Patrick Reusse: Gophers have come full circle

The modern era for Gophers football started four decades ago. An exact date can be provided: Sept. 20, 1969. The game was played in Tempe, Ariz., and the final score was Arizona State 48, Gophers 26.

This was the night when coach Murray Warmath and followers of his team discovered that power was becoming obsolete and speed would soon be the deciding factor in big-time college football.

Arizona State still was a Western Athletic Conference team in 1969. Jim Carter, the big fullback from South St. Paul, plunged through the Sun Devils defense time and again, and still the Gophers -- with defensive backs who were two steps slow -- eventually were run off the field.

Thirty-seven years later, the Gophers were again playing in Tempe, in an event called the Insight Bowl. They built a 38-7 lead, then the defensive backs were beaten to every ball, and Texas Tech rallied for a 44-38 victory in overtime.

Within hours, U of M President Robert Bruininks and Athletic Director Joel Maturi had decided to change a Gophers football coach for the seventh time since Warmath walked off the ASU field with a neon warning sign flashing through his cranium: SPEED KILLS!

The first change came after the 1971 season in which the Gophers were 4-7 overall and 3-5 in the Big Ten. The average announced attendance for six games in Memorial Stadium was 36,000.

Warmath was moved aside and Athletic director Paul Giel hired Cal Stoll, a former Gopher who had been at Wake Forest for three seasons. Stoll was a coach with a salesman's personality and also a reputation as an outstanding recruiter.

Unfortunately for Stoll, this was a time when Minnesotans had decided what was needed on the sidelines was stoicism. The Vikings had gone to a first Super Bowl after the 1969 season. We were giving Bud Grant's steely gaze as much credit for this budding NFC dynasty as we were the Purple People-Eaters.

There's only one way to judge the Gophers' post-Warmath coaches: Big Ten record.

You can't cite overall record because of the change in recent times to cupcake nonconference schedules. You can't cite numbers of bowl games because we've gone from a handful when Stoll was hired to 32 after this season.

Stoll was 27-29 in seven Big Ten seasons. He finished in the first division five times. He was fired after a 48-10 drubbing at Wisconsin in the 1978 season finale.

"I can't sell him to the public anymore," Giel said that afternoon.

Joe Salem was next. He was a well-loved backup quarterback on the Gophers' first Rose Bowl team in 1960.

Smoky Joe was going to bring the excitement of an exotic passing attack. His first staff included a dynamic young offensive coach named Mike Shanahan.

Salem was working with poor facilities and a ridiculously low budget for assistants. Shanahan left after one season.

Salem did have a monumental victory over Ohio State near the end of this third season. The Gophers started the 1982 schedule with victories over Ohio, Purdue and Washington State, with a scoring margin of 134-24.

They were rated 19th in the country and a crowd of 63,684 showed up in the brand-new Metrodome for a night game against Illinois. The leading Illini receiver going into the game was tight end Tim Brewster.

The Gophers collapsed in the fourth quarter and lost 42-24. "It was a tough night at Black Rock," a disappointed Salem said.

Black Rock got worse. Smoky Joe lost 18 of his final 19 games.

The Gophers needed a builder and a salesman. Harvey Mackay and other boosters delivered the best around: Lou Holtz. For his two seasons, and only those two in the past 38 years, the Gophers were more important on the Minnesota sports scene than the Vikings.

Holtz left for Notre Dame, and this time Mackay and friends had Maryland's Bobby Ross lined up. The administration allowed the players and, to some degree, the local media to pick the coach: John Gutekunst, Holtz's popular defensive coordinator.

Gutey had some moments, but five years later, the Gophers were in last place and it was time for another coach.

The Gophers tried to replicate the loquacious Holtz by hiring Jim Wacker from TCU. Coach Wacky had Lou's talent for talking but not for coaching. Bottom line: disaster.

Come December 1996, the Gophers were searching for a coaching pro, not a big personality. Athletic director Mark Dienhart came up with Mason, the coach at Kansas.

He was competent but his popularity rating never got much higher than, maybe, John Kerry's.

It took a decade but the low likeability factor mixed with a number of amazing defeats cost Mason his job. He was fired Dec. 31, two days after the last of those defeats in Tempe.

Now comes Brewster, the former Illini tight end and known (to the several people who know him) for high energy, an outgoing personality and a big ability to recruit.

That means, a half-dozen coaches later, we're back to Cal Stoll, which in retrospect is not all bad.

Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. • preusse@startribune.com