Instead of including this with today's Nugz, I thought this deserved its own post: Darren "Doogie" Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities has his Five Names to Watch in the Gophers Coaching Search. With as far along as we are in this process, with Maturi already allegedly sitting down with San Diego State head coach Brady Hoke, it's a pretty good bet that the five guys he mentions could very well be the Final 5: Air Force's Troy Calhoun, Temple's Al Golden, Hoke, Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, and inexplicably, UConn's Randy Edsall. I can't say this strongly enough but allow me to try: if this whole process ends with Edsall as our head coach, then it was a total, complete and utter failure. An abysmal abomination. Not as bad as hiring a career position coach with no coordinator or head coaching experience, but close. I may be overstating it just a tad (who me, exaggerate to make a point? Never!) but I do not understand why Edsall is a solid candidate and why he's even being mentioned. At all.
Calhoun won our officially unofficial Coaching Bracket, defeating Mike Bellotti in the finals, and destroying Brady Hoke along the way.but he didn't go head-to-head with Golden, and both Mullen and Edsall weren't in the bracket (we weren't sure Mullen would be considered and didn't think Edsall should be). We know the fans of TDG love Calhoun, but how will he fare against Golden, Mullen, and the two other guys? Well hey, what better way to find out than with another officially unofficial poll!