Thoughts on the football coach

Donate To GopherHole
B

bga1

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
60,002
Reaction score
23,893
Points
113
I'm a much bigger basketball fan than football- but I still love Gopher football. Whereas basketball has given me an occasional sniff of success football has offered minimal for the past 40 years other than disappointment.

My view is that Brewster is a good coach as were Mason and a host of others before. I think these are all guys that could have won in the right situation. Brewster is similar to a Dan Monson, perhaps better because of his enthusiasm for recruiting. The Minnesota situation creates these guys. It's no accident that we have had so many of them.

For me we need to do one of two things:

A- continue to support Brewster fully and be patient with him

or

B- Hire the highest paid coach in the history of college football.

Tubby Smith is a great example of what can happen. He is able to get some recruits on his own name plus he's a great coach and leader. Furthermore when things go wrong we tend to remain patient because-after all- he is Tubby Smith. For this reason people and more importantly recruits begin to view the program as stable and competitive.

We get the Monson, Mason, Brewster, Wacker add a name here_________ type coaches in here and the mountain is too high to climb without extreme patience, positive fans and media (think that will happen?). A couple of years of normal good coaches and we begin pining for their removal. The stench of that inevitably dooms recruiting.

If you believe that we are going to hire a big name coach, then by all means scream for Brewster to get axed. If on the other hand you think we will pull the lever on another good up and coming coach- I suggest we support Brewster as he might be as good as it gets. Right now he looks like he can't coach a lick, but young players can do that to you. The guy is working with a defense that has almost no seniors and Brewster hasn't even had his first senior class yet. Meanwhile he is already doomed in the eyes of fans here.
 

If Brewster offered any sort of stability then I would be willing to be patient with him.

His staff turnover has been nothing short of astounding. I've never heard of any school going through three offensive and three defensive coordinators in 4 years.

The constant changes in such a short period of time have left us with a total identity crisis. The only sniff of improvement we got was between Brewster year 1 and 2, and that season was like a carbon copy of Mason's blueprint.

The fact of the matter is, we're 1-1. Barring an absolute mutiny, Brewster will finish out the season. Without any trophy game victories, sustained success or measured improvement, he will be shown the door.
 

One thing I believe people are really over looking is how much more attractive the job is with the stadium. Even though the stadium was on the horizen when Brew was hired it was just a bunch of drawings. If you take a coaching candidate there now, they'll walk away much more open to coming here.
 

gophmeister said:
One thing I believe people are really over looking is how much more attractive the job is with the stadium. Even though the stadium was on the horizen when Brew was hired it was just a bunch of drawings. If you take a coaching candidate there now, they'll walk away much more open to coming here.
Click to expand...

No doubt about it. The stadium was so attractive and alluring that Roof left a few months before the Gophers opened the place up. And Roof leaving was a lateral move, DC to DC, not a "promotion".
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
No doubt about it. The stadium was so attractive and alluring that Roof left a few months before the Gophers opened the place up. And Roof leaving was a lateral move, DC to DC, not a "promotion".
Click to expand...
A. Wasn't his pay increased substantially?
B. Maybe he understood where the train was headed under Brewster?
 


Ogee Oglethorpe said:
No doubt about it. The stadium was so attractive and alluring that Roof left a few months before the Gophers opened the place up. And Roof leaving was a lateral move, DC to DC, not a "promotion".
Click to expand...

Agreed. I don't know why everyone assumes that the new stadium is a huge plus. The way I view it is that we are currently on an equal footing as other big ten programs, while with the metrodome we were at a *major* disadvantage.
 

BGA1 has a point. How many coaches need to come through here and fail to win a conference championship before we start to look at other possible issues in the program? I'm not defending Brew, but I do think the head coach shoulders too much of the media and fans criticism. For example, I place a large amount of blame on the players themselves for the performance on the field against USD. These are D1 athletes that shouldn't need a coach to tell them how to prepare and get up for a football game. The players should be ashamed of themselves for their performance too.

Point being, we tend to focus on the figure head when there are most likely additional underlying issues (not apparent to the general fan) that prevent an easier transition to a top/middle tier football team.
 

From BGA1
If you believe that we are going to hire a big name coach, then by all means scream for Brewster to get axed. If on the other hand you think we will pull the lever on another good up and coming coach- I suggest we support Brewster as he might be as good as it gets

I think this is a key point.

