Tim Brewster: The Legacy

Since the 4 year is all but officially over, I figured I'd go over the stellar legacy that TE Timmy is going to leave at my favorite University. 


First, let's review that magical day when we first heard the double top secret name that the old Sconny Maturi came up with after paying off Mason a billion dollars and spending more to hire a masterful search firm to get the right man for the job. We turned down Lane Kiffin, who went on to coach the Raiders, the Vols, and now USC. Yep, he must suck, definitely not good enough for us. We turned down Charlie Strong, who is in his 1st year at Louisville as a head man this season and will be a success...mark it down. Instead, Joel was fixated on a TE coach from the NFL to come and lead his lost program who had been hanging in mediocrity for the last 5-7 years without any sign of moving up. 


Why Brewster? Well, that was an easy question...he's the greatest recruiter in the history of the world, just ask him. First of all, he comes from the mighty Mack Brown legacy, which isn't exactly what I look for in my football coach. Yes, Mack has been very successful, but he's a total figure head kind of coach and his actual coaching ability is a little suspect. Plus he's at TEX, and you must suck if you can't win in TEX. TE Timmy was never a head coach at any level, not even a coordinator...don't you kind of wonder how he even made the first cut of the candidates without having any of these almost mandatory prerequisite experiences? But my god is he a salesman, which is great if your job is to sell TEXAS to kids looking for a place to play. Unfortunately, when you have a great sales pitch but nothing to back it up, like we have here for the last 4 years, the great salesman angle just starts to get down right annoying. Did you hear him this week? "We're 3 plays away from being a 4-0 team right now." What!?! You've been routed twice, and the close game you lost was to USD!! There's a time to be positive, but this is not one of them. We've sucked so far, and you need to admit that and get angry and find a way to make it change. I'm sure we all trust him to do that, right?

But the thing that bothers me the most with this guy isn't even his arrogant salesman style, it's his hypocritical and fickle mind that has no idea what the hell he wants to do. I have about 5 major examples of this, and the most recent just happened this week. So remember the whole Stoudermire controversy? Well, it comes out now that the reason he wanted to bail was that they asked him to move to DB. A little background in case you're not familiar with TS, he was lightly recruited out of HS as a DB but was a HS QB, switched to WR/RB early in his freshman year in our spread offense, became a starting WR last year, now is being asked to switch back to DB at the 25% point of his JUNIOR year. I would be pissed too! How do you not classify a guy to a spot and let him actually develop there? Well, it's because he's absolutely clueless.


How about our offensive philosophy? He came into a team with one of the best running games in the nation and decided we need to run the spread because it's the future of NCAA football. So we try to recruit a billion WR's and get this high-powered speed attack with our power players...wait, that didn't work great. By year 3 TE Timmy decided we need to "pound the rock" and just by saying that it will magically happen...then let's hire an OC from the NFL with super complex schemes who is looking to move up the ladder in the NFL but finding no takers at this point. Well, that offense really didn't work either. Now we've come full circle back to a Mason like offensive plan, only we have a much less effective running game. Not a bad 4 year run, 3 drastically different plans, 3 different OC's in 4 years. Nice plan Timmy.


Defense? Well, in his first year we were the worst defense in the nation when we were trying to run pro schemes and getting torched by everyone on our way to 1-11. For year 2 we were preaching simplicity, and we saw improvement with DC #2. Then he bolts for AUB and we need to find our 3rd DC in 3 years. Enter WIS/NEB reject Kevin Cosgrove. With a boatload of seniors last season the defense was adequate. I honestly thought our D has been better as a whole under Brew than it was under Mase. But then comes this season, and I realize we are young, but there is no way it should be this bad. We have year 2 of a DC for the 1st time under Brew, but our numbers are actually much worse than they were in 2007 (1-11!!) when we were the worst defense in the nation! Youth is one thing, but not having any kind of fundamental ability is just unexcusable.


Which brings me to another pair of great quotes from TE Timmy the hypocrite: 2007 when he took over before the 1-11 meltdown year, "The cupboard is not bare here, we have enough here right now to be a good team and win." Fast forward to the end of the year and you get the salesman retracting that and going with, "we didn't have much to work with, but MY recruiting will surely fix this problem ASAP." The before this season, knowing he has no excuse for sucking this bad, he came out with the claim before the season that, "youth will not be an excuse for poor play," but sure enough, as soon as the USD loss, "well, we're very young and improving." Which is it? How long do you need to build this magical power program that you speak of? Seriously, you are playing with 99% of your recruits at this point and we have zero results. 


To his credit, I think the recruiting and talent level has improved drastically since his hire, but the problem is doing something with this talent. For comparison, Mase was a D recruiter but brought these guys up to become a C level team. Brew is a C+ recruiter, but the lack of any coaching ability leads us to become a D level team. So I think we've gotten to the bottom of what counts for more...better players or better coaches.


How about this novel idea...let's hire a guy who can do both! Now clearly, MN is not a destination job at this point, but neither was WIS about 20 years ago and now look at those bastards. The bottom line is that Joel got duped by a great salesman, and now he's paying for it. If the club loses to NW this weekend and then gets housed at WIS I think that will be it. Any more embarassment this season will end this ugly 4 year run before we even welcome the Hogeyes into TCF for the 1st time. I honestly believe that an ugly pair of losses to start the B10 will force Joel or Bruiniks or whoever is running the show over there to make a statement and fire him immediately before total chaos ensues. Firing a coach in OCT during a lost season is not a big deal. It actually allows you enough time to find a suitable replacement, which really is the only thing worth talking about regarding Gopher Football at this point. 


We'll save the memorable moments montage until the actual change takes place, but I don't see any way that he survives this season. So the attention turns to what is next. I think it's time to get serious about our football program and actually try and play with the big boys and act like a B10 team. Brew is getting $1M per year, obviously, they low balled it because they had to make up for the miserable Mason extension mistake from the year before firing him. So we've been paying 2 coaches for most of Brew's tenure, but now that's over. Maturi made a brilliant move by giving him the bogus extension last season for a reduced buy out, which is just bizarre that Brew would agree to this knowing in his heart he can't coach. So the firing will cost the U basically nothing. Now is the time to go out and get yourself in the middle of the B10 instead of the bottom for a coach...salary wise. If you pay enough, you can get what you want. Ferentz makes over $3M/year in Iowa. I don't think you have to get this outrageous...although I would do it for Chris Petersen or someone of that ilk. I'm starting to compile a realistic list which isn't ready for primetime yet, but I think they have 2 potential courses of action.


1) Hire a current head coach from a smaller school who has star potential. Throw some big $$$ at a guy that you are 100% convinced can be our guy for the next 12 years. Obviously, this takes some major work in getting through the BS and figuring out who is the perfect fit. I think hiring some kind of advisement for this would be a minimal step. Talk to guys who have had success and guys who worked for other great coaches and great programs as coordinators before getting their 1st gig. Your coach has to have a specialty (offense or defense) and he has to be able to understand the problems and how to fix them...a fatal flaw for TE Timmy. 


2) Go for the star coordinator. This is riskier, but it can be just as effective if you find the right guy. You need to look at programs you respect and coaches you respect and want to model your team after, then raid their staff and start building your team. Again, all this is very possible with the magical allure of $$$. We are a B10 team with a brand new stadium and a current team full of athletic guys just looking for a little guidance and coaching. Not a terrible situation to get into if you have aspirations of being a head coach someday.


Sorry for the uber long post, but it's a lot of thoughts I've been sitting on for a while (since USD) and needed to let the world know. Now let's go beat NW on our way to the Rose Bowl!!