Jim Souhan: Brewster's rhetoric is a little heavy, but passion is real

Sure, there's hype, but nothing is lost in translation when Tim Brewster is drilling home points to his charges.

By Jim Souhan, Star Tribune

Last update: August 29, 2007 - 12:17 AM

Tim Brewster held his first game-week news conference as the Gophers football coach on Tuesday. If superlatives were water, we would have all needed waders.

"Coach Brew" belted out his depth chart like a town crier. For those scoring at home, he used the word "tremendous" 13 times, "great" 21 times, "exciting" six times, "special" eight times, "passion" six times, "very" 16 times, "good" 12 times and outstanding "11 times.

Twice he called his special teams "special forces," and then he invented the word "veryvery." Four days away from his debut against Bowling Green, Brewster sounded like he was gearing up for the Super Bowl.

In the absence of a head coaching record at any level, we've been able to judge him only on his "tremendous passion" and "veryvery" gregarious style.

Those who like Brewster call him a salesman similar to Mack Brown, his boss at North Carolina and Texas. Those who don't like him call him a salesman similar to former Gophers coach Jim Wacker.

Listen to Brewster speak publicly, and the Wacker comparison rings true. Visit one of his practices, and the comparison becomes invalid.

You can find Brewster chasing down Ernie Wheelwright, the senior receiver, to chastise him for dropping passes.

"I've been in his pocket since Day 1, pushing him and seeing that he does the things necessary to be a consistent football player," Brewster said. "I know on Saturday night he'll enjoy not having me there."

You can find Brewster upbraiding return men who drop punts, and linebackers slow to recognize plays.

Near the end of two-a-days, during a live scrimmage, the offense and defense got into an extended brawl. Brewster directed his assistant coaches to break it up, then screamed at the players, making them run sprints to the point of exhaustion. "He sent a message to us that day," said senior center Tony Brinkhaus.

There are a lot of messages sent to players during Gophers practices these days, and a lot of them can't be printed in a family newspaper.

Brewster runs a tough practice. Salty offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar looks like he was sent from central casting. Defensive coordinator Everett Withers not only teaches his players new words, he seems quite capable of creatively conjugating each of them.

It's too early to tell if Brewster will ever make good on his promise to take his players to the Rose Bowl, but he's already expanded their vocabularies.

"You've got to be somebody different when you're on the football field," Brewster said. "Off the field, obviously, you've got to be a calmer, more collective type of individual. But to play the game of football, to coach the game the way it should be coached, your mind-set needs to go somewhere different.

"One thing I learned from Mike Shanahan, more than anything, is when you look at a weakness, you've got to be absolutely ruthless in attacking that weakness."

Brewster worked for Brown, Shanahan and Marty Schottenheimer, but that's no reason to compare him to them, just as we have no valid reason for comparing him to Wacker.

Minnesota sports fans should know by now that comparisons are inevitable but odious. Koren Robinson is not Cris Carter, Brad Childress is not Andy Reid, and Brewster is not Jim Wacker, not even when he's telling us he's "veryvery excited" about playing Bowling Green.

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon on AM-1500 KSTP. • jsouhan@startribune.com