mason fired after minnesota loses

3 very good NFL RB's in league (Barber, Maroney, Tapea FB Phil)
Utecht TE at Indy, Sedestrom starting LG St. Louis, Eslinger and Ben Hamilton OL with Broncos, will have another TE playing next year with Speath. Plus Mason graduated kids and turned the program into a respectable program compared to what it used to be. He was just not able to turn the corner and maintain a solid recruiting base with defensive players.

Mason's buyout would of been larger if he got fired in 2007 as well.

2 coaches of major sports who were under contract fired in the same year....hmmmmmmm...if I'm a Minnesota taxpayer, I would be pretty P.O.ed! What is the cost to taxpayers for the buyout of both of those guys going to be?

It is stories like these that make JoePa and Bowden of FSU all the more special.

With cases going on like Mason's, we are never going to see another JoePa or Bowden.

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D1A athletic programs have to be self funded throught revenue and boosters. this is why when boosters want some one fired and threaten to take their money, the ad does what he is told.

the only think the taxpayers pay for is benefit packages like health care and the like. some schools do not even offer retirement to their assistant coaches.

Did Mason deserve to be fired? I would probably say yes. Has he been good for Minnesota football? Yes. He brought respectability back to the program that was not winning any Big 10 games 10-15 years ago. Was he able to turn the corner and become a consistent top 25 team? No way. He did his job here. He made football important at the Univ of Minnesota again. It does not matter who the next coach is. The next step is for the admin and board of regents to step up and increase funding so good assistant coaches can be hired. So the recruiting budget allows for the coaches to fly all over the country to find the athletes they need to compete. I hope the new on campus stadium will allow these things to happen. Look at Rutgers. Look what happened when the school funded the crap out of the program. Made a nice run this year and put a very good football team on the field.

Mason was a good guy who brought respectability to the U of M football program. He had success, but just not enough of it. There were ample opportunities for him to turn the corner and make the Gophers a top tier big 10 team. The fact of the matter is that it just never happened. IMHO, he was at the end of the road. He had every opportunity to take the next step and it just never happened. As a gopher fan, I appreciate what he did for Gopher football and wish him the best of luck. At the same time, whoever they hire I hope he can build on the success that Mason had and turn the Gophers into a top tier big 10 team.

Who can Minnesota over take to break into the top tier of the Big Ten?

Good examples, listening to talk shows while they were here, all that was talked about was the lack of support for the Gophers. They pointed to the fact that there were only 2 newspaper writers here in AZ, and one was from the student newspaper.

I think that Minnesota made a terrible mistake. It's a hard place to win for a number of reasons and Mason has won there consistently. It's true that the've never had that big, breakout season but you just have to keep plugging and those seasons come when they come. With their recruiting base, facilities, and resources ($$$$$) schools like Texas don't have to wait for that big year. Minnesota does.

A limited recruiting base (according to the ESPN Rate the States article, 16 D.1 players last year), seemingly poor administrative support, and it's a tough sell for out-of-state recruits.

Another unjustified firing this year. I put Mason in the same boat as Dan McCarney at Iowa State. They took doormat programs that had just about zero success and tradition over the 40 years before they got there and turned them into consistent bowl teams. Minnesota, Iowa State these are schools that are tough to win at. If it was easy to win at these places then the coaches before them would have. Mason certainly didn't deserve to get fired, and breaking into the top tier of Big 10 football isn't realisitic on a year to year basis. As phantom said they can have a breakout year here or there, but it isn't going to happen consistently at Minnesota.

Coach Mason raised the bar - no doubt! There are several issues that he brought on himself though. First, the collapses and there have been many. I believe the big one was the Michigan collapse. That was their chance to turn their biggest corner. It was a defensive collapse and horrendous offensive thought process to run out the clock for an entire half vs. Michigan. Coach Mason had a "slim to none" rating for his relationship with the MN high school football coaches. He was good at burning bridges and then blaming everyone else. (Remember, they lost to Michigan, couldn't regroup the next week vs. Michigan St and then blamed the fans that they didn't get to go to the Alamo Bowl that year!!) 1 or 2 highly respected assistants did a great job of keeping the relationship alive with the MN high school coaches despite Coach Mason. Another example is their spring clinic. Poor attendance with minimal effort on their part. I'll throw it out there that he is not a treat to work for. Look at the turnstile of assistants that have been through during his tenure, especially defensive assistants. Look at how many took lesser jobs to leave. Lastly, defense! They were good for a only a couple of years (a few years back) and then were never able to get close to that again. As far as the Texas Tech game, deer in the headlight play calling once again, and the law of averages says Texas Tech will erupt at some point when you are 115th in the country in defense! Being a national embarrassment on every sports show wasn't going to help recruiting! Lastly, he tried to leave twice (The OSU job was understandable), and then last year wanted to be paid at a level of being in the top 4 coaches in the Big 10.