Coming in 2nd in the Big 8 when Oklahoma was terrible isn't that great of an accomplishment. They had a good team in '95, no question, but there wasn't much competition. They did beat Colorado, but got beat by Nebraska 41-3 and K-State 41-7. (Granted, Nebraska beat all of their opponents by an average of 37 points that year.) But still, they only won 1 of the 3 big games they played that year.
Their non-conference schedule that year was Cincy, UNT, TCU, and Houston. Not very stellar, especially in 1995.
http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/cfr/cf ... ansas.html
No doubt Mason is a good guy. I know he is respected in the coaching fraternity, but for the life of me, I don't understand why. (Kevin Cosgrove is too, and he obviously
ruined the defenses at Wisconsin and Nebraska.)
Except for that one year, KU football was a joke in the Big 8 throughout his tenure there. Fat Mangino has done far more for KU football than Mason could have ever hoped for (although he has also benefited from an incredibly weak schedule, Nebraska and Colorado sucking, and no OU or UT on the schedule this year too.)
Mason came in 5th (out of eight) in the Big 8 the two years prior to his 10-2 year, and 9th (out of twelve) in the Big 12 the following year. Iowa State was a bigger threat than Kansas for many of the years he was at KU.
He only went better than .500 in conference play 2 times in both the Big 8 and the Big 10, and was never able to sustain the small amount of success he had. He has overall losing records in both conferences as well (Big 8: 25-37; Big 10: 32-48 )
I know he was coaching in difficult situations, but he had more than enough time to turn both programs around and didn't succeed. (Although I don't really consider KU and Minnesota difficult coaching situations though. No more difficult of locations to recruit to and no tougher academic standards than their competitors, and both universities are totally dedicated to their athletic programs--only thing going against those programs are historical losing records.)
I just don't think that him being at Minnesota was the problem. Minnesota isn't inherently unable to win in the Big 10. Northwestern is, and Barnett was able to pull it off. Illinois was worse off than Minnesota, and Zook may have pulled it off--(we'll see if he can sustain it.)
Minnesota is a big school in a cool city with weather that is no worse than in Madison, Ann Arbor, or East Lansing. They have easier admission standards than Northwestern, Michigan, and Illinois. I don't know how the athletic facilities compare, etc., but he shouldn't have had trouble recruiting kids there compared to Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, etc. if he was that great of a coach. He just flat out didn't make them that much more competitive, IMO.
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:47 pm