Just take a look at what we do to coaches who start making the program more competetive. We crucify them. Just look at what we do to coaches who take the program into the crapper. We crucify them. Just look at what we have done to coaches who have won Big Ten Titles and National Championships here. We crucify them eventually. We crucify coaches. That is what we do. We have incompetent administrations, more competent administrations, pretty fair administrations at various times. Yet, we always crucify our football coaches. It has been going on for the past sixty years.
The only coach we didn't get to crucify was lou hoax. He crucified us before we could crucify him. He bagged tail for South Bend and left us with NCAA violations to deal with. Otherwise, our record is perfect from Post WWII Bierman right on up through the failed and fired brewball experiment.
I would say that any decent, experienced, capable coach who considers this job should demand a 15 year "tenure-like" contract that has a buy out clause of double the amount of salary that remains on his contract. There should also be a "termination for cheating" clause that would allow the U of M to throw him under the bus with no buy out needed should he ever seriously and knowingly violate any NCAA rules that would bring NCAA loss of scholarships, severe sanctions or harsh pealties of any kind. The buy out for the coach should also be severe should he decide to move on from the U. All sides of this hire need to have a great deal of committment to the situation. Approach this hire as the University needs to approach the hire of it's new prexy/prexyette...a solid choice with a LONG-TERM committment.
And, fans need to realize that the standard needs to be competitivness within the Big Ten Conference...on a par with iowa and wisconsin. That means some years will be rebuilding years and every now and then, a realistic run at the top of the conference will be achieved. RESPECTABILITY and COMPETITVNESS are the keys here. It is a tough conference and it is getting tougher. We need a good, competent coach who is committed to this program and we need this program to be committed to a good, competent coach. We ALL need to be reasonable and we ALL need to be realistic about where our place can be in a Conference that includes: Ohio State, PSU, Michiganl, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, MSU, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, NU and Minnesota. Just where should we fit in that grouping? I would be proud, pleased and excited to be competetive to varying degrees with that group of fine institutions and fine to exceedingly fine to top of the line football programs. Be realistic people. The U of M needs to committ to a long-term relationship with a capable, competent, honest football coach who will be at the University of Minnesota for a LONG time.
The U needs to make a STRONG committment to this coaching hire and this coaching hire needs to make a STRONG committment to the U of M. It has to go both ways
