The Worst College Football Firings Since 2000 (Glen Mason, Minnesota)

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Yet ANOTHER unreal loss from the Mason days that's easy to forget now. Purdue 2001.

Gophers lead 28-25 with less than 20 seconds left. Purdue is backed up into their own end zone. Somehow we allow them to go 65 yards with no timeouts and Dorsch comes on and kicks a long FG as time expires to tie it. Of course, we lose in OT. BRUTAL.

 

WriterGoph said:
EXACTLY.

With some of the other epic collapses in the Mason era, it's easy to forget about the Northwestern loss in 2000. Watch these highlights and remember:
But this game (and really the 2000 season) perfectly sum up the amazingly frustrating Mason experience. Go on the road and defeat Ohio State in a huge upset! Follow that up by giving up 51 points to Indiana the next week and losing 51-43. Then come home and lead Northwestern 35-14 in the 3rd quarter, let them come back and lose on a freaking Hail Mary. WOW.

And that's just a part of ONE SEASON. Mason's teams were great at building comfy leads, but they never really mounted any huge comebacks that I can recall. And when it came to crunch time, we could almost NEVER make big plays, whether getting a key first down to kill the clock or (in that NW game) giving up a number of huge 4th downs (including a 4th-and-20 when NW was at our 30!)

Factor in the hell we experienced losing to Michigan in 2003 and Wiscy in 2005 and the Texas Tech collapse was really just the cherry on a shit sundae Gopher fans had been eating for years. A move needed to happen 100%. It's just too bad we had an AD who was inept at hiring for our biggest roles for so long.
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You are on Mason for epic collapses. Hell, Pitino had 4 or 5 just this past season.

Are you a bit?
 

WriterGoph said:
EXACTLY.

With some of the other epic collapses in the Mason era, it's easy to forget about the Northwestern loss in 2000. Watch these highlights and remember:
But this game (and really the 2000 season) perfectly sum up the amazingly frustrating Mason experience. Go on the road and defeat Ohio State in a huge upset! Follow that up by giving up 51 points to Indiana the next week and losing 51-43. Then come home and lead Northwestern 35-14 in the 3rd quarter, let them come back and lose on a freaking Hail Mary. WOW.

And that's just a part of ONE SEASON. Mason's teams were great at building comfy leads, but they never really mounted any huge comebacks that I can recall. And when it came to crunch time, we could almost NEVER make big plays, whether getting a key first down to kill the clock or (in that NW game) giving up a number of huge 4th downs (including a 4th-and-20 when NW was at our 30!)

Factor in the hell we experienced losing to Michigan in 2003 and Wiscy in 2005 and the Texas Tech collapse was really just the cherry on a shit sundae Gopher fans had been eating for years. A move needed to happen 100%. It's just too bad we had an AD who was inept at hiring for our biggest roles for so long.
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First game I ever attended. Ouch.
 

WriterGoph said:
Remember that very well. I am pretty sure that season also swung badly on a Northwestern loss.

Pulled up the video. Weber threw a pick with the game tied and and less than 20 seconds left and NW returned it for the game-winning TD.

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Brutal brutal
 

Maverick said:
Yeah...and if Fleck had had these guts in the Ioaw game, instead if punting on the Hawkeyeballs 35, they would have won that game too! Lesson learned!
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Would have won...?? Maybe.
 


Veritas said:
Would have won...?? Maybe.
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Well, he is talking about the wrong game. We got down big early to Iowa and clawed our way back. TJ had a TD opportunity that would have given us the lead in the 2nd half.

The Wisconsin game was the one with the conservative punt from their 35 when we were leading.
 

skiumah1 said:
You guys remember when we were 7-0 or 7-1 under Brewster (2008) and then the wheels just completely fell off? We had broken into the rankings and then ended up losing the last 5, including a 55-0 shutout at home against Iowa. The wheels fell off is an understatement. He had me for a second though.
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Decker dropped a pass and injured Himself on the same play we lost the game while 7-1 and Brewster’s team wasn’t the same again. Decker catches the ball and stays healthy...we kick a field goal to go 8-1 statue of Brewster built.

Elite
 


I liked Glen, but the only real issue with firing Glen was ... hiring Brewster.

Stick with Glen forever and hire PJ... suddenly it becomes a good firing.
 



A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I liked Glen, but the only real issue with firing Glen was ... hiring Brewster.

Stick with Glen forever and hire PJ... suddenly it becomes a good firing.
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Glen was fired for the same reason Claeys was to be honest. Both thought Minnesota should strive to be above average and be happy when that expectation is met or slightly exceeded.
 

WriterGoph said:
EXACTLY.

