Smiling upon the WAC/MWC aftermath (old BR)

With reports coming out that Utah State and San Jose State are looking to be offered membership in the Mountain West Conference, let’s look at the options for the WAC.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson stated recently that Utah Valley, Cal State Bakersfield, and Seattle are non-football candidates for membership, and the San Antonio Express-News’ Dan McCarney listed Louisiana-Lafayette, Lamar, Sam Houston, UC-Davis, Portland State and Cal Poly as possibilities.  Benson is also expected to make “fresh runs” at North Texas and Montana, with Montana State a possibility for consideration as a package deal with the Griz.

That is twelve schools to team up with Idaho, New Mexico State, Texas State, UT-San Antonio, Denver, and Louisiana Tech.  This new “core six” is a great deal for Texas State and UTSA.  Either school can fly into El Paso and drive an hour to Las Cruces.  Denver’s a plane hop as well.  Louisiana Tech’s location in Ruston or Idaho’s in Moscow are not easy jaunts, but think about how hard they are for each other to get to.

What if Benson convinced Lamar and UNT to join the conference?  That puts a six team division of Texas State, UT-San Antonio, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, Lamar, and North Texas into realistic terms.  The travel is sustainable for everyone’s fan base and creates easy rivalries.

Up north, lets say Benson gets membership agreements with Montana, Montana State, and Portland State.  I’m going to throw a wild card in and say he invites Idaho State or Eastern Washington to placate Idaho.  Better yet, Benson invites both and ignores the California market.  It sounds weak on paper but having a division of Idaho, Idaho State, Montana, Montana State, Portland State, and Eastern Washington facing a Texas-centric South works.  Idaho can dominate immediately in football and will always have EWU and the Montana schools nipping at their heels.

I like how the WAC can add Denver and Seattle for basketball in this scenario.  We can do 12/14 easily with Denver going south and Seattle going north.  I don’t think it’s the end of the world with USU and SJSU leaving – it’s more of an opportunity.

the Darren Carlson interview (old BR)

BobcatReport.com interviewed Darren Carlson, editor of BigRedNetwork.com, and he was gracious enough to give us some background on Shawn Watson.  Watson is a candidate for the open Texas State head coaching position and has been coaching at Nebraska since 2006.  In 2007, he was promoted to offensive coordinator.

Jack: Would a Texas State hire of Watson be something to celebrate for Nebraska?  Everyone hates their OC a couple of times a year, and I watched the OU and A&M games.

Carlson: Among fans, yes. Absolutely. At this point, his popularity among the fan base is at an all-time low. The tail end of the season was not pretty, particularly the Holiday Bowl.

 To be fair, the guy has a pretty solid track record for offensive performance while the OC under Pelini the last three years. In 2008, when equipped with a good passer and receivers, the offense performed well carried the team. In 2009, Pelini has admitted that they decided mid-season to go into a shell of an offense for more than a few reasons, health and depth primarily. In 2010 – when you look at the whole season – it’s a mixed bag. The offense powered Nebraska to vital wins over very good teams from Oklahoma State and Missouri. Yes, the A&M and OU games were ugly. The Holiday Bowl was atrocious. People tend to remember the last thing they saw. Some of that poor play hinges on the quality of the defense as well as players – quarterback in particular – executing.

The criticism with Watson hinges on the lack of an offensive “identity”. NU has tried to be many things in recent years. West Coast, power running, spread passing, spread running. Some of it has worked. Some of it has flopped. Husker fans desire a change because they desire consistency, if that makes sense.

 

Jack:  What’s he like as a person?

 

Carlson: He’s sharp. He’s smart. He’s well liked, good with the media and generally very articulate. When he talks, he sounds like a head coach. Heck, the guy just even looks like you expect a head coach to look. This isn’t a situation like Mike Leach or Mark Mangino where the guy involved is also kind of a jerk. Shawn Watson is a good person by every account.

Jack:  How is he as a recruiter?

 

Carlson:  He’s a good recruiter. The same interpersonal warmth that the media sees also carries over to recruits. One of the major concerns among fans if he should leave is that uber-recruit, quarterback Bubba Starling, has expressed such a strong affinity for Shawn Watson.

 

Jack:  Could he be on the hot seat in Lincoln already, with the consecutive Big 12 title game losses and a move coming to the Big Ten?

 

Carlson:  It’s not that he’s on the hot seat. It’s the desire for consistency. That’s pretty well founded. Also, this is Nebraska – people expect results.  The other big, big hangup with Watson is that he is a carryover from the Bill Callahan staff. Anything related to Callahan can be blasphemous among die-hard Huskers.

The Nadine Babu interview (old BR)

Nadine (@nadinebabu) was kind enough to answer some of our questions about Tim Brewster and what happened at Minnesota.   She is a manager and editor for GopherHole.com and writes for the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s blog.  GopherHole.com is the leading fan site for the University of Minnesota’s athletic programs and has been around since 1996.

Jack:  I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but our field at Texas State is named after former Gopher coach Jim Wacker.  He left Minnesota with a similar record to Tim Brewster’s, a top candidate for our vacant head coaching position.  Why is it so hard to win in football at Minnesota?  You have a beautiful new stadium and one of the highest university enrollments in the country.  The Twin Cities are certainly more appealing than Iowa City, for example.  Tubby Smith is your basketball coach so it can’t be money.

