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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If only GH
would have been the staff for 40+ years...
 


My head says Wacker, and my heart says Brewster. Seriously, I think a lot of people liked Wacker as a person, and felt bad when his teams lost. After the 1st couple years, Brewster became one of the most polarizing coaches in recent history, and (some) people enjoyed seeing him go down in flames.

But, in all fairness, you could run out a similar list for most D1 FB teams that don't contend for the top-25 on a regular basis. Ron Zook, anyone?
 

For those of you whose reference is the past 20 years, let me support my vote for Joe Salem specifically his 1983 season. Those who know we lost to Nebraska 84-13 and leave it that are not letting you know this was a record breaking defensive year.

With thanks to Eric Thrall's site:

Minnesota 21 Rice 17
Minnesota 13 Nebraska 84
Minnesota 20 Purdue 32
Minnesota 18 Ohio State 69
Minnesota 31 Indiana 38
Minnesota 17 Wisconsin 56
Minnesota 8 Northwestern 19
Minnesota 10 Michigan State 34
Minnesota 23 Illinois 50
Minnesota 10 Michigan 58
Minnesota 10 Iowa 61

That is 518 points in 11 games. Roughly 47 points a game average. This season we were blown out 5 times. Neither Wacker or Brewster could match this. It was an awful season.
 

Salem, and it's not close.

I have to take issue with the OP's comment about Stoll: "Took a stable on the rise program and made it inconsistent." The number of conference wins following the 1967 championship were, in order, 5, 4, 2, 3. Neither stable nor rising. Stoll immediately won 4 then 6. He was .500 or better in five of seven seasons, the model of consistency. Not great, but good compared to what followed.
 


Hates Monikers said:
Salem, and it's not close.

I have to take issue with the OP's comment about Stoll: "Took a stable on the rise program and made it inconsistent." The number of conference wins following the 1967 championship were, in order, 5, 4, 2, 3. Neither stable nor rising. Stoll immediately won 4 then 6. He was .500 or better in five of seven seasons, the model of consistency. Not great, but good compared to what followed.
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I will second that. Coach Stoll should not even be under consideration in this poll.
 

Hates Monikers said:
Salem, and it's not close.

I have to take issue with the OP's comment about Stoll: "Took a stable on the rise program and made it inconsistent." The number of conference wins following the 1967 championship were, in order, 5, 4, 2, 3. Neither stable nor rising. Stoll immediately won 4 then 6. He was .500 or better in five of seven seasons, the model of consistency. Not great, but good compared to what followed.
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I agree that Stoll did not belong in the discussion, since he almost got over the little 8/ big 2 hump, but fell short. No once broke through that until Hayden Fry and Mike White at Illinois finally broke through in the early 80s.


The Salem run was odd, in that his teams looked pretty good when he had the talent recruited by Cal Stoll to work with. Sid Hartman will suggest that the cheapness of the U of M AD cost Salem most of his good assistants (like Mike Shanahan) and that is what doomed the recruiting and then the gameday coaching in later years. The last team to play at Memorial Stadium under Salem in 1981 looked pretty good at times, with the OSU win, but 1982 was a disaster at the Dome. I was at the '82 Wash State win with my dad and everything looked great, then shortly afterwards the wheels came off for good in the much discussed Illinois collapse, where a lead turned into at 24-42 loss. I commented that first night that I hated the dome (as a 15 year old) and that someone really screwed up by moving the Gophers over the bridge from a still standing historic stadium. I despised that Metrodome from day one for both football and baseball. I blame the Metrodome, Malcom Moos, Ken Keller, Sid Hartman, and a few others for all this failure as much as I blame the coaches.

Wacker had an equally odd tenure, in that he looked pretty good on paper before arriving and seemed like he could had Joe Tiller type results, but the teams he had here had such subpar talent, on the O line and on defense and they had no chance.

