Change Has Come to "Gopher Nation"

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeIt's been 50 years since the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers last won a national championship in football.  And it's been almost that long since the program has been anything but mediocre, with coaches coming and going, promising a Big Ten title and a Rose Bowl but could only deliver on postseason trips to Phoenix or Nashville.

The latest coach to lead the Gopher faithful down the primrose path and getting burned is Tim Brewster, who had the dubious honor of being the first to get fired midway through the season.  His replacement, at least temporarily, is offensive coordinator Jeff Horton.

Brewster, who was hired with no previous head coaching experience (he was an assistant with the NFL Denver Broncos), certainly proved himself to be a motivator and a recruiter.  As a coach, not so much.

The Gophers won their opening game this season against Middle Tennessee State, then dropped the next six.  You don't lose to smaller schools such as South Dakota and Northern Illinois--at home, no less--and expect to keep your job.  After the loss to Purdue, university officials apparently decided enough was enough.

Overall, Brewster's teams were 15-30 with a bowl appearance or two sandwiched into a four-year period.  Of importance to Gopher fans, if not to anybody else, is that Brewster failed to win any of the so-called "trophy games" against their Big Ten rivals:  the Floyd of Rosedale against Iowa, the Axe against Wisconsin, and the Little Brown Jug against Michigan.  Of course, the Gophers have trouble winning these "trophies" no matter who the coach is.

Now the search begins for a new coach for the 2011 season.  Presumably, the ideal candidate should have had prior head coaching experience and have an excellent track record.  Tony Dungy, we hear, is reportedly not interested.

There are some who believe that Athletic Director Joel Maturi, the man who hired Brewster and who is on the hot seat himself, shouldn't be involved in the decision-making this time.  But he did bring in Tubby Smith, the man who led Kentucky to a national title in 1998, to be his men's basketball coach.

Ultimately, though, it takes more than a new coach or a new stadium to bring back the days of Bernie Bierman, Paul Giel or Sandy Stephens.  You have to have talent to compete in a conference like the Big Ten (which is adding Nebraska next year), and the Gophers don't have a whole lot of it.  Even high school football stars from Minnesota would rather go elsewhere than play for good ol' Ski-U-Mah.  That's what 50 years of mediocrity can do to a football program at the biggest university in the state.  The next coach has his work cut out for him.