Recent content by fmlizard

I hadn't thought of the late-in-season part of it, but you are right. Another reason to not like it. I'm mostly against it because it's an objectively softer schedule. SEC teams aren't moving their cupcake from September to November. They have a 4th non-conference game that's typically a FCS...

Finally. There's no world in which Minnesota should be playing Penn State or Iowa while Alabama or Georgia play Chattanooga and Furman on the season's penultimate week.

In about 5 years, the NCAA and college sports have gone from stiflingly restrictive to the most anything-goes sport I can think of in the world. Seriously. No drafts, hardly any restriction on player movement, no contracts, no collective bargaining agreement, no spending limits, you can go pro...

That's part of the scenario I have for the (realistic) dream season in 2026. Lose @ Washington and @ Indiana, pick off Penn State and Michigan in transition years, and run the rest of them. Slip into the playoff at 10-2. Would be unbelievable to unite all the trophies in Dinkytown.

It certainly could. A $100M or so annual roster budget for Gopher football would be a drop in the bucket against the state's $2.5-3B projected surplus for 2026. It was also affordable in prior years when the state ran a multi-billion dollar surplus. They could make Gopher Football the most...

And by the time it's played ASU's stadium will just be a massive data center, and the game will be played in Cooling Lot D

Good and Good Always like the rare non-corporate names (it's been Cactus Bowl and Copper Bowl at points in the past) and glad it's ditching the D-Backs park. Chase Field looked so dark, bad field quality, and poor football sight lines on TV.

This is a good year to have @ Penn State on the schedule as they break in a new coach and a lot of roster changes.

Nebraska, among the teams we don't already play every year. They strike the perfect balance of teams the Gophers are favored to beat, but the general public still expects the Gophers to lose. So we get this little reputational 'upset' bump every October from doing what the team is supposed to...

The Big Fish donor remains that elusive part of Gopher athletics success However, if you took even a small fraction of what the Twin Cities area spends on attending and watching and supporting and sponsoring all the major league teams in the metro, it would blow away even what Ohio State and...

It says a lot that the Gophers are getting early verbals from a little brother. Especially considering that to Jordan, the Gophers are a rando P4 school on the other side of the country. It's not as if its his home state school. He had an Ole Miss offer. Says that Justin valued his Gopher...

All but the hottest 6 coaches have a majority of downvotes, which tracks with big data sets from online dating. Even #2 got 42% downvoted. Though we don't know if it's women doing the ranking on this list.

The difference is that those pro leagues all have unions who negotiated on behalf of the players and agreed to cap salaries in exchange for other considerations that benefit the majority of the players union. The union members ratified those CBAs. Here it seems the federal government is trying...

Overall, almost anything that provides structure and somehow institutes a spending limit on the highest rollers is good for Gopher football and men's basketball. The best outcomes put a lot of institutional power on the Big Ten, preserving Minnesota's seat at the big table...but also put a...

The source of the ranking was a panel of 10 sportswriters. Not fellow coaches or players or ADs. Sportswriter lists of this type usually lean in the direction of "the list of best coaches is pretty much the same as the standings" with little adjustment for degree of difficulty. The group's...