SB Nation User Blog: Narby

Tubby vs. Brewster Debate

Narby — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:57:05 -0000

I found this debate interesting on the scout board and thought it would spark some interesting conversation here as I prefer the intelligence of this blog's readers. (How's that for sucking up?)

There are a lot of people that think Brewster should be fired and we should hire someone like Tubby to take his place. Notwithstanding the fact that those coaches aren't lining up at the door to take the job, I feel there is a bit of a double-standard by those who aren't happy with the job Brewster is doing and are overly happy with Tubby.

It has everything to do with expectations for they are the reason coaches are fired and that is the point he is making. So far Tubby has taken perhaps the worst team in the Big Ten and broght them up to the 7th best team in the Big Ten last year. This year has yet to play out, but most are predicting a 5th place finish in the Big Ten.

Currently, we are the 7th rated team in the Big Ten in football, sounds like a similar finish to last year's BB team, does it not? Yes, I realize we could drop with a loss to Iowa this week and probably will. These are the numbers today.

The perception is that we were already a middle of a road team under Mason and the BB team was under much worse shape than the football team when each coach took over. I would argue that the football team would have been terrible under Mason in 2007 as well, since the good recruiting class of 2003 was gone and the rape scandel in which we lost some of our best players more than likely would have happened anyway. Both coaches have taken over bad teams and brought them to the middle of the pack in the conference, with Tubby being at the upper middle and Brewster at the lower middle if you will. It is much much much easier to turn around a BB program. One or two players makes can make much more of an impact and the kids don't have to be as strong which takes more time and conditioning.

The fact is that Brewster receives much more critisism than Tubby, because he raised the expecations himself. People are turned off by his infectiously "positive" attitude and talk about Rose Bowls, especially the media. Why, we all know that this is his goal and he didn't say he would do it immediately. Did you want him to say his goal was to beat 4 division II teams every year and win a couple of Big Ten games taking us to the Insight/Alamo Bowl? If that's the case, then we should have kept Mason.

Now conversely, Tubby has never said he would bring us to the Final Four, or even the sweet 16, so it's ok not to expect it right? Sure, Tubby had higher credentials coming in, but we are talking about what they are doing for the Gopher program not the past. If we finish 5th in the Big Ten again and win the first round of the NCAA tourney I would not consider it a failure either, but it wouldn't be any better than Brewster taking us to the Insight/whatever lower tier bowl we would go to this year.

I am excited for this year's basketball team and love Tubby as a coach (mostly on defense). My expectations are a top 3 finish in the Big Ten for both of the programs. Of course, I don't expect it every year. I just can't get too excited about the mediocrity that we have seen so far from both programs. (9-9 doesn't prove to me the program is turned around) Personally, I won't give Tubby a pass just because he didn't say he would bring us to where we all want to be.

If you think Brewster should be fired already, then we should probably get rid of Tubby too. Forget Dungy, let's just go out and get Bill Belichek and Phil Jackson. I can't think of any reason they wouldn't want to come here.

The definition of a .500 team

Narby — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:45:00 -0000

This just in: mediocre teams are inconsistent and that is us in a nutshell. After winning the biggest game of Brewster's tenure, we suffer the worst loss the very next week. We have a coach who constantly talks to the media about our need to "pound the rock", but then he forgets to mention that to his fledgling offensive coordinator. Players are benched when they play poorly, unless their name is Adam Weber. 5 out of 17 in the first half doesn't cut it in the high school level, much less college. A 3 year starter should be able to throw the ball away and not run the ball back to your own 2 yard line to take a sack. He should also understand that we cannot take a sack when we have the ball at their 1 foot line. Don't even get me started on why we weren't running the ball there anyway. It is geeting very old having to watch a junior QB make freshmen mistakes. The door is wide open and Gray would be getting more opportunities if he could hold onto the ball, the guy barely hit the ball for God's sake. Our secondary misses chances at interceptions and tackles that allow another 35 yards. Our kicker kicks two balls out of bounds. I guess the only thing we can really count on is a lot of mistakes. Tune in next week to see if the Gophers can top the worst loss of the Brewster era. If you have watched the Gopehrs this year, you know this game is far from a gimme.

The JUCO plan

Narby — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:27:11 -0000

The past couple of years have brought several highly touted Juco transfers to our football team. I looked at what the contribution has been by each player and it hasn't really panned out for Brewster.

Tramaine Brock- Played one year and was a solid contributer with good coverage skills at safety. He was a little weak in run support. Academic casualty before the start of this year.

Simoni Lawrence- Last year he flashed big play ability. Excellent speed for a LB, but I have been really dissappointed this year with his inability to get off his block and contain. He has missed outside contain in many different games this year and Pryor beat him to the outside and turned the corner numerous times last week. He has been basically invisible this year and easily the weakest link in a strong linebacking core.

David Pittman- (who?????)

Rex Sharpe- I thought he would play more this year, but Triplett came on with gusto. In fairness he has been buried in the teams strongest position, behind Campbell and Triplett and has been relegated to special teams.

Traye Simmons- He has been getting burned for a TD weekly. He has not lived up to his own hype and has been servicable at best.

Tim McGee- Academic casualty before he could make it on the team.

