Fisch needs to be fired... Brewster needs to stay (for now)

In an effort to pull my good friend 'Just Jake' back from the ledge a bit, I've crafted this semi-counterpoint post to his POV.

We all saw the absolutely awful offensive performance the Gophers had on display Saturday. As putrid as the SDSU game was, this was even worse in some ways, because we knew we couldn't rely on the defense to completely win this game for us. The offense HAD to do something to get us to overcome the apparently overwhelming task of scoring more than 12 points. They didn't. They left our defense out to dry once again, with turnovers, 3 and outs, and poor execution.. How can our offense have become such a liability that I'd rather see us run the ball 3 times and punt, and give our defense a chance to score, than cringe at another turnover?

JJ holds Brewster responsible, as he was the one who hired Jedd Fisch, won't bench Weber, and can't get our WRs consistently involved in the offense. This is fair, but the reality is these are the growing pains we've had to face with hiring a man to run our football program who has had no head coaching experience. Coach Brewster has obviously made his biggest mistakes in his task of hiring effective coordinators. Its been a revolving door for his entire tenure.

But lets be honest about things, these mistakes have primarily been on the offensive side of the ball. His hiring of Ted Roof as defensive coordinator last season was outstanding. Roof improved our defense by leaps and bounds. Roof left for a better opportunity at Auburn after 2008, and that can hardly be blamed on Brewster. His hiring of Cosgrove, and the promotion of Ronnie Lee to co-defensive coordinator seems to have been a solid hire as well. But the offense is another story. The 'wunderkind' Jedd Fisch was brought in to replace Mike Dunbar, and has ties with Brewster from his Denver Broncos days. He also has no experience as a collegiate offensive coordinator. And if you review his credentials, they are pretty slim. Lots of work other under good coaches (NFL), but that's it. That's pretty much what Brewster's resume was coming in too, making it all the more of a blunder. When Brewster hired Mike Dunbar in 2007 to run the offense, I felt good that he was handing the reins of the offense to a sage veteran. This was the right call for a new head coach with no experience. He then 'pulled a Fisch' and hired Everett Withers, which obviously didn't work out. It would appear he has rectified his mistake of hiring an inexperienced coordinator on defense. But he somehow found a way to repeat his mistake on Withers with Fisch. If you believe that this is an unforgivable repeated mistake, then Brewster should be fired, here and now - so that he can't further repeat mistakes. I am not in this camp (and I'll get to why momentarily).

However, Fisch should be terminated no later than the close of whatever bowl game we end up in (and possibly sooner if the right candidate comes along, as we have a month and some change to implement a few components of a new offense). Fisch needs to be let go for 6 simple reasons:

1.) His inability to give the offense any kind of identity.

2.) His complete and utter lack of quality control (stupid penalties, poor execution, etc.).

3.) Adam Weber's regression and messing with his throwing motion.

4.) Ineffective and predictable use of MarQueis Gray (Gray threw what - maybe 10 passes all year?)

5.) Failure to effectively game plan for specific opponents, and find exploitable weaknesses.

6.) Failure to use our biggest weaknesses, and turn them to occasional success (poor pass blocking = runs screen passes)

Now, I realize that it can be tough to run an offense when the O-line doesn't allow for much at all to work, (and for that perhaps Tim Davis should be let go too), and I list these things, knowing full well that Brewster has major culpability in all this. However, he should NOT be fired until at least being allowed to finish the 2010 season for the following reasons:

1.) Recruiting - Brew has only 2 full classes of his players in house now, and only a few contributed this season. By all accounts his upcoming class is solid again. He needs to land this next class in full, and start getting his players on the field in 2010.

2.) His D-coordinator hires. Roof, Cosgrove, and the promotion of Lee were all solid moves. And despite all the seniors on the defense, I think our D can be even better next year with some continuity in coordinators. Tinsley, Cooper, Carter, Edwards, Kirksey, Wilhite, etc. will be excellent players with some more coaching up.

3.) It's too soon - he needs at least one more season to get things turned. Let's be honest - this season isn't a disaster. No it didn't follow the blueprint that we might have envisioned, but we still made a bowl game. Next year is the reason to react if Brewster doesn't get that signature win, or improve the play on the offensive side of the ball. Worst case scenario, he's got 3 talented recruit classes in for the next coaching staff to work with.

Now IF Brewster brings back Fisch, or IF he again hires a completely ineffectual new offensive coordinator for 2010, then all bets are off. There is absolutely no reason that the offense can't be resurrected for next year with a new offensive coordinator, given the players we have at the skill positions. However, I will follow up on this claim, with some hard research to see what other 1st year O-coordinators have had success, and what their situations were. If the offense can't be improved next season, then I'll be calling for Brewster's head as loudly as anyone else at that point.

Just my $0.02. So really, JJ and I are in agreement that 2010 is the year where it all comes to a head. We're just coming at it from different angles - he's placing more blame on Brew now, and I'm displacing it to Fisch for the moment.