Alvarez and Ferentz started out with 1-win seasons...

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EE_Gopher

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But this isn't meant to be so much as a pro-Kill thread as an anti Maturi thread. Brewster has turned out to be a worse recruiter than coach. His hire has put us into a prolonged period of College Football Purgatory.

A 1-win season this year isn't a reason to fire Kill. It will take a couple more years to find out about him. But it is a reason to get rid of Maturi.
 

Brewster started with a one-win season, too. How do we know which one-win coaches will end up in Pasadena someday and which ones will get fired before their fourth season?
 

Really? Are you sure? This is the first I've heard of any of this.
 

You wait and see. No one is saying that winning only one game in the first year is a sign of greatness, only that winning one game in the first year isn't a sign of failure. No one could have looked at Alvarez's or Ferentz's first year record and said "he's going to be great!" You just couldn't tell, you had to wait and see.
In 2008, it looked like the Gophers were roaring back, and then it seemed that the loss to Northwestern on the interception return broke the spirit of the team.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Really? Are you sure? This is the first I've heard of any of this.
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No kidding. Why didn't anybody else mention this before? I mean, these are the 2 biggest rivals.

EE Gopher has to be mistaken. This cannot be true.
 


EE_Gopher said:
But this isn't meant to be so much as a pro-Kill thread as an anti Maturi thread. Brewster has turned out to be a worse recruiter than coach. His hire has put us into a prolonged period of College Football Purgatory.

A 1-win season this year isn't a reason to fire Kill. It will take a couple more years to find out about him. But it is a reason to get rid of Kill.
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Ummm..... What???
 

dpodoll68 said:
Really? Are you sure? This is the first I've heard of any of this.
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My immediate reaction to the thread title as well.

I don't know why we feel the need to cling to this like it's the gospel on rebuilding programs. You really are allowed to win more than one game in order to become a great program lol. And only 5 games into a 12 game season too, why even play the last seven?
 

I also heard the 1992 Chargers started 0-4 and made the play-offs!
 

My main reason to point out Alvarez and Ferentz 1st years wasn't to give support to Kill. I also know that Brewster's 1st year was a 1-win season. Changing coaches is almost always extremely painful (Michigan seems to be an exemption) and making a mistake such as Brewster can be very painful. Whether Kill succeeds or fails has nothing to do with this season. But it should have something to do with Maturi's job. He may have thought he made a good choice in Brewster.

But, hey, it didn't work out. So, fire him.
 



It'd be interesting to see what people were saying about Alvarez and Ferentz during their first year. Nothing but praise and support, I'm sure. I also wonder what their excuses (sorry, reasons) sounded like.
 

As noted elsewhere, the problem with this argument is that Alvarez was in his first year as a head coach and Ferentz had only a few years, while Kill has decades of head coaching experience. More would be expected...
 

They had one win seasons, but did they look like they were getting outcoached nearly every week?
 

Rosemountian said:
They had one win seasons, but did they look like they were getting outcoached nearly every week?
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I'm guessing in week four when Ferentz lost 49-3 at Michigan State and 41-3 against Wisconsin in week 11, the natives weren't sitting around thinking 'he sure coached 'em up'.

Losing to an Iowa State squad that finished with one win in the Big 12?

Northwestern finished 1-7 in the BT that year and got that win despite being "outcoached" by Ferentz.

Of course probably the worst Ohio State team in the last 40 years (3-5 in the BT) managed to beat Captain Kirk by 30 points despite being outcoached.
 



Rosemountian said:
They had one win seasons, but did they look like they were getting outcoached nearly every week?
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My recollection (and this was long ago) is that folks were cautiously optimistic, not because of the record, obviously, but because the team showed more discipline and got better as the season went along. Morton was very, very bad and in WAY over his head; many of his recruits left that first year because they didn't want to work as hard as Alvarez required.

I think I mentioned this before, but a QB, Tony Lowery (Beg Ten freshman of the year in 1987) actually quit playing football under Morton, but came back for two years with Alvarez. THAT'S how bad Morton was.
 


I think people in Iowa were much more hostile towards Kirk than fans of Wisconsin were towards Alvarez after one year.

Maximus,
As I've already stated, score has nothing to do with being outcoached. South Dakota lost by 50 to Wisconsin and was not outcoached. Minnesota was outcoachd against Miami despite ending up winning the game.


Of course that's just my opinion. Maybe you thought they haven't been getting outcoached. Admittedly, I haven't watched the games from kirks or barry's first seasons. So I couldn't tell you if they were outcoached. Apparently you think they may have been. Either that or you think Jerry hasn't been.
 

Kirk and Barry

I remember Kirk's first year, and I will comfirm there were quite a few fans calling for Kirks head. He was following The great Haden Fry who had a lot to do with the hiring of Kirk. On the field, Hayden assembled a coaching staff, bringing his assistant coaches with him, including Bill Brashier, his defensive coordinator, and Bill Snyder, his offensive coordinator. Fry retained some of the Iowa coaches from the previous staff, including Dan McCarney and Bernie Wyatt. Finally, Fry hired the head coach at Mason City High School, Barry Alvarez. Fry would later add Kirk Ferentz as his offensive line coach and hire his former players Bob Stoops, Mike Stoops, Chuck Long, and Bret Bielema as assistant coaches. Fry also gave former USF Head Coach Jim Leavitt one of his first breaks in college football, making him a graduate assistant coach at Iowa in 1989. So here is the point of the post..... Former Coach and ADs have the power. It takes a team, a system, a community. It is way too early to call the dogs on Coach Kill. I will say this, there are a lot of folks south of here who think the gophers made a good choice and with some time will turn this thing around. For what it's worth.
 

