Maturi, concrete, and Glen Mason

Glen Mason should thank Joel Maturi every day that he was fired when he was. The program was starting it's decline the year Mason was fired. A 3 year starter at QB, a soft schedule, and 10 years to build a program got us 6 wins, blowout losses, and a historic bowl game loss. When Mason didn't get the OSU job, his recruiting suffered and the talent drain was beginning to show.
The fact that Maturi hired Brewster makes Mason look even better. He can grin and say, I would have won with those players.
Brewster had almost no talent on his first team. A few players were Big Ten caliber, but not nearly enough to be meaningful. He responded by bringing in Jucos like Traye Simmons, Tremaine Brock, Simoni Lawrence, and Cedric McKinley. This influx of talent got him 7 wins their first year and 6 the next. All of those guys spent time on NFL rosters/practice squads. Kill would call this building your foundation on sand. Those guys could only help for 2 years.
Maturi made it worse by renegotiating Brewsters buyout and bringing him back for another year. Everyone, including the players, knew he was fired without a great season. After the 2nd game, everyone knew he was done. Maturi wasted a year in the rebuilding by prolonging the Brewster experiment. Discipline suffers under a lame duck.
Kill has the same problem as Brewster. A few talented players, but not near enough to be meaningful. It may be a few years before we see the effects of building the foundation on concrete. I think recruiting for the lines is a great start.

I agree that the program was starting to show cracks under Mason. He was only able to beat NDSU with a blocked field goal, and likely would have lost the next year as Brewster did. The JC players helped bring wins the following season, but also sealed his fate as it prevented him from bringing in a developing freshmen that we needed last year.

Sounds like a lot of idle speculation, guestimations and totally unfounded opinions to me. Mason was gone so you can not speculate what his team...that he didn't have might have done. All we know about brewster is that he went 0-8 in Big Ten play and 1-11 overall in 2007, 3-5 in Big Ten play and 7-6 overall in 2008, 3-5 in Big Ten play and 6-7 overall in 2009
and 0-3 in Big Ten play and 1-6 overall in 2010 before being replaced mid-season by Coach Horton. He won 0 trophy games the entire time he was at Minnesota.

The seasons that didn't happen for Mason didn't happen. What happened for Mason happened. What happened for brewster happened until it didn't happen any longer mid-season in 2010. Any time any one wants to look the acutal records up, check Eric Thrall's site. Check it out guys. Then you won't have to speculate about what really did happen for both of these coaches while they were at the University of Minnesota.

imthewalrus said:

Sounds like a lot of idle speculation, guestimations and totally unfounded opinions to me. Mason was gone so you can not speculate what his team...that he didn't have might have done. All we know about brewster is that he went 0-8 in Big Ten play and 1-11 overall in 2007, 3-5 in Big Ten play and 7-6 overall in 2008, 3-5 in Big Ten play and 6-7 overall in 2009
and 0-3 in Big Ten play and 1-6 overall in 2010 before being replaced mid-season by Coach Horton. He won 0 trophy games the entire time he was at Minnesota.

The seasons that didn't happen for Mason didn't happen. What happened for Mason happened. What happened for brewster happened until it didn't happen any longer mid-season in 2010. Any time any one wants to look the acutal records up, check Eric Thrall's site. Check it out guys. Then you won't have to speculate about what really did happen for both of these coaches while they were at the University of Minnesota.

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I never thought I'd write this, but I now think firing Mason was a huge mistake. Didn't like his personality, didn't like his on-field coaching that much, and hated his recruiting effort. With that said, I still think we'd be bowling every two out of three years. We wouldn't have a chance in heck of going to a New Years bowl, but I'd take that over what has happened over the last two seasons. I really doubt Kill has what it takes with recruiting to get us to a New years bowl game, but he better be able to get us to Mason-like seasons sooner than later or he is gone daddy gone.