Why I laugh at the Gophers

[CatchEmAll]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

From what I understand,there is little or no extra buy-out money for the extension. As for Mike Leach,would you want him as a replacement for the high-character coach SDSU currently has ? Clem Haskins and John Calipari are also proven winners that vacated trips to the Final Four. Would you want them to coach at SDSU ?

Ummmm...talking U of M and Tim Brewster...no mention of replacing any of SDSU's coaches. Someone else made comment that Leach was available in regards to the U of M, just reiterating.

[zooropa]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Apples and Oranges. Rodriguez signed a 6-year deal with a bazillion dollar buyout. He won't need an extension until 2014 or 2015. And he had a worse year. Brewster is under contract only through the RS Freshman year of current recruits. Hard to promise kids stuff under those circumstances, but even at that, he's gotten good reviews for his recruiting classes.

This passage from ESPN is precisely my point. It's not about Brewster per se, it's about the program! Believe me, I got no dog in this hunt except a bias against constant program switching from alumni pressure. (I do find it ironic that some folks who have argued to hang with Coach Nagy for five tough transition years would cut Brewster off even before he got to play with his recruits). If you hangmen can make the case that he has been given a fair chance to back up his promises, then I'd be with you. And then you could call for the next coach's head after a couple of middlin' season.
I just happen to disagree.
Anyway, here's the ESPN passage:

"We need some stability," Maturi said. "We've proven that just changing coaches at Minnesota isn't the answer. We need stability. I'm excited about the recruits that are here and those who are coming and coach Brewster deserves the right to coach those recruits."

Brewster also will be in a better position to lure more top-level recruits to Minnesota if he receives an extension. Despite his struggles in Big Ten play (6-18), in November games and against Minnesota's top rivals, Brewster continues to recruit well to Minnesota. He would be in a tough spot for recruiting with just two years left on his contract and no extension on the horizon.

There will undoubtedly be a lot of pressure on Brewster next fall, but he deserves the chance to coach his own recruits in key roles. For the first time in Brewster's tenure, Minnesota could retain both of its coordinators, creating some much needed continuity.

Here's my problem:

The guy's three years into a five year contract and he's using scare tactics to get a contract extension that won't take effect until 2012.

IMO he's done enough to justify seeing out his current contract. He hasn't done anything to justify EXTENDING his contract.

That you would allow this guy to play head games with you, and say that he can't recruit unless he can promise his kids that he'll be there five years from now.....

Ridiculous.

Just ridiculous.

I mean you go down that road, and you'll be giving the guy contract extensions until he's pushing up daisies somewhere.

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And regarding the rave reviews for his recruiting classes, I'm sorry, but you have to show me something on the field. Charlie Weis got rave reviews for his recruiting classes every year, pretty much, and look where he's at.

IMO Brewster can't get it done on the field any more than Rich-Rod can. Without (hopefully) going too far overboard on the generalizations, I think these guys came into the Big Ten thinking that the Big Ten was backwards, and they could win there with stuff that's worked on the coasts. Frankly, I think they underestimated the task ahead of them, and if Brewster's done better than RichRod, he's not done so much better that he deserves to have seven or eight years of guaranteed pay as the Gophers' head coach.

[bigticket1]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Ummmm...talking U of M and Tim Brewster...no mention of replacing any of SDSU's coaches. Someone else made comment that Leach was available in regards to the U of M, just reiterating.

I didn't say any coaches should be replaced. But you seem to think other schools should go after questionable character individuals. Would you want them here if there was an opening ?

[joeboo22]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

The big thing about bowls is it gives the team another 20 practices that they wouldn't have....

I don't know about Brewster, he has brought the team a long ways but at the same time they are still pretty bad and has NO media support in Minneapolis.... yeah its hard to recruit if you are Brewster without an extension the problem is with the media support he has its going to be hard to recruit with or without an extension.... Charlie Weis had a huge contract but when he lost the media and after every loss or even a close game the questions were "is this it for Charlie" everything starts to fall, and I don't see what an extension will do for Minnesota because after every loss or even a close game the ? will be "is this it for Tim?"

[CatchEmAll]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

I didn't say any coaches should be replaced. But you seem to think other schools should go after questionable character individuals. Would you want them here if there was an opening ?

