With the local media already operating under the assumption that he will be gone at the end of the season -- if not sooner -- the latest report regarding Tim Brewster‘s tenuous hold on his Minnesota head coaching job should come as no surprise.
However, the specifics contained in this report -- and the basic lack of silence coming from the school -- points to this weekend as the time the situation reaches critical mass. And Brewster’s Gopher coaching hot seat finally imploding from the heat.
According to ESPN 1500 in Minneapolis, and citing sources with knowledge of the situation, the school will announce Brewster’s firing if the Gophers’ lose to Purdue this Saturday. The sources told the station that on Thursday a press release was drawn up and a media plan devised to move forward if the Gophers lose their sixth straight game Saturday.
At that point, the report states, Brewster would be given the option to either finish the season out or step down immediately. As Brewster’s contract calls for a buyout that doubles if he remains through the end of a season, we suspect the latter option would not be in play.
Of course, this could simply be one of a long line of stories declaring the end of the Brewster regime is nigh. However, further credence has been given to this one by the school neither confirming nor denying the latest round of speculation involving Brewster.
“You know my response” was athletic director Tim Maturi’s response in its entirety to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. A school spokesperson was a little more verbose than his boss, but still managed to do his best Sgt. Schultz in not swatting down the rumors.
“I can’t confirm or deny anything in ESPN 1500’s report. All I can tell you is that Tim Brewster is our head football coach until Joel Maturi or Tim Brewster decide otherwise.”
Those responses stand in stark contrast to just three weeks ago, when rumors surfaced that former Kansas head coach Mark Mangino had been hired by the school as a consultant to Brewster, which touched off speculation that Mangino was waiting in the wings to take over the Gophers. Maturi labeled the report “frustrating” and almost immediately went public in knocking them down.
This time? Meh, not so much.
Based on this latest report, we may not have heard the words “Mangino” and “Minnesota” in the same sentence for the last time. And in a way that Maturi won’t be able to swat away so easily.