With some of the other epic collapses in the Mason era, it's easy to forget about the Northwestern loss in 2000. Watch these highlights and remember:
But this game (and really the 2000 season) perfectly sum up the amazingly frustrating Mason experience. Go on the road and defeat Ohio State in a huge upset! Follow that up by giving up 51 points to Indiana the next week and losing 51-43. Then come home and lead Northwestern 35-14 in the 3rd quarter, let them come back and lose on a freaking Hail Mary. WOW.

And that's just a part of ONE SEASON. Mason's teams were great at building comfy leads, but they never really mounted any huge comebacks that I can recall. And when it came to crunch time, we could almost NEVER make big plays, whether getting a key first down to kill the clock or (in that NW game) giving up a number of huge 4th downs (including a 4th-and-20 when NW was at our 30!)

Factor in the hell we experienced losing to Michigan in 2003 and Wiscy in 2005 and the Texas Tech collapse was really just the cherry on a shit sundae Gopher fans had been eating for years. A move needed to happen 100%. It's just too bad we had an AD who was inept at hiring for our biggest roles for so long.
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I still have nightmares about that game. I just sat in my seat in shock.
 

STPGopher said:
Ummm....NO! We all know that they fired Mason without a plan to secure a specific coach and had to settle for what they could get. The debate was/ is should they have chosen someone else like Charlie Strong. IIRC he was available and interested. IIRC all of the coaches with head coaching experience that were available turned the job down.

Lady luck appears to have finally smiled upon us again. We have Fleck now.
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Exactly, that is how we went about hiring coaches up until recently. We had some of the worst athletic directors in history until now.
 

WriterGoph said:
Yet ANOTHER unreal loss from the Mason days that's easy to forget now. Purdue 2001.

Gophers lead 28-25 with less than 20 seconds left. Purdue is backed up into their own end zone. Somehow we allow them to go 65 yards with no timeouts and Dorsch comes on and kicks a long FG as time expires to tie it. Of course, we lose in OT. BRUTAL.

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The Northwestern loss made this one easier to accept. Still it was an ultra slow moving train wreck! The refs and time keeper did not help.
 




STPGopher said:
The Northwestern loss made this one easier to accept. Still it was an ultra slow moving train wreck! The refs and time keeper did not help.
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I feel like the 1999 season was all house money, especially after the Penn St upset. We hadn't experienced anything like that year in so long.

During the 2000 season, those heartbreaks hurt BAD because (after the OSU upset) we really felt we were headed somewhere.

But during the 2001 season, we just started to worry that the collapses might be a pattern. Little did we know how much worse it could get from 2003-2005.
 


WriterGoph said:
Think of it as therapy! We are FINALLY in a different place as a program and we can look back and purge these awful memories. Let us never go back!
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Agree. Life as a fan gets so much better when a program hires the right coach.
 

WriterGoph said:
Think of it as therapy! We are FINALLY in a different place as a program and we can look back and purge these awful memories. Let us never go back!
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It's not working.

This is more like an abused person's desire to relive the abuse....
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
It's not working.

This is more like an abused person's desire to relive the abuse....
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Haha. I guess it all depends on perspective. But I honestly was shocked when I started looking through those Mason years and results. There were more games that we blew in crazy ways than I even imagined. Cheers to all of us who were steadfast through those years and even tougher years with Brew and stuck with the Gophers until now!
 

As others have pointed out, the firing of Mason wasn't the problem, it was time as he had checked out for the most part. The problem was completely botching the hire of his replacement.

Given the choice between 2006 Mason or Brewster the obvious choice would have been Mason. Same choice of keeping Mason or going directly to Kill....tougher but probably still Mason.
 

Love the current former Coach Mason on the radio and B1G Network.

His hire was the reason I became a Gophers fan. When he started openly flirting with MSU and tOSU when openings came up, then my thinking started to change.

I was not upset when he was canned. I however gave AD Maturi more credit than he deserved.
 

MNVCGUY said:
As others have pointed out, the firing of Mason wasn't the problem, it was time as he had checked out for the most part. The problem was completely botching the hire of his replacement.

Given the choice between 2006 Mason or Brewster the obvious choice would have been Mason. Same choice of keeping Mason or going directly to Kill....tougher but probably still Mason.
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Exactly. and this is the point that postings like the original completely miss the boat on
 

My issue with articles like this is that they're based on who was hired thereafter, not who was actually fired. In hindsight, of course it looks like a bad firing because we ended up with the mess that was Brewster.

But when assessing Mason before the firing, it was becoming clear that the program was going nowhere. His teams routinely blew big leads in games and couldn't finish the deal the vast majority of the time. On top of that, they performed poorly in the classroom and there were indications he was increasingly recruiting kids that had character issues off the field.

Of course, Maturi's dithering around during the hiring process ended up filling the vacancy with a total dud.

