Worst Gopher Head Coach in last 40 years

Who is the worst MN Football Coach in last 40 years?

  • Cal Stoll - 39-39 (.500)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Joe Salem - 19-35-1 (.352)

    Votes: 21 14.9%

  • Lou Holtz - 10-12 (.455)

    Votes: 3 2.1%

  • John Gutekunst - 29-36-2 (.441)

    Votes: 1 0.7%

  • Jim Wacker - 16-39 (.291)

    Votes: 35 24.8%

  • Glen Mason - 64-57 (.535)

    Votes: 4 2.8%

  • Tim Brewster - 15-30 (.333)

    Votes: 77 54.6%
  • Total voters
    141
  • Poll closed .
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Rescooter

Rescooter

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Much can be said about the Minnesota Gopher Football program over the last 40-year....very little of it good. Which coach was the worst? There certainly can be found reasons to choose any one of these coaches. Here's some examples:

1972 - 1978 Cal Stoll - Took a stable on the rise program and made it inconsistent. The rest of the Big 10 progressed under his tenure while our Gophers didn't.
.
1979- 1983 Smokey Joe Salem - Took a mediocre football team and made it bad. 1- 17 in the Big 10 his last 2-years.
.
1984 - 1985 Lou Holtz - Gopher Fans took him hook-line-sinker. He left for greener pastures and put the program in a deep funk.
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1986 - 1991 John Gutekunst - His one claim to fame was winning the Independence Bowl when Hoax left. Finished 10th in the Big 10 his last year.
.
1992 - 1996 Jim Wacker - Introduced his version of the Spread Offense. Nice guy, but lowest winning percentage of all coaches.
.
1997 - 2006 Glen Mason - He brought us back to our roots (run first, pass second). Offense success....Defense, not so much. Was on the losing end of the biggest bowl collapse in history.
.
2007 - 2010 Tim Brewster - Re-introduced the Spread Offense, or wait, the modified Spread, or wait, Pound the Rock. His Chili was Hot. Gopher fans were Not!

I left off Jeff Horton because he was an interim coach. Also left off Jerry Kill because he's awesome and we don't need IA or WI trolls giving him votes. Plus it's my poll and I can do what I want!
 

I give it to Brewster over Wacker based on the biggest drop from previous coach and overall low winning percentage. Wacker was part of an era when there was no real drive from the administration to have winning programs and little support. I was surprised when they finally fired Wacker because i didn't think anyone cared about gopher football enough to do a coach search at that time. Brewster had plenty of help, new stadium came on, no room or patience for losers at that point.
 

I remember the whispers in the dorm lunchroom back in 1982 that we had lost to Northwestern... So I was going to pick Smoking Joe...
Then I remembered walking out of TCF before the end of the South Dakota game.

Yeah, it's Brewster!
 

Brewster was 1-2 vs. the Dakotas /thread
 

What's really startling about this list is that there is no one in the last 40 years where I look at it and say "damn, wish we could have had that guy for a long period of time." Holtz's tenure was so short, but he is the only one where I even wish I would have known what would have happened with some more time.
 


I voted for Joe Salem - he took a pretty good team (from the underrated Cal Stoll) and went downhill quickly, culminating in probably the worst Gopher Football team of all time (1983). I'd rate them (worst to best) Salem, Brewster, Wacker, Gutey, Holtz, Mason and Stoll.
 

Has to be Brewster. The Wacker era was bad, but it was a much stronger conference at the time. There was no reason why Brewster could not have build on Mason's tenure.
 


Recency bias kicking in. Gotta love it. Brewster's middle two seasons ended in bowl games and were more or less on par with an average Mason season - and Mason still has posters lighting votive candles for him.
 



dpodoll68 said:
Recency bias kicking in. Gotta love it. Brewster's middle two seasons ended in bowl games and were more or less on par with an average Mason season - and Mason still has posters lighting votive candles for him.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we also remember his 1st season and the 1st half of his 4th year...
 






The Wacker years were brutal, but the ineptitude of Brewster got him my vote.
 

Stoll was the coach when Number 1 Michigan came to Memorial Stadium. They were shut out. Guety was inconsistent in the same year he lost to Pacific and beat..........Michigan. They are off my list. Smokey Joe Salem, game with run and shoot and no idea or concept of defense. In a sellout at the dome it all came crashing down against Illinois and the rest was the worst defense ever.
 

