Look at the standings and get a grip

[DarrenTheGreek]

nm.

 

[Bayfieldgopher]

I'd take Tow-Arnett over the Alex Haas/Zach Vevea/Scooter Baagus combo. I also would take Cooper over Ben Mezera simply because of talent.

I can agree with T/A. Mezera had a monster year with 66 tackles, 17 tackles for loss, 12 sacks and 3 pass breakups from his OLB spot. I was referring to performance not talent. Time will tell if Cooper will be a better player that Ben Mezera was.

 

[FireDaveLee]

Fair enough, Bayfield.....and I was simply going off of talent, not performance. Mezera was clearly a more productive player in '99 than Cooper in '09.

 

[WilliamsArenaGuy]

It was 14, actually. I did this research a while ago, and I'll keep telling anyone who listens. This is especially poignant when told to the idiots who try to compare Glen Mason's third season to Brewster's third season.

Glen Mason fielded 14 athletes in 1999 who went on to play in the NFL. Nine of these were Wacker recruits. How many Mason recruits did Brewster field in 2009 who will play in the NFL? One.

For those of you with this mindset, good luck convincing anyone with a brain that Mason left just as much for Brewster as Wacker did for him.



I'll repeat: 14 players from 1999 played in the NFL, and 9 were Wacker recruits. Outside of 2003, which was close, I'd defy you to name any Gopher team from the last 50 years (or maybe ever) who came anywhere near this total. I don't think anyone truly appreciates how much could've been accomplished that season, and how much Glen Mason underachieved with the talent that was handed to him.

P.S. The 2003 team did have 11 guys go on to play in the NFL: Barber, Lloyd, Maroney, Montgomery, Payne, Reid, Setterstrom, Spaeth, Tapeh, Utecht, and Wheelwright. That list does not include Eslinger, because for the purposes of this research, I only included men who actually played in the NFL. Even though he was drafted, Eslinger has never played a down in the NFL.

That '99 team was the one that should have gone to the Rose Bowl. All they had to do was beat Wisconsin at home. They couldn't get it done in OT. Then they lost to two good teams in OSU and Purdue, but both were at home, and neither were clearly better than us. Those were games we should have won. The Penn State win was nice and salvaged the season from being the most disappointing of all Mason's teams. But still...What could have been? That was the Rose Bowl year.

Mason blew it with his own players and he blew it with Wacker's.

 

[andy]

That '99 team was the one that should have gone to the Rose Bowl. All they had to do was beat Wisconsin at home. They couldn't get it done in OT. Then they lost to two good teams in OSU and Purdue, but both were at home, and neither were clearly better than us. Those were games we should have won. The Penn State win was nice and salvaged the season from being the most disappointing of all Mason's teams. But still...What could have been? That was the Rose Bowl year.

Mason blew it with his own players and he blew it with Wacker's.

If Dan Nystrom would have made the gimme field goal early in the game vs. Wiscy, we win in regulation, and would have gone to the Rose Bowl, like you said, because of the head-to-head tie breaker.

One field goal could have ended almost 40 years of suffering.

 

[MGGopher]

It was 14, actually. I did this research a while ago, and I'll keep telling anyone who listens. This is especially poignant when told to the idiots who try to compare Glen Mason's third season to Brewster's third season.

Glen Mason fielded 14 athletes in 1999 who went on to play in the NFL. Nine of these were Wacker recruits. How many Mason recruits did Brewster field in 2009 who will play in the NFL? One.

For those of you with this mindset, good luck convincing anyone with a brain that Mason left just as much for Brewster as Wacker did for him.

Bravo, sir. "But, but...Mason left Brewster with a bowl team!" LMAO...man, those people need to get a clue. To be perfectly honest, it's my opinion that Brewster has done a GREAT coaching job--not just good or OK--in getting his teams to bowl games in two of his first three years. Complete opposite of what most fans think, I know, but my opinion nonetheless. He was left with very little in the way of talent...

 

[Flatfoot]

OSU 7-1
Iowa 6-2
PSU 6-2
Wisconsin 5-3
NW 5-3
MSU 4-4
Purdue 4-4
MN 3-5
Illinois 2-6
Michigan 1-7
Indiana 1-7

The Gophers played the 3 best teams in the conference on the road and the 2 worst teams in the conference were off our schedule this year. This was an unbelievable bad luck season as far as scheduling goes. Yet we still went 3-1 against the middle of the conference with the 1 loss being a tough 3 point loss to Sconnie.

The Illinois loss was bad, no question about that. But in any "normal" scheduling season we'd be a solid 4th-5th place team which most people would be content with for a coach in his 3rd season.

Am I satisfied? No. There are definite things that need to be improved upon but I am not willing to start back at square one with a new coach.

Keep the coach.

Four of our losses were to top 25 teams. If Wisconsin hadn't lost this last weekend, maybe five. I don't think any one of us should be satisfied this year, but I'd like to think I see the potential our team has. It is a painful process to watch progression and the slower it is, the more excruciating it becomes. I am not willing to start back at square one either and I think Brewster deserves a chance to play this out.