Hayo Carpernter- Came in with strong expectations in a huge position of need to take some of the pressure off of Decker. His game speed has not been as advertised, failing to get seperation when he has played. He was also caught by a DE in the Wisconsin game on an end around. He runs a 4.5 at absolute best and doesn't have the shiftiness of Stoudermire or Allen. It hurts more that he is a bust since this is such a huge need position for us. With Decker going down we really need someone to step up, my guess is that it will be Bryant Allen.

The majority of these players were rated as 4 star recruits with only Lawrence and Brock being 3 stars. They are a major reason we have had such highly ranked recruiting classes, but as you can see all they have really been good for is padding the recruiting numbers. When trying to build our team, Juco transfers have clearly not been our answer.

Power Rankings by a BTN Commentator

Narby — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:03:19 -0000

Did anyone else see that last night? I was flipping between FSN and the BTN and the guy showed his power rankings:

5) Michigan

4) Wisconsin

3) Iowa

2) Minnesota

1) OSU

My first reaction was that the guy was on crack, Penn State's loss to Iowa at home dropped them out of his top 5. I like it, don't get me wrong, but I think this is a tad premature for MN to be #2. NU lost to Syracuse and Cal was pummeled by Oregon, I think the jury is still out.

Production By Recruiting Class

Narby — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:48:23 -0000

I was perusing Rivals Gopher recruiting classes and decided to run some numbers to see how much production we are getting from each recruiting class currently. Rather than use the number of players, I decided to give points out for each players contribution to make it more of a weighted average so to speak. I think you will find this interesting and a good topic of debate.

Scoring System =

5 pts for a superstar college Player/NFL talent

4 pts for a good to very good college player

3 pts for a solid college player

2 pts for a below average college player or OK back-up

1 pt for a role player or special teams player

Obviously there will be disagreement on some of the players as to their contribution, but the overall numbers will probably average out if you re-rate them with your score. I left out walk-on as this is a measurement of the overall success of a recruiting class. I also left in JUCO's for the year they were recruited. In a perfect world, you would like to have most of your production coming from upperclassmen.

Total Points

2005) Triplett 4, Thomas 1, Stommes 3, Decker 5 13

2006) Alford 2, Brown 4, Campbell 4, Ellestad 3, Weber 4 17

2007) Bennett 2, Bunders 2, Collado 2, Davis 2, Jacobs 2, Small 4, Theret 3 17

2008) Cooper 3, Dandridge 1, Edwards 3, Eskridge 2, Gray 3, Green 3, Kirksey 4, Lawrence 5

McKinley 2, Simmons 5, Stoudermire 3 34

2009) Carpenter 1, Oreske 3, Wills 2 06

In summation, we are relying heavily on the 2008 recruiting class already. They are producing much more than I expected from them to at this point. While you can name several very good players and the star of the team who were recruited by Mason, this team is already relying quite heavily on Brewster's first real recruiting class and this is only their 2nd season of playing and in some cases their first. We hear the local media talk about how this is a veteran team and while some players may be, the depth of the team is still very young. I like the direction we are heading, nearly all of the 2009 class is red-shirting and this should bode well for the future. It's a great time to be a Gopher fan, ALL ABOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS- Is that Roses I smell in a couple of years?????

Pass the Salt

Narby — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:50:16 -0000

If you want a little fun, go over to the Badger Board on Scout and listen to them whine about poor officiating, unlucky breaks, and whatever else is the reason for their six game slide. I couldn't resist a jab or two and posted this:

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I caught the game last night on BTN. My opinion of Wisconsin's team this year is the same as some have said as a team they are very unathletic. That is the biggest reason their defense isn't that good.

There aren't any outside shooters on this team that scares a defense. Bo's system does a good job masking their lack of talent. It may seem like the other teams have been lucky, one could argue that the Badgers were lucky to even be in this game. NW's free throw shooting was atrocious with the exception of Moore at the end.

The Big Ten has a lot of good coaches now and the depth is getting so much better that wins are going to be harder and harder to come by.

Moore did the same thing to my Gophers, the guy can flat out shoot. It wasn't luck, there was a reason they gave him the ball at the end so he could shoot the free throws. As for fouls, you don't get the calls when you are on the road and that's just the way it is.

With Ryan the Badgers will still compete for Big Ten Championships, but I think you are going to see a lot more middle of the pack years, because the competition is and will get better. Milwaukee doesn't put out a ton of Superstars and you have to compete with Marquette for that talent. In short- "it was a nice run". You just can't or don't want to see that it is ending.

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Thank you Tubby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not the Badgers that I hate, it's their fans.

Big Ten Weak

Narby — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:38:01 -0000

We all know that this is a down year in the Big Ten. OSU has looked mortal and Michigan is adapting to the new system which equals growing pains. Now Iowas loses to Pittsburgh who lost to Bowling Green if my memory serves me correctly. Indiana was drubbed by Ball State and Northwestern looks bad again. Should be three very winnable Big Ten games for the Gophers this year. With no Penn State on our schedule this year, we can play the rest of the season without fear as we have a legit shot at every game. (including OSU) It's starting to be good to be a Gopher fan again.