoll firing was a mistake? My first memories were of his replacement who I know set the program back.
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Because Sid and the "M Club" boys wanted one of their own as Head Coach to take them back to the "Glory Days". "One of ours" as Coach followed by a move to that shiny, new HHH Dome Downtown was all part of that plan. If you want to be fair to them, if you look at 1960-67 as still being part of those years, they weren't that far away. A short enough time that people could have fooled themselves into thinking that by just changing the Head Coach and getting a new stadium, the Gophers would be heading back to Conference Titles and Rose Bowls that happened in the previous decade.

Others on the thread have dealt with the records. Only would add that, as was mentioned a couple of posts back, when you look at what teams Stoll faced in the Non-Conference season and the teams that Mason faced, Stoll's record looks a whole lot better and Mason's looks a whole lot worse.
 



Iceland12 said:
Because Sid and the "M Club" boys wanted one of their own as Head Coach to take them back to the "Glory Days". "One of ours" as Coach followed by a move to that shiny, new HHH Dome Downtown was all part of that plan. If you want to be fair to them, if you look at 1960-67 as still being part of those years, they weren't that far away. A short enough time that people could have fooled themselves into thinking that by just changing the Head Coach and getting a new stadium, the Gophers would be heading back to Conference Titles and Rose Bowls that happened in the previous decade.

Others on the thread have dealt with the records. Only would add that, as was mentioned a couple of posts back, when you look at what teams Stoll faced in the Non-Conference season and the teams that Mason faced, Stoll's record looks a whole lot better and Mason's looks a whole lot worse.
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Um, Cal Stoll played at Minnesota.
 

EG#9 said:
None of these coaches got less than 6 years. None of these coaches finished with a conference record of even .500 (Stall the closest at 27-29). The best conference finish any of the coaches accomplished was 3rd by Cal Stoll in 1973 (he got 5 more years and never finished above .500 in conference play). It's not hard to find justification for moving on from any of the 3.
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This is it exactly. People like to think the Mason firing was wrong because the Brewster hiring was so bad. People also remember 1999 and 2003 much more vividly than the other 8 years. Kinda like thinking Adam Weber was great when remembering back.

Mason was fired as he had 10 years and never took us to the next level. For the most part he disappointed and he lost in incredible fashion many times. Things weren't getting better and the sample size was big enough to know that what we had is what we were going to always have. The U made the decision to take a chance and go for more. Unfortunately, we haven't got there yet - but I'm sure as hell glad we tried. Hiring Brewster was wrong - that doesn't make firing Mason wrong. They are mutually exclusive events in this context.
 

WorkingMyTailOff said:
Can anyone other than Sid, weigh in on why the Stoll firing was a mistake? My first memories were of his replacement who I know set the program back.
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Sid better look at some of his old columns. I don't think he was ushering Stoll out the door, but he sure was with all the M men that advocated for hiring Salem. He may have been against firing Stoll and for hiring Salem, so there's not a direct line there, but he was big on Smolderin' Joe.

I am murky on the Stoll firing. Can't remember any reason why he was let go.
 

I was a young kid during the Stoll years and it was a mystery to me why the U fired Stoll. I have learned a lot so far in this thread about his tenure and the conditions he had to put up with regarding facilities. I recall the games as competitive especially when playing against a fellow "little eight" opponents including Iowa and Wisconsin. Last year before the season started I told a friend that would also recall Cal Stoll, that Jerry Kill reminded me of Stoll. After reading this thread I still have that feeling especially when you consider the poor facilities and what Kill was able to do with his team. As someone said, the non conference games were against higher quality opponents back in the Stoll/Salem days. I recall seeing UCLA and a very powerful Nebraska team at Memorial Stadium and we had other good programs on the non con schedule. Western Michigan was a true cupcake opponent with Tony Dungy at QB and Rick Upchurch in the backfield for the Gophers it was an easy win. This year we struggle to beat Central Michigan in the bowl game and barely beat Kent State and Ohio early in the year. I would guess that if Kill were allowed to continue down that path he would have been on the hot seat, just like Stoll.
 

GopherGod said:
The NCAA would never have allowed Haskins to remain employed with simply a fine and suspension, unless you are talking a multi-year suspension
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Why not they'll let Ole golly gee shucks Roy stay at Carolina when that's all said and done
 

Although it's now been almost 50 years since our last conference championship, Stoll took over only five years after a Big Ten title and 12 years after a national championship. People thought we still could -- and maybe even should -- compete for championships.

