Author: David Shama

Conversations during the off-season about Gophers football often begin with speculation about the future of coach Tim Brewster.  Fans ask how many games he needs to win this fall to keep his job.

In three seasons coaching the Gophers, Brewster has produced two bowl teams and a 8-4 nonconference record.  His overall record including bowl games is 14-24, 6-18 in the Big Ten.  The last three years the Gophers are 0-8 in historic rivalry games against Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan.

The three seasons before Brewster succeeded Glen Mason the Gophers went to three consecutive bowl games and had a 9-1 nonconference record.  Mason, who coached the Gophers from 1997-2006, was 20-17 overall, 10-14 in the Big Ten his last three seasons.  In rivalry games the Gophers were 2-7.

Those are enough statistics for many fans to conclude Brewster isn’t the right coach to lead the program, but not so fast.  The program hasn’t produced a Big Ten champion since 1967 and no Gophers team has finished better than fourth in the conference since 1986 when Minnesota tied for third in the standings.  Only eight times since 1976 have the Gophers placed fifth or better in the Big Ten.

Making the Gophers title contenders is no easy job, and what critics seldom acknowledge or realize is that building a program in football takes a few years because large numbers of good players, balanced out by various amounts of experience, are needed.  “It takes a coach about five years to get the 85 scholarships the way he wants them,” said Gerry DiNardo on the Big Ten Network last Friday. “You’ve got to have 15 offensive linemen.  You’ve got to have 12 defensive linemen and on and on.

“So it takes five recruiting classes to get that,” said DiNardo, a former college head coach at three BCS schools.  “Until you have five recruiting classes you’re going to see massive losses on both sides of the ball replaced by young guys. …This is going to take some time.  This is a talented team (Minnesota) that is going to play a very difficult schedule.  They’re going to take their lumps, but I gotta tell ya, none of this is unexpected.”

That difficult schedule starts Thursday night in Murfreesboro against Middle Tennessee State.  The Blue Raiders, a Sun Belt Conference preseason favorite, had been the oddsmaker’s choice in the game until dynamic playmaking quarter Dwight Dasher was ruled ineligible by the NCAA.  The underdog role is one the Gophers will see a lot of against most opponents on a schedule that includes traditional powers USC, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa and Wisconsin, and games versus teams like Purdue and Illinois who think they can beat Minnesota.

The sky-is-falling crowd predicts the Gophers will be 2-10 this season.  Those wearing happier faces see better results, something like a .500 record or a little better.  Gophers radio color man Dave Mona is part of that group, predicting a 6-6 season.

Analysis of Brewster’s job performance at season’s end by athletic director Joel Maturi will be about more than wins and losses, and it should be.  The Gophers athletic director told Sports Headliners he’s “optimistic” about this season and hopes to see a program going in the right direction by the end of November.

The right direction means winning games but evaluation also factors in how the team played.  Performance is assessed by observing not only wins and execution, but also the caliber of the opposition and whether the Gophers had a healthy group of their most important players.

The collective GPA’s of the players and graduation rates have been improving under Brewster.  That counts with Maturi and other school administrators and so does off field behavior which sometimes finds football players and other Gophers athletes volunteering to help people in the community.

And the attitude of the players is important to Maturi when he evaluates Gophers football.  After last December’s Insight Bowl loss to Iowa State he was emotionally moved by a locker room filled with despondent Gophers.

“…It’s important to me how they (the players) talk next November, whatever our record might be,” Maturi said.  “I’ve told you the story about being in the locker room after the Iowa State game. That said a lot to me.  Those kids hurt.  They hurt because they put their heart and soul into it and they felt they lost the game they could of, should have won.  And that is an important factor to me that the coach has kept the team together. …That’s huge to me.  So all those factors (commitment and others mentioned above) obviously will enter in (to evaluation).”

Maturi is a realist and acknowledges that what the public believes, even if wrong or misguided, counts, too, in his evaluations of high profile coaches.  There’s no arguing public perception of Gophers football, for many years characterized both by criticism and apathy, is mostly negative.

“..It wasn’t real positive eight years ago when I came, in all honesty,” Maturi said.  “Probably (negative too) eight years ago before that.  Yeah, it’s important to me because it becomes a business decision.  Some people talk with their season tickets.  They don’t purchase the tickets.  They don’t come (to games).  They don’t sponsor.  …In the end you have to win. …”

Maturi was asked if there’s a public lack of confidence in Brewster.  “You would know that as well as anybody,” he answered.  “I hear more negatives in all of our coaches than I hear positives.  People who email me, call me, write me.  I don’t care if it’s Tubby Smith, if it’s Tim Brewster, if it’s J Robinson, if it’s John Anderson.  I hear more negatives than I hear positives.  That’s just the nature of my job, so I don’t put that barometer up.  I don’t think I can.  I listen.  I try to respond appropriately and positively, and honestly, but I don’t think in my job you can do that.”

Brewster has four recruiting classes and will add a fifth next February.  Opinion is the roster has more speed and athleticism than in the past.  “I don’t think there’s any doubt that our athleticism is better,” Maturi said.  “What that translates into I don’t know because much depends on how good the other teams are too.”

The Gophers will get some answers starting Thursday night.  Eleven weeks later they will end the regular season against Iowa.  The public will look at two numbers, wins and losses.  Maturi will evaluate a lot more.

The Big Ten Network aired a one hour preview of the Gophers last Friday night.  Analyst Gerry DiNardo likes Brewster’s coaching staff but said Minnesota has the “most difficult” schedule among Big Ten teams.  Among the team’s newcomers he likes are junior college defensive back Christyn Lewis and redshirt freshman offensive tackle Ed Olson who he predicts one day will be all-conference.

Dave Mona, talking on WCCO Radio’s Sports Huddle, not only predicted a 6-6 record for the Gophers but also said backup quarterback MarQueis Gray could make all-Big Ten as a wide receiver this season.

Maturi said the possibility of the Big Ten expanding its conference games from eight to nine for each team has delayed a decision about replacing Texas on Minnesota’s schedule in 2015.  The Gophers have a BCS opponent to add but will wait until spring to learn what decision the Big Ten will make.

Former Minneapolis city council member and retired Air Force general Denny Schulstad gave a 45 minute speech on leadership and teamwork to the Gophers football team earlier this year.

Former Gophers national championship coach Murray Warmath, 97, has been a resident at Friendship Village in Bloomington for several years.  A new fitness center is being built there and plans are to name the facility after Warmath.  An area at the center will honor him, remembering his life.  A group of Warmath’s friends are raising money to help fund the fitness center and contributions are needed.  More details are available by contacting former Gophers assistant football coach Dick Larson at 651-842-0575, extension 203.

Roy Terwilliger, chairman of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, told Sports Headliners that a new Vikings stadium with a roof could be used for about 300 events per year and the playing field configuration will accommodate amateur baseball teams.

The Vikings probably have too much depth at linebacker for rookie Nate Triplett, the former Gopher, to make the final roster.

The Twins have acquired four impressive pitchers off waivers during the last two seasons: starter Carl Pavano, and relievers Jon Rauch, Brian Fuentes and Randy Flores.  The addition this season of Fuentes and Flores has added badly needed left- handed help.

The American Volleyball Coaches Association preseason top 25 rankings include MIAC schools St. Thomas at No. 8, St. Olaf at No. 19 and St. Mary’s No. 24.