Gophers hire ......

[Catch 22]

Brewster from the Denver Broncos per ESPN

[47straight]

Venables is staying then?

[blutotiger]

Did they get his millions? Too bad John Candy is dead.

[Newbomb Turk]

Punky Brewster?

[birddog]

Punky Brewster?

punky- i must, i must, i must increase my busts.

well, in that very special episode she got what she wanted, and then later in life had a breast reduction.

[TexasLidig8r]

Why in the hell anyone with any brains would want the Minnesota job is beyond me... they gave their last coach an extension.. LAST YEAR.. then.. can him after an improbable bowl game loss.

The school canned two of his assistants, one on NY Eve and another while he was hosting a party at his house.. via a letter hand delivered.

Minnesota will always play sloppy seconds to Meatchicken and the Luckeyes in recruiting the Big 10/11 area..

Haven't won the Big 10/11 since 1967.. their last New Years Day bowl game was in 1961.. they have won 10 games in a season ONE TIME since 1905.

If Holtz and Jim Wacker couldn't win there.. then...

[AllAboutThe'O']

Why in the hell anyone with any brains would want the Minnesota job is beyond me... they gave their last coach an extension.. LAST YEAR.. then.. can him after an improbable bowl game loss.

The school canned two of his assistants, one on NY Eve and another while he was hosting a party at his house.. via a letter hand delivered.

Minnesota will always play sloppy seconds to Meatchicken and the Luckeyes in recruiting the Big 10/11 area..

Haven't won the Big 10/11 since 1967.. their last New Years Day bowl game was in 1961.. they have won 10 games in a season ONE TIME since 1905.

If Holtz and Jim Wacker couldn't win there.. then...
Holtz had the Gophers on the right track. In his second season there, he took the Gophers to the Independence Bowl (I should know, because I went to that game as a 9th grader in 1985). But he didn't coach the bowl game because he took the Notre Dame job. Had Holtz stayed, he probably would have had the Gophers in contention for the Big 10 title.

[soonerboy_odanorth]

Lid,

It's not about sloppy seconds to Meatchiken and tOSU (or even Penn State).

It's about watching, in the last several years, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue, and even freaking Northwestern, either go to the Rose or another BCS bowl.

Those are the teams that the U of M ought to be competing with year-in and year out and at least once in a while getting the best of in order to hit one of those Jan. 1 slots. And the fact of the matter is that Mason's very best finish was fourth. Other than that he never had an UPPER HALF finish in the Big Tenleven. Not to mention, you cannot believe how happy high school coaches up here are that he's been given the boot. High school coaches want access and want to be involved with the state's major land grant institution just like anywhere else in the country. And he had -0- time for them. So over and over Minnesotans have watched solid D1 in-state players go anywhere but the UofM.

All of which is completely unsatisfactory performance when you are the second-highest paid coach in the BigTenleven.

It was a good and well-founded firing, IMO. I'm just surprised they didn't do it before the bowl game. And frankly the raise he was given last year was based on his almost annual public threatening of departure, and the U's unpreparedness to make a move. (And that unpreparedness is on Maturi, the AD....You'd think he would have gotten the gist after the second or third go-around). Anywaycomments out of the President's and AD's offices at the time were of the not very well veiled "Ok, here's the money, but you better flippin' perform" variety.

Now, the Brewster hire has folks a bit puzzled. Has only been a position coach at the college and pro level, and is "a great recruiter". Smells like John Blake to me. (And folks are NOT happy about it right now.) And the UofM can little afford to make that kind of mistake.

So is he the real deal Holyfield or not?

I hope he is, because it's fun to have major college football close at hand, and it will even be moreso when they get back on campus in 2009 instead of playing in the Hubert H. Humphrey Mausoleum Dome. But he better be, otherwise Joel Maturi's nougat will be served up on a platter. (Word on the airwaves up here is he's kind of a do-nothing glad-hander as it is.)

Thoughts (on Brewster in particular)?

[TexasLidig8r]

Thoughts (on Brewster in particular)?

Served on Mack's staff at both North Carolina and Texas.

Great recruiter and apparently was instrumental in getting both Chris Simms and Vince to come to Texas.

Fiery coach...

Whether the Gophers can recruit effectively and consistently against the big boys up there remains to be seen. Although, with the recent success of the young Gopher running backs in the NFL, makes me wonder why they haven't been more successful...

[soonerboy_odanorth]

Although, with the recent success of the young Gopher running backs in the NFL, makes me wonder why they haven't been more successful...

Easy... Mason. He and his staff just did not pay the same kind of attention recruiting to the defensive side of the ball that he did the offensive.

And moreso, if you look up "play not to lose" in the dictionary? Yup, Mason's pic... right there. I don't know if you recall all the furor over Dennis Green's "take a knee" in the '98 NFC Championship game, but Mason's career at UofM was positively littered with poor in-game tactical blunders of the like.

[OUstud]

See, Mason was kinda like the McCarney of the Big Televen. He had some good years, but even when they were good, you knew they'd blow it some time and that they would never get to the next level.