Rosemountian said:
I think people in Iowa were much more hostile towards Kirk than fans of Wisconsin were towards Alvarez after one year.
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Part of that is because Iowa had been a very good program under Fry for many years. (143-89-6). Iowa fans had come to expect good teams.

Wisconsin was as much of a doormat for years as Minnesota and Indiana are. Wisconsin fans have very selective memories. Wisconsin fans weren't as hostile, because there weren't that many of them. Camp Randall is a big time football environment now, but prior to Alvarez there wasn't that much interest in Badger football, so there wasn't as much hostility - just indifference (much like we see here).

This tends to be true of football fans in Wisconsin in general. They also tend to ignore that the Packers were the dregs of the NFL between Lombardi and Holmgren's coaching eras.
 


Bo Darville said:
What if we win a 2nd game this year?
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I'd be at the parade, I'll tell you that.

I 100% believe in Kill, but this year may get even worse. My biggest fear is Wisconsin, coming in here undefeated, wanting to impress pollsters. They may easily drop an 80 bomb on the Gophers. Michigan let off the gas pedal this past Saturday. Wisconsin may be in a position to not want to.
 

If people have so much confidence in Kill, why are they making excuses for a one-win season when there are seven games left? The group of kids he has played to a close loss to USC. The group that showed up against Michigan looked much worse than the group that showed up against USC. If Kill wants to keep confidence, he needs to get these kids to play their hearts out, and not have Eric Lair jogging his routes late in the first quarter down only two scores.
 

EE_Gopher said:
But this isn't meant to be so much as a pro-Kill thread as an anti Maturi thread. Brewster has turned out to be a worse recruiter than coach. His hire has put us into a prolonged period of College Football Purgatory.

A 1-win season this year isn't a reason to fire Kill. It will take a couple more years to find out about him. But it is a reason to get rid of Kill.
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i assume you meant to type "maturi" here and not "kill". correct?
 

Maximus said:
I'm guessing in week four when Ferentz lost 49-3 at Michigan State and 41-3 against Wisconsin in week 11, the natives weren't sitting around thinking 'he sure coached 'em up'.

Losing to an Iowa State squad that finished with one win in the Big 12?

Northwestern finished 1-7 in the BT that year and got that win despite being "outcoached" by Ferentz.

Of course probably the worst Ohio State team in the last 40 years (3-5 in the BT) managed to beat Captain Kirk by 30 points despite being outcoached.
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nice work putting him in a major box on that one. :)
 


Suddenly, and quite mysteriously, I have hope for a second victory this season. Really, like a weight off my shoulder. I think we will see some fine rushing through the Purdue defense this week. Call it a hunch. We will see our best clock management and passing as well. And, Kill will have something to show the kids that is positive.

Must be the omega-3s in my diet! Seriously, I think Kill will be better than Alvarez and Ferentz in their first year.
 

Maximus said:
I'm guessing in week four when Ferentz lost 49-3 at Michigan State and 41-3 against Wisconsin in week 11, the natives weren't sitting around thinking 'he sure coached 'em up'.

Losing to an Iowa State squad that finished with one win in the Big 12?

Northwestern finished 1-7 in the BT that year and got that win despite being "outcoached" by Ferentz.

Of course probably the worst Ohio State team in the last 40 years (3-5 in the BT) managed to beat Captain Kirk by 30 points despite being outcoached.
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Post of the year. Awesome.
 

Minnesota itself is still not set up to become a contender at the moment. The main problem is that Minneapolis is just too big, and the Gophers aren't the center of the sports universe. Football recruits love college towns.
 

Okie said:
Minnesota itself is still not set up to become a contender at the moment. The main problem is that Minneapolis is just too big, and the Gophers aren't the center of the sports universe. Football recruits love college towns.
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It's true that many recruits prefer college towns, and being in a large metro area probably hurts us when recruiting some players. But it also can help us. Some guys grew up in large cities and prefer that. I know it's been mentioned by recruits in the past.
 

discochris said:
Wisconsin was as much of a doormat for years as Minnesota and Indiana are. Wisconsin fans have very selective memories. Wisconsin fans weren't as hostile, because there weren't that many of them. Camp Randall is a big time football environment now, but prior to Alvarez there wasn't that much interest in Badger football, so there wasn't as much hostility - just indifference (much like we see here).

This tends to be true of football fans in Wisconsin in general. They also tend to ignore that the Packers were the dregs of the NFL between Lombardi and Holmgren's coaching eras.
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Sigh. Again I must correct a Gopher poster with regard to Wisconsin pre-Alvarez, particularly with regard to attendance. The team itself was doggy for a lot of years, but Dave McClain (you know, the guy the B1G Coach of the Year award is named after) got the team to semi-respectability - probably not as good as Mason, but you could expect to win 4-7 games per year, which was a step up. The Packers were also bad, I agree. However, other than the Morton years at UW (1987-1989), attendance was good for both the Packers and Badgers during those long, long dry spells. Badger average attendance is shown below, starting arbitrarily with 1963. I think Minnesota would be happy to have attendance like that during "down" years.

1963 61,223
1964 60,718
1965 56,428
1966 51,725
1967 52,495
1968 43,559
1969 48,898
1970 56,223
1971 68,131
1972 70,454
1973 60,400
1974 71,630
1975 73,962
1976 70,898
1977 72,682
1978 71,443
1979 73,979
1980 71,360
1981 71,640
1982 71,060
1983 69,787
1984 74,681
1985 71,613
1986 68,052
1987 59,256
1988 49,297
1989 41,734
1990 51,027
1991 49,676
1992 61,378
1993 75,507
 

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