Minn. AD's hypocrisy

[H.I.]

"In all honesty, I didn't think this would be the case, but then once I did my homework I realized that, 'My goodness, he's in a pressure cooker where if you don't get to the Final Four he's not having a great year.' We'd be happy with 14 straight 20-win seasons."

funny how the same didn't hold true for glen mason a couple of months ago. oh that's right, the pressure cooker for minnesota football is making sure not to blow a lead in the insight.com bowl.

[TigerStripe]

I have to agree with that.



www.thecollegeendzone.com

[footballfiji]

Glen Mason completely botched the job...with the talent he had at Minnesota there's no reason they couldn't have competed for the Big Ten title. As it stood, he never won more than 5 conference games. In his ten years at Minnesota:

4 losing seasons
1 "even" season (6-6)
Won 10 games only once
Averaged almost 6 losses a season (5.7)
Never reached the Big Ten's Big Boy Bowls (Rose, Cap One)
Barely beat North Dakota State this past year.
1-7 against Michigan
4-6 against Iowa
2-8 against Wisconsin

[EvilVodka]

Glen Mason completely botched the job...with the talent he had at Minnesota there's no reason they couldn't have competed for the Big Ten title. As it stood, he never won more than 5 conference games. In his ten years at Minnesota:

4 losing seasons
1 "even" season (6-6)
Won 10 games only once
Averaged almost 6 losses a season (5.7)
Never reached the Big Ten's Big Boy Bowls (Rose, Cap One)
Barely beat North Dakota State this past year.
1-7 against Michigan
4-6 against Iowa
2-8 against Wisconsin

One of those losses to Michigan was a complete chokejob at home...I think Minnesota was ahead by like 35 or something, and they blew the game

[jeff4bucks]

that was in 2005 I believe that Minny blew a 4 TD lead.

Mason had to go. They're building a new football stadium and with that come higher expectations. Minny should've been more competitive than they were, especially with those running backs they had. I don't think his heart was there anymore after getting passed up on the OSU job in 2001.

[H.I.]

firing glen mason for a tight end coach was a boneheaded move. he was pretty successful if you ask me playing in the worst stadium in the big 10. he left with a winning record (64-57) and a winning % of .529. you know when the last coach left minn. with a winning % higher than .529? pre-world war II. that's right, george w. hauser lead the gophers for two season in 1942-1944 to a record of 15-11-1 for a .574 winning %. also, look at minn. last ranking in any poll. before glen mason lead the gophers to final rankings in 1999 and 2003, they were last ranked in 1968. that's 31 years between rankings. if the best you're going to do is hire a life long TE coach to replace the winningest coach in your program since 1944, i'd be willing to bet it will another 31 years before the gophers finished ranked again.

[footballfiji]

and when you can't beat your rivals you need to go. So what if the replacement was a tight-ends Coach?...if the administration felt he was the man for the job then he gets it.

and as for playing in one of the Big Ten's worst stadiums...that's an excuse not a reason. Northwestern plays at a High School field and they've made it a Rose Bowl in the past 20 years. Syracuse plays in a dome too and they've had success.

If you want your program to succeed you need to reward success and not average.

[H.I.]

and as for playing in one of the Big Ten's worst stadiums...that's an excuse not a reason.

maybe they'll tear jordan-hare down and put a exactly replica of the metrodome up at auburn and see how you do over the next 30 years. maybe they'll also move the twins and vikings to auburn, alabama and have first priority to use the new dome. then in 2027 the twins and vikings can talk about leaving the dump they play in and the state can vote against building a new stadium for the professional teams. now auburn football is caught up in this because its in the paper every day and since they tore down jordan-hare to build some classroom buildings they have no place else to go. that's what's happened at minn. football. to say that the facilities don't make a difference is retarded. that's the reason the athletic department beg boosters to drop money every year on different projects to help their "student-athletes" perform better on the field of play. and why all of a sudden has minn. decided to build a new stadium if it doesn't mean anything? you SEC fans must remember that not all the college football programs in America can buy all the players they want.;)

Syracuse plays in a dome too and they've had success.

How many professional teams does syracuse share their "on campus" dome with?

[footballfiji]

For years Auburn didn't even get to play on campus and still managed to win. Games against Georgia were played in Columbus, GA. Mississippi State was played in Montgomery...the Iron Bowl was always played in Birmingham until the late 80s.

