Lou Holtz left the Gophers hanging when he departed a few days after the conclusion of the 1985 regular season. You couldn't blame the little fellow for this decision after coaching 22 games here, since the school making the call was Notre Dame.
There have been five head coaches at Minnesota in the 28 years since Holtz.
John Gutekunst (1986-91) hung in there for a while but wound up overmatched. Jim Wacker (1992-96) had disastrous results. Tim Brewster (2007-2010) was a full-blown disaster before being replaced by interim Jeff Horton with five games left in 2010.
Glen Mason was hired on Dec. 14, 1996, to rally the Gophers from disaster No. 1. Jerry Kill was hired on Dec. 6, 2010, to rally the Gophers from disaster No. 2.
Mason was 46 when hired. Kill was 49 when hired. Both had résumés that indicated they were prepared for the huge task of running a Big Ten football program.
The approach taken — to undersell expectations, rather than super-sell as did Wacker and (especially) Brewster — by Mason and Kill was similar. And after two seasons, the rebuilding path has been close to identical.
Mason's Gophers were 1-7 in the Big Ten and 3-9 overall in 1997. The conference victory was at home vs. Indiana and there was a 22-21 loss to Wisconsin (the first of the heartbreakers that would mark Mason's so-close decade).
Mason's Gophers were 2-6 in the Big Ten and 5-6 overall in 1998. They were missing a fourth nonconference game to make them bowl eligible.