Holy carp..I made one comment about Mike Leach who's been to 10 straight bowl games and the only thing he's accused of at this point is a he said/he said issue over treatment of a player's concussion. None of the outside parties tells the same story twice. Maybe he's done something really, really wrong that will come out eventually, but at this point nothing has been proven unlike the other individuals you named. Even if his firing is over this whole Adam James issue and that's it, not other skeletons in his closet, if I was a Gopher fan I'd be all for bringing him in because he knows how to win and does it above board. And yes, if Stig left and Mike Leach said he wanted to come to SDSU and this was the only blemish on his coaching resume I'd say go for it!

[joeboo22]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Holy carp..I made one comment about Mike Leach who's been to 10 straight bowl games and the only thing he's accused of at this point is a he said/he said issue over treatment of a player's concussion. None of the outside parties tells the same story twice. Maybe he's done something really, really wrong that will come out eventually, but at this point nothing has been proven unlike the other individuals you named. Even if his firing is over this whole Adam James issue and that's it, not other skeletons in his closet, if I was a Gopher fan I'd be all for bringing him in because he knows how to win and does it above board. And yes, if Stig left and Mike Leach said he wanted to come to SDSU and this was the only blemish on his coaching resume I'd say go for it!

Doesn't the whole Coach Leach thing seem funny? It sounds as if there was problems all along between this player and the coach and something happened, the player made a huge deal out of it and now all the other parties involved are covering their backsides.... It seems to me as if something that bad happened and if you were against it you wouldn't let it happen.... It just sounds really funny to me....

[zooropa]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Dang right nobody's said the same thing twice.

This Mike Leach thing just keeps getting weirder & weirder.

[NoVaJack]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Dang right nobody's said the same thing twice.

This Mike Leach thing just keeps getting weirder & weirder.

Question: Does Mike Leach like pie?

[zooropa]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Question: Does Mike Leach like pie?

No. He likes Pie-rates.

[ringthebells]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Doesn't the whole Coach Leach thing seem funny? It sounds as if there was problems all along between this player and the coach and something happened, the player made a huge deal out of it and now all the other parties involved are covering their backsides.... It seems to me as if something that bad happened and if you were against it you wouldn't let it happen.... It just sounds really funny to me....

Leach wasn't on real solid ground before any of this came out. He had burned a lot of bridges, but won enough to make it impossible to run him off.

[joeboo22]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Leach wasn't on real solid ground before any of this came out. He had burned a lot of bridges, but won enough to make it impossible to run him off.

I understand that I was noting how Leach claims that all of the coaches and trainers and doctors were on his side and now that it comes out they are all saying something different...

What I was noting was that it seems to me as if something was as bad as they are making it out to be, wouldn't you as an assistant or as a doctor/trainer not let it happen? It seems to me that either A) its being blown way out of proportion or B) that everybody was conspiring together to make it miserable for this player and now that the truth is coming out that they are covering their backsides....

[ringthebells]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

I understand that I was noting how Leach claims that all of the coaches and trainers and doctors were on his side and now that it comes out they are all saying something different...

What I was noting was that it seems to me as if something was as bad as they are making it out to be, wouldn't you as an assistant or as a doctor/trainer not let it happen? It seems to me that either A) its being blown way out of proportion or B) that everybody was conspiring together to make it miserable for this player and now that the truth is coming out that they are covering their backsides....

http://statestreetsports.wordpress.c...xas-tech-saga/

I know its nothing but opinions on the subject, but I've read other similar stories of Leach going out of his way to pizz off the administration and boosters. Apparently, he succeded! There is so much speculation (Dr.'s clearance, media room vs. closet, sunglasses, tansfer request denied, lazy/whiny player, abusive coach) on the subject right now it's hard to say what really happened. All right, I'm done with Texas Tech. Back to the Gophers. They are mediocre at their very best, and they aren't at their best very often. Brewster reminds me of Callahan at Nebraska. He was able to convince everybody how good they were, but they couldn't win. They are able to talk them up, but not coach them up.

