Gophers: Like Claeys. Hate process.

I don't hate the hiring of Tracy Claeys.

I hate the University of Minnesota's process.

Claeys is a credible coach. But he was hired not because he had proved that he could do the job, but because Minnesota has no idea how to try to find someone who might be better.

The president, Eric Kaler, has hired one athletic director, and that man was a serial sexual harasser.

The U doesn't have a full-fledged athletic director, yet Beth Goetz was allowed to contribute to this decision.

Hiring a football coach without hiring an athletic director first is the kind of backward thinking that has mired Gopher football and basketball in the second division of Big Ten sports for, oh, 20 or 30 years.

I think an intelligent and thorough process may have led to the hiring of Claeys. But we'll never know.

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