Brewster vs Mase - Who left the program in better shape?

I had no intentions of delving into the pre-Kill era with this blog, but there are some things that are just unavoidable.  I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how much better Tim Brewster left the program in comparison to Glen Mason.  The players now are so much more “athletic” and definitely have more speed I’m told.  Heck, Brewster talked about it every chance he could.

But the reality is that Mase left a pretty decent cupboard for Brew to make a meal, but Mase left ingredients for Italian and Brewster wanted to eat Mexican and later changed his mind to Chinese.  There is no way Mase left a 1 win team.  Even though the two coaches are very dissimilar, they both have some commonalities.  Both were let go after finally landing that elusive #1 recruit in Minnesota, both were really hoping that a high profile transfer was going to help them out on defense and an unproven (but highly anticipated) QB would lead the offense.

Brew is leaving the Gophers with a hodge podge collection of recruits for varying offensive and defensive schemes.  When looking at the proven talent on both teams you can point to Dajon McKnight and Eric Lair for Brew compared to Dom Jones, Dom Barber, Steve Davis, Wilie Van De Steeg and Tony Brinkhaus for Mase.  Senior starters that were not proven studs that Brew left include Gary Tinsley, Brandon Kirksey, Jewhan Edwards, Troy Stoudermire and Chris Bunders where Mase left Ernie Wheelwright, Mike Sherels, Deon Hightower and Steve Shidell.

Players that had promise but hadn’t proven it over more than a handful of games are Marquies Gray, Keanon Cooper, Michael Carter, Lamonte Edwards, Ed Olson, Brendon Beal, Jimmy Gjere and Tommy Olson.  Compare that list to Eric Decker, Alex Daniels, Keith Massey, Nate Triplett, Otis Hudson, Ray Henderson, Jack Simmons, Adam Weber, Marcus Sherels, Amir Pinnix and Eric Small.

Some of you may be thinking that this still favors Brew and perhaps some of you think this makes things pretty even.  It’s easy to be cut and dry with Mase’s leftovers because you know how their careers ended up.  Guys like Ray Henderson, Amir Pinnix Tommy Becker and Sean McWhirter didn’t pan out while guys like Triplett and Otis Hudson were both drafted in the 5^th round of the 2010 NFL draft.  It remains to be seen how well Brew’s talented hopefuls perform on the gridiron.

What sets the two apart in my opinion, are the incoming recruiting classes that each was bringing in before they were let go.  Brew’s class is still fresh in our mind and wasn’t anything special.  Mase’s verbal commitments at the time of his dismissal included future All-American LB Greg Jones, All-Big Ten DE JJ Watt, 2^nd team All-Pac Ten DB Jerrell Holman, David Gilreath, very athletic JUCO LB Devin Bishop and a handful of JUCO recruits like Durrell Clark-James, Serge Elizee and Eric Tanner that were being brought in to fill the obvious talent voids that either decided to play elsewhere or were run off by Brewster.

So who left the program in better shape?