Minnesota is one of the few D-1 schools in a major metro area:
Georgia Tech (Atlanta)
USC/UCLA (Los Angeles, and even then UCLA plays in the suburbs)
Washington (Seattle)
Louisville
Memphis
USF (Tampa)
TCU/SMU (Dallas)
Houston
UTEP (El Paso)
SJSU (San Jose)
SDSU (San Diego)
etc


and has to deal with pressures from a city and not a town. You wouldn't build a dome in Auburn because 1) no one could pay for it and 2) it's not feasible
The decision to move to the Metrodome was not the school's. They were feeling pressure from the city and caved in. As for sharing the facility the Metrodome has been great for the city and everytime people worry about Baseball affecting Gopher games, the Twins end up choking and it's not a problem.

[EvilVodka]

Alot of good points here, but the bottom line is that Mason is associated with mediocrity...Minnesota is finally getting their own stadium, they've got a rich history with several conference championships and a couple National Championships, they need a new coach to revive some of that glory

http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/bigten/minnesota/championships.php

[ZOOMBAG]

For years Auburn didn't even get to play on campus and still managed to win. Games against Georgia were played in Columbus, GA. Mississippi State was played in Montgomery...the Iron Bowl was always played in Birmingham until the late 80s.

Minnesota is one of the few D-1 schools in a major metro area:
Georgia Tech (Atlanta)
USC/UCLA (Los Angeles, and even then UCLA plays in the suburbs)
Washington (Seattle)
Louisville
Memphis
USF (Tampa)
TCU/SMU (Dallas)
Houston
UTEP (El Paso)
SJSU (San Jose)
SDSU (San Diego)
etc


and has to deal with pressures from a city and not a town. You wouldn't build a dome in Auburn because 1) no one could pay for it and 2) it's not feasible
The decision to move to the Metrodome was not the school's. They were feeling pressure from the city and caved in. As for sharing the facility the Metrodome has been great for the city and everytime people worry about Baseball affecting Gopher games, the Twins end up choking and it's not a problem.

Large urban area Div IA college football teams:

Boston College (Boston -- of course)
UCONN (Hartford)
Rutgers (essentially NYC's Div IA team)
Temple (Philadelphia)
Kent St (Cleveland)
Cincinnatti
Mich St (E Lansing -- kinda Detroit)
Pittsburgh
Georgia Tech (Atlanta)
Miami
South Florida (Tampa)
Tulane (New Orleans -- used to be big, not any more)
Vanderbilt (Nashville)
Northwestern (Chicago)
Minnesota (Minneapolis)
TCU/SMU (Dallas)
Houston
Arizona St (Phoenix)
SDSU (San Diego)
UCLA/USC (LA)
San Jose St (Bay Area)
Washington (Seattle)

Some schools in large metropolitan areas do very well, some do not.

[footballfiji]

A lot of those schools aren't in the actual cities but are in suburbs.

Boston College, probably most famously. There's an old joke about Boston College being neither a college nor in Boston (it's in Chestnut Hill, aka The Heights) and Miami is in Coral Gables (a pretty affluent suburb).

I think this is the case for the majority of those (Northwestern, Kent State, Michigan State also come to mind)

Being in a city unto itself means they can operate autonomously and not have to worry about the politics of a city (like Minnesota).

[GopherGuy]

funny how the same didn't hold true for glen mason a couple of months ago. oh that's right, the pressure cooker for minnesota football is making sure not to blow a lead in the insight.com bowl.


The two situations are entirely different. The football team has been mediocre and underachieving considering the talent on board for the last several years. The basketball team has been PATHETIC ever since the academic scandal in the late 90's.


firing glen mason for a tight end coach was a boneheaded move. he was pretty successful if you ask me playing in the worst stadium in the big 10. he left with a winning record (64-57) and a winning % of .529. you know when the last coach left minn. with a winning % higher than .529? pre-world war II. that's right, george w. hauser lead the gophers for two season in 1942-1944 to a record of 15-11-1 for a .574 winning %. also, look at minn. last ranking in any poll. before glen mason lead the gophers to final rankings in 1999 and 2003, they were last ranked in 1968. that's 31 years between rankings. if the best you're going to do is hire a life long TE coach to replace the winningest coach in your program since 1944, i'd be willing to bet it will another 31 years before the gophers finished ranked again.


It's not even worth considering whether Brewster is the right hire - until he's had a few years to coach and recruit, we have no idea how good (or bad) he'll be. So far, he's injected some real optimism and excitement into the program but whether that translates into wins will have to be seen.

