So now Glen Mason–he of the 32-48 Big Ten record and eighth-, seventh- and sixth-place conference finishes the last three years–is not the visionary who will rewrite Minnesota’s torpid football history?
So today Glen Mason–whose teams twice have rushed for 400 yards in a game and lost, whose undefeated 2003 club infamously blew a 21-point fourth-quarter lead to Michigan at home–is not a proficient game-day manager?
Only on the last day of 2006, two days after the biggest collapse in Division I-A bowl history, did Mason’s reign become untenable. The school fired him Sunday, 48 hours after the Gophers blew a 31-point lead against Texas Tech in the Insight Bowl, one year to the day after presenting him with a new five-year contract.
But not until Mason became responsible for two of the top four bowl implosions–lest we forget the disintegration of a 24-point lead in the 2000 MicronPC.com Bowl–did he deserve banishment from the tundra? The logic is as smooth as Braille.
“If we had not lost the way we lost,” athletics director Joel Maturi said of the Insight defeat, “we probably wouldn’t be here today.”
Mason deserved to go, his performance hardly corresponding to his arrogance as the self-perceived Man Who Saved Minnesota Football. He has credibility as a program-fixer, but he clearly could lead the Gophers no further.
But that preponderance of evidence existed in December 2005, as Mason’s contract ran out. As usual, a tough decision paralyzed Maturi. It bought basketball coach Dan Monson seven games this year after he should have been fired last March, laying waste to a season.
Now it gives the new football coach one less year of building before Minnesota’s on-campus stadium debuts in 2009.
Mason did not deserve to be around for that grand opening. Everyone, except anyone with the ability to do something about it, knew that last December.