I've only known and watched the Gophers under Mason, Brewster, and Kill.

So Brewster by default..
 

dpodoll68 said:
Recency bias kicking in. Gotta love it. Brewster's middle two seasons ended in bowl games and were more or less on par with an average Mason season - and Mason still has posters lighting votive candles for him.
Click to expand...

Going by straight winning percentage (and obviously there are comparison issues, including the strength of the out of conference schedule, strength of the Big 10, and number of games), Brewster's best season would have been the exact middle of Mason's ten seasons (5 better and 5 worse). Two of Brewster's season, or half of his seasons, (by winning percentage while Brewster was still coach, I'm not going to give him credit for games Horton won) would have been worse than Mason's worst year. Brewster posted a career 22.2% B1G winning percentage, while Mason came in at 40%. Brewster's overall winning percentage was 33.3% and Mason's was 52.9%. Mason did poorly in trophy games, but Brewster literally never won one. Mason was 3-4 in bowl games, Brewster was 0-2. I am certainly not going to hold up Mason as a model for a successful coach, but recency bias is not the only reason Brewster gets more votes for worst coach than Mason does.

Brewster vs. Wacker, I'll give you. Those two were very comparable.
 

husker70 said:
Stoll was the coach when Number 1 Michigan came to Memorial Stadium. They were shut out. Guety was inconsistent in the same year he lost to Pacific and beat..........Michigan. They are off my list. Smokey Joe Salem, game with run and shoot and no idea or concept of defense. In a sellout at the dome it all came crashing down against Illinois and the rest was the worst defense ever.
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That Illinois game was the last game I went to as a student. The stadium was rocking for that game.
 

husker70 said:
Stoll was the coach when Number 1 Michigan came to Memorial Stadium. They were shut out. Guety was inconsistent in the same year he lost to Pacific and beat..........Michigan. They are off my list. Smokey Joe Salem, game with run and shoot and no idea or concept of defense. In a sellout at the dome it all came crashing down against Illinois and the rest was the worst defense ever.
Click to expand...

Yes, in '86 Gutey beat Michigan in Ann Arbor. That scramble by Foggie will never be forgotten!
 

Good memories - and some nightmares!

I think it's hilarious that Glen Mason got a vote. LOL!!
 

So, is it worse to lose 63-0 to Oklahoma or 84-14 to Nebraska?
 


I voted Bruster btw. Only because of good memories watching games with my dad when Wacker was coach. :)
 

dpodoll68 said:
Which were practically the same as Wacker's entire tenure.
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I'm with you on this one. Brewster's 2 bowl appearances vs a 0.291 winning percentage for Wacker (and zero bowl appearances). I'll take Brewster's record over Wacker's any day. I had student season tickets during the Wacker era. It was awful. People forget so fast. Wacker was a super nice and liekable guy, but an awful football coach.
 

Brewster inherited the program from a coach who had a .535 winning percentage over 10 years. So Brewster's winning % was 0.202% less than the guy he took over from, by far the worst drop on the list. Not to mention, Brewster had the advantage of being the first person to coach in TCF Bank Stadium, which should have been an enormous advantage compared with his predecessors who were in the Dome. Not only did Brew lose every rivalry game he ever coached, he consistently lost to FCS schools. As I left the stadium after watching us lose to South Dakota, it became clear that he was the worst Gopher football coach in my lifetime.
 

My heart is pumpin' and my corpuscles are jumpin'. Plus my chili is hot.
 

John Galt said:
Brewster inherited the program from a coach who had a .535 winning percentage over 10 years. So Brewster's winning % was 0.202% less than the guy he took over from, by far the worst drop on the list. Not to mention, Brewster had the advantage of being the first person to coach in TCF Bank Stadium, which should have been an enormous advantage compared with his predecessors who were in the Dome. Not only did Brew lose every rivalry game he ever coached, he consistently lost to FCS schools. As I left the stadium after watching us lose to South Dakota, it became apparent that he was the worst Gopher football coach in my lifetime.
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Wacker's teams lost to San Jose St. and San Diego St. Wacker finished his career with 3 seasons with 1-7 Big Ten records.
 

They used to have a program called "Gopher Sports Extra" that aired between the Sat 10 PM news and the opening of Saturday Night Live. I remember Tim McNiff, the host, basically refusing to let Wacker speak anymore, because they both new their wasn't much positive to speak about.
 



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