You're right, Glen went 64-57, but his Big Ten record was only 32-48 .400. Now, to be really fair, if you eliminate his first two years when the cupboard was pretty bare, his Big Ten record improves to 29-35 .453 which is still under .500. In four of his last 6 seasons we were under .500 in the Big Ten. In his entire 10 year career, we were only over .500 twice - and both times it was 5-3.

I'm actually a fan of Glen's and I am thankful to him for taking us from the basement of the Big Ten into the middle of the pack. We had some great moments under Glen and the program is in good shape. However, the team was showing no signs that it would ever be better than middle-of-the-road and Glen has shown an INCREDIBLE ability to blow big leads late in the game. It was time to move on and see if we can take another step forward and actually contend for a Big Ten title once in a while.

Just to correct a few things from your post - George Hauser was coach for 3 years (1942, 1943 and 1944). Also, Bernie Bierman retired in 1950 with a .716 winning percentage (93-35-6), so he is the last coach with a higher winning pct. than Glen, not Hauser. And comparing overall records is a pretty tricky thing to do - until the late 80's, non-conference schedules were usually fairly tough. Today, it's multiple creampuffs pretty much every year. If we look at wins over teams that are from smaller conferences who ended up with losing records and add in wins over teams from lower divisions, we can see that Glen's 64 wins included wins over Temple, North Dakota State, Florida Atlantic, Illinois State (twice), Colorado State (4-7 that year), Ohio (twice), Louisiana-Lafayette (three times), SW Texas State, Buffalo, Murray State, Louisiana-Monroe (twice), Arkansas State, Houston, and Memphis (twice).

Here's a comparable list for Cal Stoll who ended up 39-39 overall in the 70's - Toledo, Western Michigan (three times), and North Dakota (twice). So 20 of Glen's wins (31%) came from "creampuffs" and 6 of Cal's wins (15%) came from them. I'd rather have Cal's .500 pct. against better competition than Glen's .529 against weak competition. Same thing for Murray Warmath's 87-78-7 .526 record.

[H.I.]

Today, it's multiple creampuffs pretty much every year. If we look at wins over teams that are from smaller conferences who ended up with losing records and add in wins over teams from lower divisions, we can see that Glen's 64 wins included wins over Temple, North Dakota State...

Coach Brewster can add "creampuff" North Dakota State to his growing "L" total. Think Glen Mason would want to come back?

[ZOOMBAG]

Coach Brewster can add "creampuff" North Dakota State to his growing "L" total. Think Glen Mason would want to come back?

You're responding to a post from THREE YEARS ago.

I don't think I've ever seen that.


Haven't seen Gopher Guy in a long time...

[String911]

Talk about the way-back machine...

[aufan59]

Talk about the way-back machine...

It is a really cool website. Here is a link to the archives of Nationalchamps.net:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://nationalchamps.net

For the nostalgic, here is a link to the 2003 message board:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031001184433/www.nationalchamps.net/cgi-bin/webbbs_config.pl

It seems as though the original topics are archived, but the responses are not.

[String911]

It is a really cool website. Here is a link to the archives of Nationalchamps.net:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://nationalchamps.net

For the nostalgic, here is a link to the 2003 message board:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031001184433/www.nationalchamps.net/cgi-bin/webbbs_config.pl

It seems as though the original topics are archived, but the responses are not.

Funny thing is I was referencing the old cartoon, not the archives. Obviously I don't get around these parts that much anymore... Good find, though.

[Akahikea]

Just wanted to bring this back up with the interesting "report" which probably came from an "unnamed source with knowledge of the situation" (as an ashamed Journalism major, I am beyond embarrassed by the direction ESPN has taken their reporting) says that if Minnesota doesn't beat Purdue tomorrow, Brewster will not return next season.

Really, Minnesota? If he doesn't win some game against Purdue??

Glen Mason got fired for losing the freaking Insight Bowl...and now Brewster will be out over a game against Purdue? I hope this isn't true, or Minnesota's AD is an idiot.

[String911]

Looks like ESPN's source had the story correct though...

[Akahikea]

Yes, it doesn't make me feel better about the unnamed source pattern. It should be an absolute last resort and not used often, if ever. They use it on every story.

Good thing they fired Glen Mason, those 7-5 seasons and Insight Bowl appearances were just not good enough...firing Brewster over a meaningless game is consistent if nothing else. Accept it Gophers, where Glen Mason had you...that's as good as it can be for you.