Reports say Brewster out as Gopher head grid coach

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MINNEAPOLIS - Tim Brewster will be fired as head football coach at the University of Minnesota. A press conference has been for this afternoon at 1 p.m.

Reports from news outlets in the Twin Cities says Brewester will be fired and offensive coordinator Jeff Horton will coach the team on an interim basis for the rest of the 2010 season. Horton had been a head coach previously at UNLV.

Reported surfaced Friday, leaked from the U's athletic department, which said Brewster had to win Saturday's game at Purdue to keep his job at least until the end of the season. The Golden Gophers lost 28-17, their sixth straight loss after starting the season with a win at Middle Tennessee State.

Brewster was hired in 2007 to replace Glen Mason, who also was fired after the Gophers lost 38-31 in the Insight.com Bowl to Texas Tech after blowing a 31-7 lead at halftime. In fact, since the U's last Big Ten title in 1967, the Gophers have gone through eight head coaches and only two, Murray Warmath, who retired at the end of the 1971 season after 18 years on the job, and Lou Holtz, who took the Notre Dame job in 1985, were not fired.

Brewster's overall record as head coach was 15-30. He took the Gophers to two bowl games but also led them through their worst season in school history in 2007 at 1-11 overall and became the first Golden Gopher coach since 1898 to lose three non-conference games at home. He had been an assistant in the NFL and with Mack Brown at both North Carolina and Texas in college but had never been a head coach except on the high school level nor a coordinator before being hired by the U.

Rob Henry scored three rushing touchdowns and threw for another in Purdue's win Saturday at home.

Henry, making just his second career start, was 13-of-20 through the air for the Boilermakers (4-2, 2-0 Big Ten) for 163 yards. He also carried the ball 17 times for 57 yards, while Dan Dierking picked up a career-high 126 rushing yards on just 12 carries to help Purdue win for the fourth time in its last five outings.

Adam Weber was 20-of-45 through the air for the Golden Gophers (1-6, 0-3), finishing with 214 yards and two touchdowns. However, Weber was also intercepted twice in the loss. Da'Jon McKnight caught six passes for 123 yards and a touchdown for Minnesota.

Henry got the Boilermakers on the scoreboard when he scored from four yards out with 5:58 left in the opening period. Purdue extended its advantage to 14-0 when Henry scored from a yard out to cap a short drive that was set up by a bad snap on a Minnesota punt.Henry found Antavian Edison with a 20-yard touchdown pass to put Purdue up 21-0 with 8:42 left in the third quarter.

Minnesota finally got on the board on Eric Ellestad's 35-yard field goal with exactly five minutes left in the period. The Golden Gophers got closer on Weber's 11-yard pass to Bryant Allen with 12:17 left in the game.

Henry countered for Purdue with a three-yard run with 7:09 left in regulation before Weber found McKnight with a 31-yard scoring strike with exactly three minutes left.

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