For me of course, the winner of this contest is Brewster, since he inherited something that was not completely off the tracks, and he wrecked it in a hurry. The guy was also annoying, a fraud, and had the amazing advantage of having TCF Bank Stadium at his disposal and he screwed it all up. Had Brewster not been fired on the spot in 2010, he would have certainly produced sub Wacker results for a couple more years. Brewster had no ability to organize a staff, a system, or even a practice and he had no business being head coach at St. Thomas, much less at a Big Ten school. I am not kidding about St. Thomas either, Coach Caruso would have done a much better job at the U of M then what Brewster did.
 

husker70 said:
I will second that. Coach Stoll should not even be under consideration in this poll.
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Ditto and furthermore, look at the non-conference opponents Stoll had to face in his time including several PAC-8 opponents. The non-conference schedules the last 20 to 30-years have been pathetic. To make matters even more difficult for Stoll, the facilities were unbelievably bad and would make today's practice facilities seem greater than great. Stoll had to conduct team meetings in a hallway because they didn't have meeting rooms large enough to hold the entire squad. If Stoll was coaching today against the same competition with his record and those gawd awful facilities, we'd be talking about extending his contract.

Salem had the worst season ever and that probably puts him on top of the sh!t pile.

Brew is a close second if for no other reason in that he took big sh!ts against those dakota schools.

Wacker takes the third spot with that painful winning percentage.
 

I thought old 10 men on the field, no 12 men on the field Guety would get more votes. He took Holtz momentum and took it in the tank. At least Wacker's offense was fun.
 



one more thought, I was at the Salem Illinois game that he blew at halftime. I was also at the Dome when Brew got blown out by Iowa (50 something to nil). The Illinois game (with Brewster looking good), was by far more painful. The worst loss for me since we got beat by a one-eyed qb in the Rose Bowl.

We should add Wes Fesler to the list.
 

Why would you do this?

upnorthkid said:
why is this back again?
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Things are going well. Things are positive! The vibe is good. Why remind and revisit casual fans or any fans of the
losing? Why poke holes??
 

How the F#$* can there be any votes for Mason in this poll?
 

Hates Monikers said:
Salem, and it's not close.

I have to take issue with the OP's comment about Stoll: "Took a stable on the rise program and made it inconsistent." The number of conference wins following the 1967 championship were, in order, 5, 4, 2, 3. Neither stable nor rising. Stoll immediately won 4 then 6. He was .500 or better in five of seven seasons, the model of consistency. Not great, but good compared to what followed.
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Also, Stoll's schedules were brutal. He had to play Ohio State near the beginning of the season because they added an extra conference game - plus tough non-con teams.
 



josh087 said:
How the F#$* can there be any votes for Mason in this poll?
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Some people may be voting for the worst leader of Gopher football while some may be voting strictly the worst coach which could prompt a minority to vote for Mason....a decade with plenty of chokes, meltdowns, no-shows and hail marys.
 

josh087 said:
How the F#$* can there be any votes for Mason in this poll?
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Agreed. I am not a fan of Mason the coach (love him on KFAN & BTN), but to vote for him on this poll is silly. Brewster wins -hands down for me. I still find it funny some give him a pass because he was a "good recruiter" - did he recruit some talent? Sure. But he had no clue how to recruit a team that gelled together, could stay eligible, and that could produce wins as a group... no clue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


oak_street1981 said:
[/B]

I agree that Stoll did not belong in the discussion, since he almost got over the little 8/ big 2 hump, but fell short. No once broke through that until Hayden Fry and Mike White at Illinois finally broke through in the early 80s.


The Salem run was odd, in that his teams looked pretty good when he had the talent recruited by Cal Stoll to work with. Sid Hartman will suggest that the cheapness of the U of M AD cost Salem most of his good assistants (like Mike Shanahan) and that is what doomed the recruiting and then the gameday coaching in later years. The last team to play at Memorial Stadium under Salem in 1981 looked pretty good at times, with the OSU win, but 1982 was a disaster at the Dome. I was at the '82 Wash State win with my dad and everything looked great, then shortly afterwards the wheels came off for good in the much discussed Illinois collapse, where a lead turned into at 24-42 loss. I commented that first night that I hated the dome (as a 15 year old) and that someone really screwed up by moving the Gophers over the bridge from a still standing historic stadium. I despised that Metrodome from day one for both football and baseball. I blame the Metrodome, Malcom Moos, Ken Keller, Sid Hartman, and a few others for all this failure as much as I blame the coaches.

