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.