[Kemo]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

Kemo; When you speak I listen. But I wonder, do the detractors not like the guy's personality, or his results? Because two bowl games in successive years after a 1-11 disaster (and losing to NDSU, for goodness sakes) is progress. And if self-promotion is anathema to college coaching, well..... good luck on that. I hear Mike Leach is looking for a job.

He may not be beating the Penn States or the Ohio States yet, but you just might consider them established programs with coaches who have been around pretty much since they started turning pig hide into footballs.
The bigger problem in college sports, IMHO, is alumni-inspired impatience, which allows very few to build a program. On the pro level, Bill Belicheck was run out of Cleveland before he had a chance to build a program and now he's everybody's genius. Had the naysayers had their way in Washington, Joe Gibbs wouldn't have gotten beyond his first five games (all ugly losses).
Had Brewmeister gone 4-8 and lost to the Jacks and Syracuse, you'd all have a stonger point. But he's won 13 games in two years in a pretty darned tough conference, and only now does he get to play primarily with players he recruited.
As for the Bohl, I might humbly say that his success was at a lower level than where he's coaching now. What's worse, progress on a stepped-up level, or regression on a stepped-up level?

Brewster has glaring flaws in both his coaching and personality, and the combination of which is the reason he has so many detractors in the Twin Cities area. So I'll give a quick run down of some of the problems.

Performance:
- Not having won a rivalry (trophy) game in his tenure; Think of it as SDSU losing to NDSU, USD, and UND all in the same season 3 years in a row.

- The Gophers made a bowl game (and beat Iowa) in Glen Mason's final season, to which Brewster followed with seasons of 1-11, 7-6 (no bowl win), and 6-7 (no bowl win).

- Lack of offensive identity; Brewster inherited a team that had a solid running game and tried to change it to the spread. This would be fine and dandy if he followed through with this offensive philosophy shift, but he flip flops so much nobody really knows what he is trying to run. Having changed offensive coordinators multiple times I'm sure has hurt this, but it is also his job to hire a coordinator who has a philosophy that is consistent to his own.

Personality:
- He once put a gag order on his team against KFAN (the main sports talk radio station in the cities) because he didn't like them making negative comments about the program.

- He lied on his credentials on the gopher website, giving himself credit for wins that were not his (though I heard this second hand on the radio, as it was taken down before I had knowledge of this).

- He'll try to feed you crap by telling you it is chocolate; I almost vomit when I listen to him address the media. He tries to spin everything to make it sound like he is doing a good job, when in reality he is not. His favorite thing to talk about all is all the great recruits he has coming in next year after a lose, just so he doesn't have to address the teams current performance (which, imo, is what the coach really should be focused on). All the talent in the world isn't going to help if it isn't developed (ask Charlie Weiss about that).

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There are other reasons as well, this is just off the top of my head. I honestly don't care how the Gophers do, I just really can't stand listening to Coach Brewster on radio/television, as I truly feel he thinks everyone is stupid enough to believe the crap he says. I honestly can't think of a politician at the moment that I would considered less honest than Coach Brewster.

[1stRowFANatic]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

best part is that the personality parts are really performance issues. Heard Bobby Bowden on the way home from the game tonight and he was asked how coaching had changed over the years. His answer was that head coaches no longer do any coaching of football to the players. that is all done by assistants. Head coaches are problem solvers and public relations specialists for almost all of their duties, and then make some in game decisions that for the most part have been prepped by the assistant coaches during the week (I am guessing he meant like the odds of being able to run and gain a yard on 4th & 1, or 2, or 3, etc.). He then went on to talk about learning from other programs and staying up to date, etc.

[SturgisJeff]

Re: Why I laugh at the Gophers

best part is that the personality parts are really performance issues. Heard Bobby Bowden on the way home from the game tonight and he was asked how coaching had changed over the years. His answer was that head coaches no longer do any coaching of football to the players. that is all done by assistants. Head coaches are problem solvers and public relations specialists for almost all of their duties, and then make some in game decisions that for the most part have been prepped by the assistant coaches during the week (I am guessing he meant like the odds of being able to run and gain a yard on 4th & 1, or 2, or 3, etc.). He then went on to talk about learning from other programs and staying up to date, etc.

Really, how much coaching does JoPa do anymore. Walks the sideline, no clipboard, no headset, doesn't talk to anyone, stands in the timeout huddle and listens.