Wacker had an equally odd tenure, in that he looked pretty good on paper before arriving and seemed like he could had Joe Tiller type results, but the teams he had here had such subpar talent, on the O line and on defense and they had no chance.

For me of course, the winner of this contest is Brewster, since he inherited something that was not completely off the tracks, and he wrecked it in a hurry. The guy was also annoying, a fraud, and had the amazing advantage of having TCF Bank Stadium at his disposal and he screwed it all up. Had Brewster not been fired on the spot in 2010, he would have certainly produced sub Wacker results for a couple more years. Brewster had no ability to organize a staff, a system, or even a practice and he had no business being head coach at St. Thomas, much less at a Big Ten school. I am not kidding about St. Thomas either, Coach Caruso would have done a much better job at the U of M then what Brewster did.
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Actually a very good recap.

Enjoyed the bold.:)
 

Wacker won the Pig and the AX- twice. The win in 93 prevented the Badgers from winning a National Championship. IMO, this dramatically moves him up on this list. Brewster wins...
 

For me it's Brewster and it's not even close. He took a program with decent momentum and a level of respect within the conference and destroyed everything Mason had built to the point where it became one of the harder re-building jobs in any power 5 conference. On top of that he made us a laughing stock to fans of our rivals due to his antics and made us an easy target for criticism.

Salem and Wacker were both terrible as well. Anyone who voted for Mason in this poll must have thought the poll was for the "Best Gopher Head Coach in the last 40 years."
 

2727Gopher said:
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.
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Why was Cal Stoll fired?
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
Why was Cal Stoll fired?
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That's a tough question. In 1978 they were 5-6 overall, 4-4 in the B1G. Their B1G losses were to quality teams except Wisconsin. Their non-conference losses were to an 8-3-1 UCLA and 3-7-1 Oregon State, so one bad loss there. He was .500 overall 27-29 in the B1G, including one 6-2 season (which they finished 3rd). I think the regents thought that they should be contending for titles, not middle of the road. But don't forget, all schools had become integrated by this time, so they didn't have the advantage that they had in the 1960's of a bunch of great athletes that other schools flat out didn't want. They weren't getting those kids anymore. Truthfully, it may have been a mistake to fire him, but the bigger mistake was hiring Salem. He flat out admitted after the fact he had no business being a D1 head coach. But he was cheap...

Salem, Wacker and Brewster are all legitimate picks in my book. I chose Brewster because I thought he did little with far more support and advantages that other coaches didn't have. I won't argue DPO's point that the most recent is always going to get more votes, and maybe that is part of why I leaned that way. I'd like to think I was objective, but I barely remember Salem and was attending school during Wacker, so had a different perspective. I know the expectations for Wacker were quite low, so he benefits from that. Had Wacker and Brewster been flipped in position and had the same record, there would be no question Wacker would be worst.
 

Word said:
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.
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Brewster's teams lost to Bowling Green, Florida Atlantic, South Dakota, North Dakota St., and Northern Illinois. In 4 seasons. South Dakota St. was 3 points away from being added to that list as well. Brewster was 6-21 in the B1G, a winning percentage of 0.222. He had 1 of the 2 zero win Big Ten seasons in our 120+ year history. And there's little doubt he would have had a second if he wasn't canned halfway through year 4.
 

Brewster - not even close... Guy was a duck out of water. Very poor hire - AD (Maturi) should have seen this one coming. Easy to look back, but his lack of experience as a head coach was blatantly obvious and we could have had Kill 3 or 4(?) years earlier.
 

John Galt said:
Brewster's teams lost to Bowling Green, Florida Atlantic, South Dakota, North Dakota St., and Northern Illinois.
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Bowling Green was an 8-5 MAC team. Why are they on your list? Northern Illinois was an 11-3 MAC team. Why are they on your list? NDSU was undefeated and probably would've won the I-AA national title in 2007 had they been eligible. No Big Ten team should ever lose to teams like this, but much better Big Ten teams have lost to teams far worse than any of these.

