The University of Minnesota fired Gophers football coach Tracy Claeys on Tuesday, Claeys confirmed, as athletic director Mark Coyle reversed course after indicating in late November that Claeys would be back for next season.
After the Gophers upset Washington State in last week's Holiday Bowl, Coyle said in a statement that he and Claeys would "take this opportunity to reflect on this past season before sitting down together to talk about the future and my expectations for our football program."
Claeys flew to Kansas to see his family, and Coyle flew to Idaho with his family, so Tuesday was the first time they were both back in the office.
Speculation is sure to start immediately on who will replace Claeys, with Western Michigan coach P.J. Fleck, former LSU coach Les Miles and Boise State coach Bryan Harsin (a Coyle hire when he worked at Boise State) among the names expected to get tossed around.
Claeys, 48, went 11-8 as Gophers head coach, including 2-0 in bowl games, after replacing Jerry Kill, who resigned for health reasons in October 2015.
The Gophers won nine games this season for the first time since they went 10-3 under Glen Mason in 2003. But the on-field story was eventually overshadowed by the continuing fallout from an alleged Sept. 2 sexual assault.
Hennepin County has twice reviewed the case and declined to press charges, but an internal investigation by the University's office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) led Coyle to suspend 10 players from the team indefinitely on Dec. 13.
Gophers players boycotted all team activities for two days, protesting the administrations handing of the suspensions. Claeys tweeted his support for the players, which publicly aligned him against the administration.
University President Eric Kaler and regents chair Dean Johnson later said they knew Claeys was in a difficult situation. But the scandal continues to hover over the team. The EOAA recommended expulsion for Ray Buford, KiAnte Hardin, Carlton Djam, Dior Johnson and Tamarion Johnson, one-year suspensions for Seth Green, Kobe McCrary, Mark Williams and Antoine Winfield Jr., and probation for Antonio Shenault.
All of the suspended players are scheduled for appeals hearings this month.
Claeys was Kill's longtime defensive coordinator and led the Gophers on a four-game Big Ten winning streak in 2013 as acting coach, while Kill recovered from epileptic seizures. Claeys took over as acting coach again on Oct. 28, 2015, when Kill stepped down, and two weeks later, then-interim AD Beth Goetz made Claeys the new head coach with a three-year, $4.5 million contract.
But the deal included a relatively small buyout _ $250,000 per remaining season, which allowed the University to hire a new athletic director who could then evaluate Claeys before deciding on his future. Coyle came aboard June 1.
The Gophers went 5-4 in the Big Ten this season, blowing second half leads in each of their four losses. Their losses to Penn State, Iowa and Nebraska were all one-possession games.
After watching the Gophers blow a 17-7 halftime lead at Wisconsin in an eventual 31-17 loss, Coyle waited two days before publicly voicing support for Claeys. Coyle released a statement that said: "Our football program has now won eight games in the regular season three times in four seasons. We expect that our program will continue to grow and I am committed to putting us in a position to do so.
"This includes working with Coach Claeys to evaluate where we need to improve and what each of us can do to ensure we meet our expectations."
Sources told the Star Tribune that Coyle had also indicated to Claeys that he and his assistant coaches would be receiving contract extension offers, but extension talks never got off the ground in December, even before the suspensions were announced.
Now, it's unclear what will happen to the assistant coaches, most of whom arrived with Kill before the 2011 season.
Another issue Coyle faces is sagging attendance. The Gophers averaged 43,814 over seven dates at TCF Bank Stadium this past season, their smallest average attendance since 2002.
In 2015, with several higher profile games on the home schedule and before a previously scheduled ticket price increase, the Gophers averaged 52,355.
