AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

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bga1 said:
It just seems like we finally get high end QBs (Brosmer and Lindsay) and we have nothing to go with them.
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Agree.
We have like 4 number 3 wideouts but no ones or twos.
The tight ends are decent but not good enough to be the featured WR

Offense feels listless.
The tight ends are good enough to be great play action tight ends. But we can’t run the ball so that doesn’t work.

Major problems
 

The older I get the less I want to have sports fandom consume my Saturdays and Sundays. Too many other things to do on weekends. I’ll leave the hard core cheering to the youngsters.
 

Fleck is a 60% winner, better than 13 previous coaches going back to 1941, and he does it with 2 and 3* players. 60% is an average of about 7 wins a year. If he had 4 and 5* players he'd likely win an average of 9 games a year or better. Recruiting is the problem - why isn't Emmett Johnson playing for the Gophers, to give one example?
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Fleck is a 60% winner, better than 13 previous coaches going back to 1941, and he does it with 2 and 3* players. 60% is an average of about 7 wins a year. If he had 4 and 5* players he'd likely win an average of 9 games a year or better. Recruiting is the problem - why isn't Emmett Johnson playing for the Gophers, to give one example?
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Emmit Johnson would be the third or fourth back for the gophers

Unfortunately that means he’d be starting

Damn
 

Panthadad2 said:
Just speculating, but the U leadership is extremely risk averse now when it comes to scandal. The University has an extremely short leash culturally in this market. To his credit, Fleck excels on this point.

Idiot Maturi handed the reigns to a fat ass introvert former coordinator with questionable leadership skills which opened the door for the nasty 2016 scandal. I'm sure that is still fresh in leadership's mind.

The basketball team went through two high profile scandals and has generally sucked since the last one. Stuff like Gangelhoff-gate would never have been reported in a lot of markets, but it's a sure thing here.

As long as the athletics department keeps its head above water financially and stays clean, I'm sure leadership is just fine with that.
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Sounds like those matters have contributed to the low interest in winning sports. Those are recent, however, at least to a codger like me. I see the sinking of Gopher FB as having begun in the 60s.
 


Actually, I’m good with the state of the program and don’t want to see it change for a long time.

I’m sure that I’ve said, at some point in my life, that I could die a happy man if the Gophers won a national championship, and I’m not ready to go yet.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Fleck is a 60% winner, better than 13 previous coaches going back to 1941, and he does it with 2 and 3* players. 60% is an average of about 7 wins a year. If he had 4 and 5* players he'd likely win an average of 9 games a year or better. Recruiting is the problem - why isn't Emmett Johnson playing for the Gophers, to give one example?
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Yes, recruiting is the cure. Why don't enough 4 and 5 star players want to come to Minneapolis? That's the question few here want to consider. Why not? Do we ask recruits who pick other schools why? Kinda like businesses do with exit interviews. I think you are right about being a 7 win program -- a little better on good years. A little worse on bad. And that limit comes from the inability to recruit well.
 

DEGopherfan said:
These are still 19 and 20 year old kids, they get super up for one game — Nebraska — beat the pants off of them, think they deserve to be rated and let down their intensity in the next game. They simply didn’t show up. We see this often. It’s on the coaches. They’ll rebound.
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If Iowa is considered by UM to be the top or second most important rivalry, how could the players not be intense? You could see on the first drive of the game that Iowa was more skilled than UM. Intensity was not an issue. They just simply have better football players. Nothing shameful about that. It just is. As to Nebraska, they weren't more skilled.
 




B4 the season, I predicted 8-4 which is about right. Recruiting? Let’s face it, Minnesota has a big disadvantage versus states like Florida, Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California where high school football is big time.
 



Why do you think that Gophers can’t raise enough money for NiL?
 




FanSinceTheFifties said:
They didn't want to come well before the influence of NIL. The decline began in the 60s.
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Where did I say anything about NIL? Big time programs have been paying players for years. We've never had that level of boosters and bag men.
 

I rarely feel like our issues with Iowa due to talent, time and again it comes down to offensive gameplay against Iowa.
 

I think given that this is year 9 and the product that is on the field is unacceptable. There is no adaptability, falls directly on leadership. Do we always want to be a mediocre to okay football team?
 

disco said:
Where did I say anything about NIL? Big time programs have been paying players for years. We've never had that level of boosters and bag men.
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Reusse told a story last week of Jim Dutcher and whoever his bag man was, offering Campy Russell $25,000 cash and new carpet for Mom’s house in what would have been the early ‘70’s. Campy ended up at Michigan, with the thought that they payed more.
 

goldengophers said:
I rarely feel like our issues with Iowa due to talent, time and again it comes down to offensive gameplay against Iowa.
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The issue was definitely talent on the lines

It wasn’t the only issue but it was definitely the primary issue
 

LeftofThaDial said:
Reusse told a story last week of Jim Dutcher and whoever his bag man was, offering Campy Russell $25,000 cash and new carpet for Mom’s house in what would have been the early ‘70’s. Campy ended up at Michigan, with the thought that they payed more.
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I believe it. I wasn't saying the Gophers never paid players. Just that we've never paid to the level of big time schools. Imagine if Wooden would actually have come here. He was a master at hiding payments.
 

saintpauljeff said:
The older I get the less I want to have sports fandom consume my Saturdays and Sundays. Too many other things to do on weekends. I’ll leave the hard core cheering to the youngsters.
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I was just watching Football Night in America's story on Packer fans and the return of Rodgers. The people they interviewed were waaaayy put there in their getup and costumes. I said to my wife, "Thats not fandom. That's mental illness."
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
Sounds like those matters have contributed to the low interest in winning sports. Those are recent, however, at least to a codger like me. I see the sinking of Gopher FB as having begun in the 60s.
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I think you'd need to break the 50+ year trend into eras. Late 1960s to around 2000 were a period of purposeful underinvestment. That started the trend.

Then you have the era in the last 20 years of reinvestment in facilities and infrastructure that at least helped bring football back into relevance.

Now we're in the NIL/portal/finance/general manager era. It's almost impossible for an outsider to know how the Gophers measure up in the finances.
 

Panthadad2 said:
I think you'd need to break the 50+ year trend into eras. Late 1960s to around 2000 were a period of purposeful underinvestment. That started the trend.

Then you have the era in the last 20 years of reinvestment in facilities and infrastructure that at least helped bring football back into relevance.

Now we're in the NIL/portal/finance/general manager era. It's almost impossible for an outsider to know how the Gophers measure up in the finances.
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Interesting analysis. Thx
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
All true. But why does the U not really care about winning? At least since the 60s.
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I think there is something to the old Sid theory that higher ups at the U want academics to be considered superior to athletics, as in not be overshadowed by the major sports. Even though most people, in my opinion, identify or think of colleges based on athletics. The average guy, me, didn’t go to school there, other than some CEU’s, so we like sports and, being from Minnesota, you root for Minnesota( although I am closer to both NDSU and SDSU). Egos will always be there.
 



Panthadad2 said:
It happens every single year, though, against Iowa/Ferentz. That's not just a let down.
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The record against Iowa sucks....there is no getting around that.....but many of those games have been very competitive one score games that we have come out on the wrong side of.

2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023. Doesn't change the fact that we lost but it isn't like we are getting blown out by Iowa every year.
 

Some guy said:
Agree.
We have like 4 number 3 wideouts but no ones or twos.
The tight ends are decent but not good enough to be the featured WR

Offense feels listless.
The tight ends are good enough to be great play action tight ends. But we can’t run the ball so that doesn’t work.

Major problems
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Jalen Smith might develop into a 1 or 2 but he feels like the only one with that potential right now.

DT seems to be the only RB with game breaking ability but that doesn't do us any good when he is on the sidelines hurt again.

I know finding great skill guys is easier said then done, especially when there are very few of them in your own backyard, but somehow, someway they need to figure it out. We have a QB who looks like has some serious upside, need to surround him with weapons so that he can get there.
 

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