Gophers best strategy for hiring

[Great Plains Gopher]

86: 5-3 (Beat #2 Michigan)
87: 3-5
88: 0-6-2
89: 4-4
90: 5-3 (Beat Rose Bowl bound Iowa)
91: 1-7

I think the biggest thing is overall records. The Gutey era didn't have a Mason-type non-conference schedule.

86: 6-6 -- Oklahoma (Ended up #3 in AP, only loss at Miami)
87: 6-5 -- Cal & Central Michigan (closest to a Mason schedule)
88: 2-7 --Washington State (Dennis Erickson's last year before going to Miami, ended up #16 AP)
89: 6-5 -- Nebraska & Iowa State
90: 6-5 -- Nebraska, Utah & Iowa State
91: 2-9 -- Colorado & Pitt

I do think a legit argument can be made about inheriting Holtz's players, just as things were starting to get going for Lou. 87, 89 & 90 would have been bowl teams in today's college football world. With an easier type of schedule, I think you could add a win in 89 & 90. That would have been 4 bowls in 6 years. Not worthy of a parade, but definitely not as bad as people remember.

Gutey had his points but was never a head coach again - too dull, perhaps, and a bad fit following Holtz.

 

[Donovan]

Getting back to Gutey - you've got to remember that Holtz had some very good recruits commited to MN, and took most of them with him to Notre Dame, including (I believe) QB Tony Rice. If Holtz would have remained at MN, those '86 and '87 teams could have been really good. But, when Holtz bolted for ND, and cherry-picked the best of his recruits, it left Gutey trying to pick up the pieces - resulting in the big drop-off in year 3 under Gutey - due in large part to the loss of recruits 2 years earlier.

I've heard that the last recruiting class Holtz was going to bring in here, before he bolted, was a top 3 class. Is that correct. And as the poster mentioned, I heard most of them did not come here and either went to Notre Dame or somewhere else.