With that having been said, the firing was more than justifiable.
 

Firing Mason was a good move, when that is all you get done in that amount of time as a coach you should be fired. But you damn well know how to hire and as nice a person as Maturi is, he was another terrible AD.
 
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I have to throw my two cents in though most have already responded the way I would have. "Wins" is an irrelevant stat because it doesn't compare apples to apples. Andrew states that Mason won X games over 4 years most in program history. The number of games you play matters. That type of stat is totally misleading and unfair to actual successful Gopher teams that finished at/near the top of the conference. The second issue is that the Gophers scheduled cupcakes at a level they never had before under Mason. The whole strategy was to get 4 free wins in the non-conference and hope to sneak in to a minor bowl game. Year after year. Rinse and repeat. The most depressing stat of the Mason years that I've repeated over and over is that every team in the B1G during the decade Mason was in charge of the program finished in the top 3 of the standingsw at least once...except Minnesota and Indiana. We certainly lost ground to Wisconsin and Iowa during the Mason era as well in terms of competitiveness of the rivalries (and we haven't made any progess on that front since then either going 1-9 in our last 10).

When Mason was finally fired, the program was clearly going downhill. The recruiting classes were getting worse and the team was graduating their long time starting QB, best player on offense (Spaeth) and top tackler on defense. That last season the Gophers started the B1G 0-5 and won their last 3 games over Indiana (their coach passed away during the season), Michigan State (rocked by a major scandal that lead to termination), and Iowa (dysfunctional Drew Tate season). The Gophers also almost lost to North Dakota State on a last second fg attempt that year. The next year was going to be a disaster no matter who took over.

I feel bad for Brewster in that his "Rose Bowl" comments were misinterpreted or deliberately used out of context by some who didn't want him to succeed. He actually did a good job of turning the roster he inherited in to a bowl team on par with the usual Mason seasons in years 2 and 3 (if Decker stays healthy either year they probably have another win or two as well) and showing Minnesota fans that you could win recruiting battles here. That's not to say he wasn't a poor hire, but he gets treated as this absolute disaster when he really wasn't (relative to where the program was). If the Gophers hired Charlie Strong or even Lane Kiffin (who both wanted the job) things probably look different. I am not sure how much has been said here, but Gary Patterson also wanted the job but the U wouldn't come up with the money to pay him. A better AD moves on from Mason earlier when it was clear he had peaked and hires someone better than Tim Brewster to replace him.
 

Mason had just been given an extension, so the pay-out to drop him cost a bundle. The timing was also terrible - after a bowl, so late for finding an experienced coach. We had no All-Americans from 1971 to Mason in 1997, and he had at least seven of them, maybe eight. The AD should have made a mental note to start making calls to see what could be done after the following season. The abrupt firing was a mistake all around.
 

With the benefit of hindsight, I would have preferred that Minnesota never fired Mason. He rescued Minnesota football from a dumpster, and he was fired without much thought. It was a reactionary move at best.

Moreover, Brewster was a bad hire.

That said, Mason had a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and that TTU game was one straw too many in the eyes of a lot of fans.

For those saying that you need to go down before you go up, I don't agree. Minnesota's football program should never go 1-11. They have too many resources at their disposal.
 

hello-world said:
With the benefit of hindsight, I would have preferred that Minnesota never fired Mason. He rescued Minnesota football from a dumpster, and he was fired without much thought. It was a reactionary move at best.

Moreover, Brewster was a bad hire.

That said, Mason had a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and that TTU game was one straw too many in the eyes of a lot of fans.

For those saying that you need to go down before you go up, I don't agree. Minnesota's football program should never go 1-11. They have too many resources at their disposal.
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As bad as Brewster was...we have Not missed a bowl 3 years in a row since 96-98

crazy considering Nebraska has at the very moment.
So yeah...1-11 is bad. But let’s not pretend like the program was the worst program of all time or anything.
It was 1-11 preceded by 5 bowl seasons followed by bowl seasons in 2 or the next 4 years and 9 of the next 12

The gopher program has been to bowls in 16/21 seasons.
How many other programs have done that or better I wonder?


Wisconsin 20/21
Michigan 19/21
Ohio state 19/21
Iowa 17/21
Nebraska 16/21
Michigan state 15/21
Penn state 15/21
Northwestern 13/21
Purdue 12/21
Maryland 10/21
Rutgers 9/21
Illinois 7/21
Indiana 4/21

notable power 5 programs who are 16/21 or less in bowl appearances:
USC 16/21
UCLA 14/21
Tennessee 14/21
Notre Dame 14/21
Arkansas 13/21
Stanford 12/21
Colorado 7/21 (I include them at notable for having a national title in my lifetime)
 



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