My hopes are:
A. Last week was a one week flop and we improve and win enough games for Brew to get at least another year and his players become experienced.

or

B. Brew is gone and we hire that big name coach(a proven winner). I'm not very excited to start over again with another maybe coach.
 

I can't really agree with this premise. Tubby is highly paid, but he is nowhere near the highest paid coach in America. He didn't come here for the money, he came here because he wanted out of Kentucky, and the Minnesota basketball job is still a top 25-30 job nationally. I.E. it was the one that best fit where he wanted to land that was also open at the time.

The Minnesota football job, even with TCF is not a top 30 job. It's not a top 50 job right now. This is sad but true. This will indeed make it tough to get the Tubby Smith equivalent. But that doesn't mean it's impossible or that we shouldn't try. Glen Mason left a Big 12 program to come here when things were worse then they are now. I know Kansas is no prize. But can we get the coach of UConn, Duke or Houston come here? Absolutely. Can we get someone like Richt or Miles if they are either fired or fed up? Quite possibly. In any case, the fact that it will be difficult/expensive to get who this program needs is not an excuse for letting a man who is in way over his head continue to flap in the breeze. Brew has his positives, but the bottom-line is that he can't cut it as a football coach at this level. Period. We must move on after 2010. We should have moved on after 2009.
 



Ogee Oglethorpe said:
No doubt about it. The stadium was so attractive and alluring that Roof left a few months before the Gophers opened the place up. And Roof leaving was a lateral move, DC to DC, not a "promotion".
Click to expand...

You don't get it, so what's the point in trying to explain it to you.
 

howeda7 said:
I can't really agree with this premise. Tubby is highly paid, but he is nowhere near the highest paid coach in America. He didn't come here for the money, he came here because he wanted out of Kentucky, and the Minnesota basketball job is still a top 25-30 job nationally. I.E. it was the one that best fit where he wanted to land that was also open at the time.

The Minnesota football job, even with TCF is not a top 30 job. It's not a top 50 job right now. This is sad but true. This will indeed make it tough to get the Tubby Smith equivalent. But that doesn't mean it's impossible or that we shouldn't try. Glen Mason left a Big 12 program to come here when things were worse then they are now. I know Kansas is no prize. But can we get the coach of UConn, Duke or Houston come here? Absolutely. Can we get someone like Richt or Miles if they are either fired or fed up? Quite possibly. In any case, the fact that it will be difficult/expensive to get who this program needs is not an excuse for letting a man who is in way over his head continue to flap in the breeze. Brew has his positives, but the bottom-line is that he can't cut it as a football coach at this level. Period. We must move on after 2010. We should have moved on after 2009.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree. The problem here is that if we aren't a Top 30 job, we are, at least by some definition, a stop-over program that will have to get a young up-and-comer and then wave good-bye to him after three-to-five seasons when he takes a Top 30 job. It's either that or open up the checkbook. But even with an open checkbook, we probably wouldn't be able to compete financially with the more heralded programs.
 

50PoundHead said:
I don't disagree. The problem here is that if we aren't a Top 30 job, we are, at least by some definition, a stop-over program that will have to get a young up-and-comer and then wave good-bye to him after three-to-five seasons when he takes a Top 30 job. It's either that or open up the checkbook. But even with an open checkbook, we probably wouldn't be able to compete financially with the more heralded programs.
Click to expand...

This might be true, but at this point we would have to take that trade-off. If other schools are trying to steal our coach it means he's winning. Tubby's been rumored to 100 different places but he hasn't left yet. The last major coach at the U to bolt for greener pastures was Holtz, and I think most here would take a slightly longer repeat of his tenure, minus the cheating, if they could get it.
 




howeda7 said:
and the Minnesota basketball job is still a top 25-30 job nationally.
Click to expand...

Would that make the football job top 10 nationally?

Big Ten Championships
21—Purdue
20—Indiana
17—Illinois
17—Ohio State
17—Wisconsin
12—Michigan
11—Michigan State
8—Iowa
8—Minnesota
6—Chicago
2—Northwestern

NCAA Appearances
35—Indiana
28—Illinois
23—Michigan State
22—Purdue
22—Iowa
21—Ohio State
17—Michigan
15—Wisconsin
6—Minnesota
2—Penn State#
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom