Recent content by TwistingMyMelon

Well said! Max and the leading receivers could move the chains well enough to compensate for the lack of running game. Still, we might have had 9 regular season wins that season if we could have run the ball since our defense was really good that year. We had 38 rushing yards (1.5 per...

I think we should be higher rated at this point if for no other reason than we return a larger number of starters and regular contributors than most teams according to those who have tabulated such things. I do think the schedule is tougher this season because we play 5 potential top 25 to 30...

I think the more optimistic than usual view when it comes to playing Iowa this season comes from the fact that Iowa lost so many good players after last season (to the NFL, eligibility, and portal) and they've taken numerous transfers from FCS schools. Of course, we've taken our fair share of...

Many of these rating services are roughly interchangeable and I don't care about any one of them in particular. The important point is that there is a general consensus among rating systems that the Gophers in 2025 were just kind of a mediocre football team despite winning 8 games.

That's nonsensical. Teams are rated based on the entire season, not the outcome of one game. Note that in the Sagarin Ratings that I posted, California was ranked 23 places below us despite beating us by two scores. Here's another misrepresentation: "but here's a particularly pertinent 'data...

Looks like you missed the point of my post. The football team wasn't very good last season, particularly on offense, despite winning 8 games. If a rating service uses the prior year as a baseline expectation, it's understandable if it doesn't rate the Gophers highly. It's not my rating system...

Good post! I agree with you that much depends upon how improved the offence will be and it simply has to be better. I knew that our offense was bad this past season but just recently I discovered another indicator of that: our punter, Tom Weston, led the league in punts with 65. The...

I don't disagree with that but there is no perfect ranking system and I think it's hard to make a good case that the Gophers deserved to be ranked much higher in 2025 than where Sagarin ranked them. I don't care about ESPN's FPI preseason ranking and I'm not sure why anyone would care very much.

I will neither praise nor condemn ESPN's rankings (I don't see any reason to praise them and I don't care enough to condemn them) but, as explained above, the most important factor in their preseason rankings is the team's performance in the previous season. Thinking about last season I think...

I'm not high on them and I'm expecting that the Gophers will beat them this year. Still, I can't be too confident in predicting the failure of a program that has had one losing season since the turn of the century and has beaten the Gophers in 9 of the last 10 meetings.

I guess if he keeps trying, he'll get close sooner or later.

But they've had horrible QBs before (remember Deacon Hill?) and still had a good season. We won't know until the season gets going.

How true! I think the most optimistic projection for the 2019 team I saw outside of Gopher land was on one of the primary Nebraska fan boards. Despite them beating us pretty badly in 2018 (the last time they won) the Gophers seemed to be the most popular choice as a dark horse in the Big Ten...

Good point! With a few exceptions here and there, Minnesota doesn't appear to be a popular team for sports writers (or hacks if you prefer) to pick as a dark horse or a team to make a little more noise than usual in the upcoming season. Seems like the same thing almost every year. But, these...

Yes, but here are the conference records over the last FIVE years: 2021 6 3 2022 5 4 2023 3 6 2024 5 4 2025 5 4 Total 24 21 0.533333 That's exactly what you said but it should be noted that four of the last five years had winning conference records and that 2023 season...