Nadine: I actually did not know that, Coach Wacker seemed like a very good man, and was well liked and respected as a person in Minnesota.  Coach Wacker had a .291 winning percent in his 5 seasons, Brewster had .333 in his 4 seasons.  You may be asking the wrong person the question regarding why it’s so hard to win at Minnesota – as I don’t think it’s that hard…even though history proves me wrong.  We live in a fantastic city, and I think when you have recruits visiting here and getting to see all the city offers, vs. just a college town, they are very impressed.  Top that off with a great campus, good academics, and one of the most beautiful stadiums I’ve ever seen (if your readers aren’t as familiar with The Bank, here are some great photos:  http://www.gopherhole.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1013) – you’ve got a a formula for winning.  I think that there does need to be more support to make the football program be successful from both the athletic department as well as the community, but it can happen, and should happen.  Many say that we are hindered by the fact that there are so many other things to do in Minneapolis/St. Paul, from the Vikings to the Wild, the Timberwolves, Twins, etc, but in an area of over 3 million, I think there are plenty of spectators to go around. 

Jack: What were your personal dealings with Brewster like?

 

Nadine: I didn’t have much of a personal relationship or dealings with Tim Brewster. 

Jack: What went so badly wrong to warrant a midseason dismissal?

Nadine: A lot went wrong, dating back much further than this season, but I will focus on this year.  When you begin your 4th season with a 1-6 record, after you’ve had a chance to recruit your own players, and form your staff over the past three years, people expect more than the one win you had during your first year.  Losing to the University of South Dakota (a 1 AA team) had everyone up in arms after the home opener at TCF Bank…obviously the NIU loss (where our current coach Jerry Kill camed from) was another rough one, but I think what put the nail in the coffin was the Wisconsin game.  Obviously, we all thought we’d lose to WI, but we didn’t expect 23-41 game against our biggest rival, it was like the players had given up on him.  After that, it seemed like the decision was made to fire Brewster before the Purdue game, as it was leaked to the press.  I think the biggest issues were losing a fan base that were all calling for his head, booster that were calling for his head, and the fact that in 4 years, we were not improving, but were getting worse.  We had fired Glen Mason, who brought us to medicocrity and made us a contender in the Big 10, only to hit rock bottom.  Now we all hope Coach Kill will take us back to that Mason level, and beyond. 

Jack: I watched the TCU-Wisconsin game (I live in Fort Worth) and realized I’ve never seen Minnesota in the Rose Bowl.  Google told me your last appearance was in 1962.  We have a fairly miserable history ourselves but nothing like that.  What keeps you coming back?

 

Nadine: Haha – you’d be surprised at how many times I’m asked that!  Some call me crazy, I consider myself loyal to the school I attended and loved.  I guess it’s about the Journey.  For example, this past season, going into the Iowa game a 2-9 team vs. a decent Iowa team at 8-4, I doubt there were more than a handful of Minnesota fans that thought we would win that game.  Personally, I wanted to just have a decent showing, and go into next season with a respectable loss.  I’d say about 1/2 of the Gopher fans I knew either gave away or sold their tickets, as it was Thanksgiving weekend, it was cold, and above everything else, they thought there was no chance we’d win.  If you only go to games as a Gopher fan that you think we’re going to win…you will miss a lot of games.  I actually skipped going home for Thanksgiving and attended the game, we tailgated in the cold for hours ahead of the game, and made a day out of it (as always)…and then we won.  We beat Iowa and got the Floyd or Rosedale trophy back, this was the 1st trophy game we’d won in the Tim Brewster era, and it was actually the Jeff Horton short, but sweet, era. I remember thinking that the season was an absolute wash – and I couldn’t have been more wrong.  That game meant so much, for the fans, the players, the coaches.  It felt like we had won the Superbowl!  That’s why I keep coming back, the wins feel that much sweeter after enduring the losses that we’ve had through the years. 

Jack: What did Brewster do right at Minnesota, and what does he need to improve upon to become a successful head coach?

 

Nadine: I really liked that he sold Minnesota.  He didn’t make excuses as to why we couldn’t win here, he said that could recruit here, we could win here, and we could go to the Rose Bowl.  He actually even had grass from the Rose Bowl flown in to motivate the players and see that it was attainable.  Granted, he fell short with his promises, but I do believe he thought we could do it, and we can.  He also did a good job recruiting, his 1st year, he brought in a #17 ranked recruiting class, in 2009 that dropped to #39, and last year we dropped out of the top 50, which were still decent classes.  I think what he needs to do to be successful is become more consistent, and develop his own strategy and plan, vs. what his coordinators bring in.  Many of our players were recruited to run the spread, then we switched to a NFL offensive style with Jedd Fisch, and then Jeff Horton came him and changed up the offense again this year, and was the most successful.  Brewster had a great deal of turnover on his staff, as you could probably expect with a 1st time head coach, hopefully he can keep a core group of talented people around him in his next position, which will help to develop players and the team as a whole.