Stoll went 6-2 in the Big Ten in 1973, but really had no chance in those two losses, and were also killed by Nebraska that season. So even that year probably didn't feel great to the fans at that time. And his other good year -- 1977 -- we got to a bowl game back when there were only like 12 bowls. But we still finished 7-5 (4-4 in the conference), and the Michigan upset felt like a miracle. Those would be good seasons today, but didn't look as good then.

I was a kid and became a Gopher fan during those early Stoll seasons, and even then my dad was saying the Gophers were "bad." It was, and continues to be, a game of expectations.
 


I think that over much of the past since Bierman, the U has demanded Bierman-like success on the cheap.

Stoll, Salem, and even Mason were asked to produce at a level that was far above the relative funding.
 

Forgotten anniversaries: 1973 Gophers football - Strib 2013

• The Gophers in 1973 finished 7-4 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten. Minnesota has not equaled that conference mark in any season since then. They have gone 5-3 numerous times, most recently 2003 under Glen Mason, but they have not gone 6-2 since that season 40 years ago.

• The Gophers were most certainly a running team. Their leading rusher that season, according to Gophersports.com, was Rick Upchurch, who averaged nearly 6 yards per carry (141 rushes for 841 yards). He was one of four players to top at least 400 yards on the ground. Conversely, their leading receiver was tight end Keith Fahnhorst, who had a rather unspectacular 10 catches for 102 yards.

• The head coach? Cal Stoll, who was in his second season after taking over for Murry Warmath. Stoll departed after seven seasons with what at the time looked like a pedestrian 39-39 career record. Joe Salem, Lou Holtz, John Gutekunst, Jim Wacker, Glen Mason, Tim Brewster and Jerry Kill have followed. Only one of them — Mason — has a career record above .500 at Minnesota.

• The Gophers' losses were to Kansas and Nebraska (nonconference) as well as Ohio State and Michigan, who tied atop the Big Ten at 7-0-1. Minnesota also won six of its final seven games. Despite that robust record, the Gophers did NOT go to a bowl game. Lest we forget, that was the era before there were approximately 92.3 billion bowl games. In fact, there were only 11 of them.

http://www.startribune.com/forgotten-anniversaries-1973-gophers-football/212083741/
 




I think Mason was fired because he was publicly courting other suiters and his recruiting took a nosedive, the combination of the two was enough to end it, this is not unlike Tubby's situation, neither appeared like they wanted to be here.
 

metrolax said:
I think that over much of the past since Bierman, the U has demanded Bierman-like success on the cheap.

Stoll, Salem, and even Mason were asked to produce at a level that was far above the relative funding.
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Too bad Bierman couldn't retain Wilkenson.
 

Hates Monikers said:
Although it's now been almost 50 years since our last conference championship, Stoll took over only five years after a Big Ten title and 12 years after a national championship. People thought we still could -- and maybe even should -- compete for championships.

Stoll went 6-2 in the Big Ten in 1973, but really had no chance in those two losses, and were also killed by Nebraska that season. So even that year probably didn't feel great to the fans at that time. And his other good year -- 1977 -- we got to a bowl game back when there were only like 12 bowls. But we still finished 7-5 (4-4 in the conference), and the Michigan upset felt like a miracle. Those would be good seasons today, but didn't look as good then.

I was a kid and became a Gopher fan during those early Stoll seasons, and even then my dad was saying the Gophers were "bad." It was, and continues to be, a game of expectations.
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1977 was a bizarre season. Minnesota beat UCLA, Washington and Michigan at Memorial Stadium and then lost several games they should have won. The 1977 Rose Bowls teams were Washington and Michigan. Supposedly, at that point in time (not sure if it happened again later), the loss by Michigan was the only time a Bo Schembechler team was shut out.
 

Stoll was the last Gophers coach to win 6 Big Ten games in a season. The Gophers were 4-4 in the Big Ten his final three seasons. The last time the Gophers has three consecutive seasons without a losing record in conference. The Gophers also played 14 BCS teams in non-conference play in his 7 years.

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk
 

I forgot about that Washington game that was also a big one. We were scheduling PAC10 teams for non conference and beating them that year. I recall the non conference games as a chance to see those big time football programs in person, against our Gophers and in Memorial Stadium. You looked forward to it. TCU was certainly like that last year but Kent State and Ohio? :confused:

I realize who we are these days. We need the wins to get to a bowl game etc.
 

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