John Galt said:
South Dakota St. was 3 points away from being added to that list as well.
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We're holding wins against him now? Give me a freaking break.

John Galt said:
Brewster was 6-21 in the B1G, a winning percentage of 0.222.
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Wacker was 8-32 in the Big Ten, a winning percentage of 0.200. What is your point?

John Galt said:
And there's little doubt he would have had a second if he wasn't canned halfway through year 4.
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I say he would've won all 5 remaining Big Ten games and gone to a bowl game. My prediction is equally valid. This is why untestable ex post facto predictions are so stupid.
 

row19gopher said:
we could have had Kill 3 or 4(?) years earlier
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We weren't going to hire Kill from Southern Illinois in 2007. He wasn't on anyone's radar for major conference jobs. Tressel was hired to a Big Ten job from a I-AA school after winning multiple national titles.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Bowling Green was an 8-5 MAC team. Why are they on your list? Northern Illinois was an 11-3 MAC team. Why are they on your list? NDSU was undefeated and probably would've won the I-AA national title in 2007 had they been eligible. No Big Ten team should ever lose to teams like this, but much better Big Ten teams have lost to teams far worse than any of these.



We're holding wins against him now? Give me a freaking break.



Wacker was 8-32 in the Big Ten, a winning percentage of 0.200. What is your point?



I say he would've won all 5 remaining Big Ten games and gone to a bowl game. My prediction is equally valid. This is why untestable ex post facto predictions are so stupid.
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1. Any time a B1G team loses to a MAC team it's a bad loss. Period. 99% of players would accept any B1G offer over a MAC offer.
2. Beating a marginal at best South Dakota St. by 3 at home is embarrassing, but still a win.
3. The B1G winning percentages of Brewster and Wacker are virtually the same, yet Brewster inherited a much better situation than Wacker. I'm not a Mason fan, but Brewster inherited a team that had been over .500 for the past 10 years. He got to coach in a brand new stadium in front of sold out MN crowds every week. He should have been able to use it as a recruiting tool, which none of the dome coaches got to do.
4. You're prediction isn't valid, as his career winning percentage was .222. They were going 0-8 or 1-7 in the B1G that year, everyone knew it and he was fired for it.
 

There has been some great comments and I've got much more respect for Cal Stoll after hearing those that have been there. There is a lot of humor in this poll as well:

1) Tim Brewster vs. The World (at least he's winning in something) He's garnered over 50% of the vote and I even think less of him as a coach (if that's possible)
.
2) The race for 4th place on the list: Glen Mason vs. Lou Holtz I honestly can't stop laughing about this. The fact that they're receiving votes could be the most revealing part of this poll.
 

Brewster was bad, but I still think people are giving Wacker a pass due to how nice of a guy he was or the fact that it was 20 years ago. That, and Brewster is everyone's favorite villain.

I don't want to rehash old arguments but I don't think Brewster inherited much from Mason. There wasn't much talent on that team he took over.
 

dpodoll68 said:
We weren't going to hire Kill from Southern Illinois in 2007. He wasn't on anyone's radar for major conference jobs. Tressel was hired to a Big Ten job from a I-AA school after winning multiple national titles.
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Yep, without the Brewster hire we might never had been a position to hire coach Kill. For that reason we are forever indebted to Tim Brewster.:clap:
 

This is hilarious. I even read a response where Brewster took over a program with "momentum". What "momentum" was that? He took over a team that started out 0-5 in the B1G and narrowly avoided a home loss to a Dakota school and that Gopher team had a 3 year starter at QB in Cupito. That team would lose its QB and best offensive player (Spaeth) to graduation. Then you had 3 or 4 of the best remaining athletes get kicked out of school. Brewster was having to start true freshman that he recruited after getting the job. He quickly got the program back to exactly where it was for the vast majority of the prior coaches tenure, only to crater in year 4. Bad coach? Yes Disaster? Certainly not in comparison to what Minnesota football has been in my lifetime. Worse than Wacker? You have to be kidding me. Also, if we're going to include records in this discussion, then it should be Big Ten records and not overall records. Mason played a MUCH easier non-conference schedule than every other coach on that list.
 

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