Cranes are moving beams, workers are bolting seats.

The architects have come and gone and returned again.

There's this heady bustle surrounding the University of Minnesota's new on-campus, open-air stadium, an inescapable buzz that builds every day.

But the construction work doesn't end there.

On a nearby practice field, Tim Brewster is working on another project, determined to make the Golden Gophers Rose Bowl-worthy by the time TCF Bank Stadium opens next fall.

After a 1-11 record in his debut season, the 48-year-old former Broncos assistant saw his team go on the road and beat Illinois and Purdue and climb into the Top 25.

The Gophers suffered losses to Northwestern and Michigan the past two weeks, but Brewster's optimistic blueprint for the future seems realistic, with a couple of games to go.

"People say, 'Golly, you've turned this thing around and you've really done some great things in Year 2,' " Brewster said. "I think it has to do with the fact that there's tremendous trust and chemistry between coaches and players."

Passion was plus

As tireless as he is talkative, Brewster is a natural promoter, as at ease with high school recruits as he is with Rotary Club members.

In fact, Minnesota athletic director Joel Maturi hired Brewster largely for his passion and recruiting, overlooking the fact he never had worked a day as an offensive or defensive coordinator, much less as a head coach above the high school level.

"I always wanted to be a football coach. I've always been consumed - some would say obsessed," said Brewster, whose team is 7-3 with Wisconsin on tap Saturday. "I guess the best way to describe it is that I love football. I'm so blessed and fortunate now to be a head coach in the Big Ten."

It seemed more like a curse last fall. Losses to Florida Atlantic, Bowling Green and North Dakota State alarmed some of the program's important backers.

The Gophers' only win came against Miami (Ohio) in three overtimes, and the defense was ranked last in Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A).

In those rocky times, Brewster's thoughts occasionally drifted back to his two seasons with Broncos coach Mike Shanahan.

"The steely eyed confidence that he has in himself and his football team is something I truly admire," he said. "What I gleaned from Mike more than anything is his preparation - and that preparation equals confidence in your team. I want my football team to take the field at the University of Minnesota the same way as the Denver Broncos do. And that's 100 percent belief that your preparation has been outstanding, that you're going to win.

"Mike is a tremendous friend and mentor," said Brewster, who coached Broncos tight ends in 2005 and 2006. "There's no one whose opinion and trust I value more. When I first got the job, Mike came as a favor to me to watch my practice, watch my organization, give me insights into how we were doing things from a broad perspective, how I want to do things as I move forward.

"The greatest thing he did is to take time to speak and share things with our football team. What a thrill. He didn't have to do it. He flew himself from Denver to Minneapolis as a favor for me."

Shanahan reminisces

Shanahan knew the lay of the land, having been Minnesota's offensive coordinator in 1979, three years before Brewster became an all-conference tight end at Illinois.

Returning to the campus for the first time since he coached there, Shanahan slipped into a maroon-and-gold sweat shirt and reminisced about the old days - and about how some of his former teams had made dramatic turnarounds, once players changed their old way of thinking and believed in one another.

"When you believe in somebody like I do in Tim, you want to be here and at least give them some of the experiences you went through throughout your career," said Shanahan, who said he first wanted to hire Brewster after watching him as a University of Texas assistant, when Shanahan's son, Kyle, played for the Longhorns.

"Not only is he a great coach, but he's a great leader. Minnesota will really see in the next few years how good he is."

The Gophers won three national championships in the 1930s, two in the 1940s and another in 1960 - a rich tradition Brewster played upon from Day 1.

"There's no reason what happened before can't happen again. We're going to take the Gopher Nation to Pasadena," said Brewster, who played in the 1984 Rose Bowl with Illinois.

In reality, Minnesota has the worst recruiting base in the Big Ten, many elite in-state athletes dream of wearing hockey jerseys and Minnesota's icy winters intimidate out-of-state recruits.

An off-campus stadium - the antiseptic Metrodome - also hindered the Gophers, who haven't played in the Rose Bowl since 1962, the Big Ten's longest dry spell.

Brewster sailed over those hurdles. Of the 45 athletes who visited the campus, 31 joined the Gophers on signing day, a top-25 class that earned Brewster national acclaim.

Yet no one imagined a 1-11 season, which raised concerns he was a better promoter than coach. Brewster found solace in his first two seasons at North Carolina with Mack Brown.

"It was part of the process," Brewster said. "We were a whole lot closer than a lot people thought we were. When I went to North Carolina with Mack, we went 1-10 (in 1988) and 1-10 (in 1989), developing the program, implementing the system. It just doesn't happen overnight.

"I'm not a patient guy. People have asked me, 'When do you want to turn this?' I said, 'Yesterday.' "

Brewster rebuilt his secondary with junior-college recruits after the 2007 season, hired a new defensive coordinator in Ted Roof, added bigger and faster players, then watched his team coalesce during the opening weeks of this season.

Back to his roots

Brewster said he learned about running a college program under Brown; about hard-nosed football as a San Diego Chargers assistant under Marty Schottenheimer; and about exploiting an opponent's weakness with the Broncos, where he helped rookie Tony Scheffler lead the NFL in average yards per reception by a tight end (15.9) in 2006.

Brewster's coaching roots stretch to Central Catholic in Lafayette, Ind., which he visited the night before the Purdue game, an experience that brought everything home.

"Everybody began somewhere. I began at Central Catholic," he said. "We had 97 students in four grades. I had 23 on varsity. I cut the field, I lined the field. My wife was the cheerleaders coach. We washed the uniforms. So it was truly a grass-roots beginning. I loved it. I loved those kids.

"It was so nostalgic, so emotional for me to go back there and watch those kids run out of the same garages that we ran out of, to watch those little guys playing with their heart. It just (gave me) a tremendous appreciation for my beginning."

At the University of Minnesota, nothing symbolizes the beginning of the Brewster era like the new on-campus stadium, which will open in September.

"It's a huge factor in us reconnecting with our history and past success," Brewster said. "We've won six national championships and 18 Big Ten championships, and all those championships were won in the old Memorial Stadium. We're going to go back to playing football on campus, in one of the finest brand-new football stadiums in America."

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