The worst football coaches in the history of Big Ten teams

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John Galt said:
Brewster was 1-2 vs the Dakotas.

I’m not sure anything in the history of Gopher football could be worse than that.
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Jerry Kill has a lower win percentage against Dakota’s than Brewster (0-1)

Whoops
 


short ornery norwegian said:
If you're going strictly by won-loss record, then Wacker had the worst won-loss percentage. But, if "worst" coach involves more than just the raw numbers, I might be tempted to put Salem in there. Salem's 1983 team (1-10) is arguably the worst team in Gopher history - and the other team in that category is Brewster's 2007 team.

Wacker did not have great teams, but they never sunk to the depths that the team reached under Salem and Brewster. And if Brewster didn't get canned in 2010, that might have been an equally bad team, but Horton stepped in and salvaged something out of the rest of the season.

So, I'm not sure Wacker deserves the "worst" coach label.
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Brewster's 2007 team's record was worse than the talent. The 2007 and 2008 teams were roughly equal, not great, but not 1 win bad. Having coaches that tried (Withers, Dunbar departing) and Brewster having 1 year of coaching under his belt made a big difference.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Good points. Salem's last year was an agony, worse than Brewster's first year, but both horrible.
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I would put Joe Salem ahead of Jim Wacker and Wacker ahead of Brewster.

Salem just did not have the support he needed by the AD as well as the facilities. The school went out of their way to let the program fall apart. Salem actually had some excellent coordinators including Mike Shanahan who brought an innovative run and shoot offense with him. Salem's team upset Ohio St. at Memorial Stadium and were ranked #20 in 1982 before the wheels fell apart. I have never seen more injuries than 1982-1983. There were at least 3 times when there were 2 catastrophic injuries on the same play!! While it is true Salem was coach during that was probably the worst in the program's history (1983) I would STILL take him over Brewster.

Brewster came in with a lot of smack and bravado but was in way over his head and did not know how to coach. Changing offensive coordinators every year along with a completely different philosophy each year certainly did not help. It was like he was throwing darts at the dartboard trying to find something that would work. If I was Glen Mason I would be pretty upset they fired me to hire that guy, too!!!

Wacker came here from TCU where he had been a successful coach. I would take him over Brewster too -- at least he had a coaching background and knew how to coach a football team. Also -- love how he left with class and said if the team ever made it to a bowl game he would be there cheering them on. A few years later, he kept his word and was there at the Sun Bowl cheering them on. I really don't like blasting Brewster - I am sure he did his best but he was just woefully unprepared for this job - there is a lot more to it than recruiting. I think PJ Fleck to this day has to overcome being seen as "another Brewster."
 



Gold Rush said:
I would put Joe Salem ahead of Jim Wacker and Wacker ahead of Brewster.

Salem just did not have the support he needed by the AD as well as the facilities. The school went out of their way to let the program fall apart. Salem actually had some excellent coordinators including Mike Shanahan who brought an innovative run and shoot offense with him. Salem's team upset Ohio St. at Memorial Stadium and were ranked #20 in 1982 before the wheels fell apart. I have never seen more injuries than 1982-1983. There were at least 3 times when there were 2 catastrophic injuries on the same play!! While it is true Salem was coach during that was probably the worst in the program's history (1983) I would STILL take him over Brewster.

Brewster came in with a lot of smack and bravado but was in way over his head and did not know how to coach. Changing offensive coordinators every year along with a completely different philosophy each year certainly did not help. It was like he was throwing darts at the dartboard trying to find something that would work. If I was Glen Mason I would be pretty upset they fired me to hire that guy, too!!!

Wacker came here from TCU where he had been a successful coach. I would take him over Brewster too -- at least he had a coaching background and knew how to coach a football team. Also -- love how he left with class and said if the team ever made it to a bowl game he would be there cheering them on. A few years later, he kept his word and was there at the Sun Bowl cheering them on. I really don't like blasting Brewster - I am sure he did his best but he was just woefully unprepared for this job - there is a lot more to it than recruiting. I think PJ Fleck to this day has to overcome being seen as "another Brewster."
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Calling Jim Wacker a success at TCU is flat out wrong.

In 9 years he had 2 winning seasons (8-4 his second year, 7-4 his last year).
In 9 years his record was 40-58-2 (20-48-1).

His conference winning percentage at TCU was about 28%


Wacker was an awful hire from the word go. Large sample size of data to show he wasn’t cut out to be a major college coach.
 

Studwell55 said:
Worst Gopher game of my lifetime was Brewster against FAU.
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Brewster was coaching against Howard Schnellenberger. That is a tall order for your third game ever head coaching at the D1 level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schnellenberger

I saw the game in person, so I feel your pain. With that said, he was facing probably the best coach on the schedule of the whole season. Tremendous mismatch.

What all of the coaches lacked was true accross the board support for football. The here and now is about as close as we have "ever been"* in regards to total support for this program.

While I agree that the coaches discussed here may have had some very low points, the lingering question will be how much would total support have mattered?

-*Post early 1960's
 

Some guy said:
Calling Jim Wacker a success at TCU is flat out wrong.

In 9 years he had 2 winning seasons (8-4 his second year, 7-4 his last year).
In 9 years his record was 40-58-2 (20-48-1).

His conference winning percentage at TCU was about 28%


Wacker was an awful hire from the word go. Large sample size of data to show he wasn’t cut out to be a major college coach.
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OK -- You are right - let me rephrase that to he enjoyed SOME success at TCU. And despite his flaws -- he was STILL better than Tim Brewster lol!!
 



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