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Minnesota players share frustration with administration after Tracy Claeys firing

Connor O'Gara

By Connor O'Gara

Published:

In case you were wondering, Minnesota players were less than pleased about their head coach being let go.

The same coach that stood by their side, Tracy Claeys, was fired for doing just that. Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle said that Claeys’ tweet of support of the players’ boycott didn’t help his case.

So fittingly, there were many frustrations shared by Minnesota players.

Some of them were anonymous:

Others had no problem putting their name to any bashing of the administration.

Captain and three-year starting quarterback Mitch Leidner talked about the “sad day for Gopher football.”

“For Coach Claeys to stick by his team through his whole situation and be there for his players, and then for the administration to fire him, it’s sad,” Leidner told the Pioneer Press. “And everybody feels the same way. It’s hard for me to think that another coach would want to come coach here with the way the administration has acted throughout this whole thing.”

It remains to be seen who will take over for Claeys, though candidates have been thrown around.

Leidner doesn’t envy Claeys’ replacement.

“I feel bad for him once he gets here,” Leidner said of the next coach. “I feel bad he has to deal with what other coaches have had to deal with.”

As for current Minnesota players, many of them echoed what the anonymous underclassman said. They shared their unfiltered thoughts about the administration on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/connerolson6/status/816407308406243328

https://twitter.com/_PhillipHoward/status/816405059797925888

https://twitter.com/Cmoe34/status/816404112141127684

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.