There have been two extraordinary turnarounds of Big Ten football programs in the last 20 years. Both happened in the coach’s fourth season.
Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez took over a Badger program in 1990 that had been 3-8, 1-10 and 2-9 in the three previous seasons. By 1993 the Badgers were 10-1-1 and Big Ten champs.
Northwestern had been a punch line and punching bag for decades until Gary Barnett came along in 1992. The three previous seasons the Wildcats were 0-11, 2-9 and 3-8. By 1995 Northwestern had won the first of two consecutive conference championships.
At Minnesota the heat is on fourth year coach Tim Brewster who is off to a 1-3 start that includes losses to South Dakota and Northern Illinois. His career record is 15-27.
Barnett was asked by Sports Headliners if his success means any Big Ten program has the potential to be a winner. “Well, I think that’s the message that comes across, but it wasn’t easy,” he said. “I had a lot of sleepless nights and gut aches, but it came down to just a combination of kids and coaches. We really were a tight knit group. We had a special bond. …”
Barnett, 64, would consider coaching again at the “right” place. These days he’s a color man on Sports USA for college football and was in Minneapolis earlier this month to work a Gophers game.
Barnett left Northwestern to become head coach at Colorado, a program he had known for several years as an assistant. He had success coaching the Buffaloes but off-field problems forced him out.
What’s the right place? He said it’s an institution where the athletic director, chancellor and president are supportive of athletics. At Colorado, he said, the faculty set the tone for athletics.
Barnett said a football coach is in a “war” trying to win games and be successful in all the ways a coach must perform. It’s vital that the coach like the people he’s working for and have their support. “They’re (the administrators) in that trench with you,” Barnett said. “They’re not on the outside looking down saying, ‘Good luck.’…”
Is Minnesota a good job? Barnett said this is a “great city” and he likes the facilities here, but then said, “Facilities aren’t the issue. It’s the people that are in the facilities that generally decide whether or not you’re going to win. I don’t know enough about the inner workings of the University…to be able to answer (whether Minnesota is a good job).”
How did Barnett turnaround a laughing stock program at Northwestern, the conference’s only private school and a laggard regarding facilities? Well, he obviously had the support of the administration in various ways, but there’s more.
“We didn’t lose a player in those four years,” Barnett said. “They all stayed and they drank the ‘Kool-Aid’. …
“We addressed our problems. We didn’t try to solve problems that would fit for another place. We looked at what we were running into, and we prioritized things that we needed to work on and change, and we were able to do it. And we sent a constant message.”
Although Barnett had extraordinary success in his fourth season he said it does take time for a new coach to put his system, players and coaches in place. He believes it’s better to evaluate a coach in the fifth season.
“Around the fifth or sixth year you ought to be able to have an impact if you have done the right things, and kept the players and developed them, and those sort of things,” he said. “You ought to be in a position to at least be in the upper division in the fifth or sixth year. Fourth year I think is still probably a little early.”
The Northwestern program Barnett brought back to life is still successful. The 4-0 Wildcats play the Gophers here on Saturday.