I see 2 more wins

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FireDaveLee said:
It was a frustrating game for sure, and there are definitely issues….but games are lost more often than they are won.

Every team on the Gopjers schedule is capable of losing the game, except in my mind Oregon (talent outweighs any mistakes they’d make) & Iowa (they are the kings of letting teams lose the game, so they won’t beat themselves). I feel like with all the rest of the opponents, theres a chance….
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Well said.

If we lost @ Iowa and @ Oregon, and win the rest ... and I don't care how they win them, or if the other teams lose them, a win is a win ... 8-4 and Music City Bowl is still a good season.
 



btowngopher said:
What are you a fortune teller? A lot changes year to year.
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A lot changes happen from game to game and team to team. There are more than several ways to win a game and more than several ways to lose a game

I’m going to just let each game play out and I won’t know how many wins and how many losses my favorite team will will have until the season ends.

The short passing game had to replace the running game last night. It was supplemented by the defense coming up with THREE interceptions… one A game winning pick six. (Purdue was trying to win by running between the twenties, gunslinging and forcing risky passes. and it just plain didn’t work.).

On to the Nebraska game on Friday. Will be a tough game I am sure. Which phases of the game may be there ‘…for the taking’… if any will pop up for this Goher team!!!
 

PMWinSTP said:
Were those two games wins or losses?
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Both wins. In very different fashion. Against Rutgers we buckled up, strapped in and played to win. It was ugly, but we got it done.

Against Purdue, we played to not lose against a team that is completely rebuilding after a disasterous hire and almost biblical exodus off the roster after last season. Last night, against one of the weakest teams talent wise in the B1G it worked. Purdue beat themselves. Never apologize for a win.

We can both win and lose every game left on our schedule except Oregon. That said, we gave up 253 yards rushing to Purdue. A team that had an average of 115 yards (all games) per game coming in. We rushed for 30 yards against a team averaging giving up 149 yards per game. We gained 262 yards against a team giving up 398 yards per game. At home. On homecoming.

Through three conf. games, we've payed the best and the lowest two defenses we play in terms of yds per game (in conf. sats). Good enough to put us 17th in Yds per game in the conference, ahead of only Wisconsin, and 17th in terms of yds allowed per game ahead of only Illinois (who has played USC, Indiana, tOSU, and Purdue.

We have already played the two worst defenses in terms of yds all allowed on our schedule in Purdue and Rutgers. Our remaing 6 games are against the 3 (Oregon), 5 (Iowa), 6 (Northwestern), 7 (Wisconsin), 12 (Nebraska) and 13 (Michigan State) teams.

If we play like we did last night the rest of the way, I don't think we'll win more than we lose.
 


I think we win 2/3 against Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Northwestern.

At Oregon? No way.

At Iowa? Very unlikely.

Home vs Nebraska? Nebraska seems to be the better team this year. But we have home field and have played well against Nebraska lately, so I’ll say toss up.

That’s 2-4 more regular season wins. The way we’ve played, I’d put the over/under at 2.5 and probably take the under.
 

Some Day...Maybe said:
I see 2 more wins, how about you? Obviously less than 2 would be a disaster. More than 2 would be a pleasant surprise. Was so excited after 2019. Thought we were heading places. The pandemic hit, coaches left, and we’re back to Glen Mason all over again. 6-6, 7-5, and a meaningless bowl game every year. At least we win the bowl games under Fleck. I don’t see a 9 win regular season anytime soon. Not sure we get an 8 win regular season anytime soon.
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I'd say 8 reg season wins is pretty good.
 

If this team goes 8-4 it means they’re 6-3
If this team goes 6-3 it’s the third best season in big ten play since 1974

I would pick 7-5 but I hope for 9-3
I think 6-6 is more likely than 8-4 but 8-4 is more likely than 5-7
 

DelawareGopher said:
I think we win 2/3 against Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Northwestern.

At Oregon? No way.

At Iowa? Very unlikely.

Home vs Nebraska? Nebraska seems to be the better team this year. But we have home field and have played well against Nebraska lately, so I’ll say toss up.

That’s 2-4 more regular season wins. The way we’ve played, I’d put the over/under at 2.5 and probably take the under.
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I’d probably put the over under at the same place and pick the over but have no confidence
 





You know what’s interesting is Iowa has games/seasons like this all the time with lousy offense and lucky breaks. At first I’ve been upset but now I’m kind of happy. Because if (and hopefully when) they figure out the line play this could be a very good team. There is a lot of coveted/highly ranked guys on both lines. That tells me there is talent. Coaching? Fundamentals? Player effort? Player mistakes? What is it? Look at UCLA and how they have turned it around. Look at how much things can change week to week. I personally see a lot more mental mistakes than physically getting beat. That gives me hope they can turn it around.
 

Some guy said:
If this team goes 8-4 it means they’re 6-3
If this team goes 6-3 it’s the third best season in big ten play since 1974

I would pick 7-5 but I hope for 9-3
I think 6-6 is more likely than 8-4 but 8-4 is more likely than 5-7
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People’s perspectives are so out of whack they wouldn’t even appreciate 8 wins.
 



Football is a fairly simple game. You get lucky and our able to hide some flaws for a little while but in the end the best teams usually come out on the top. The team that controls the line of scrimmage controls the game. No matter how we try to hide it we are getting killed by weak teams at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. QB,RB,WR's,LB, and Saftey play can only do so much. Unless this changes and I don't see a quick fix we are going to have a hard time tricking our way to one or two wins. I think we are already seeing teams taking away Drake's abilities because of our massive flaws in our line play.
 


Some Day...Maybe said:
I see 2 more wins, how about you? Obviously less than 2 would be a disaster. More than 2 would be a pleasant surprise. Was so excited after 2019. Thought we were heading places. The pandemic hit, coaches left, and we’re back to Glen Mason all over again. 6-6, 7-5, and a meaningless bowl game every year. At least we win the bowl games under Fleck. I don’t see a 9 win regular season anytime soon. Not sure we get an 8 win regular season anytime soon.
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A 9-win regular season? Wow.

I have three questions for you:

1) How long have you been a Gopher football fan?

2) How many 9-win regular seasons have the Gophers had in that time period?

3) Based on your answers to Questions 1 and 2, how often would you expect to have a 9-win regular season?

The Gophers have won 9 games in a season multiple times under Fleck if you include bowl wins. But if you set your expectations at 9 regular season wins you are setting yourself up for frequent disappointment. How many programs in the B1G — or in any other conference — achieve 9 win regular seasons routinely? Not too many.
 

I'd love to see us play with a lead. We start so slow and are having to play from behind.

  • Game one we had the lead and Taylor rushed for 141 yards
  • Game two Didn't matter what we did, defense scored us points first.
  • Cal game we took the lead in the 3rd, but had some critical mistakes and drops that cost us. Game was very similar to Rutgers and Purdue.
  • Rutgers down 14 and at the half and won. Dropped a bunch of INT's that could have flipped the game sooner
  • Purdue down 10 and at the half and won. Made plays to win late.

In the two B1G wins the defense has allowed 7 and 3 points in the second half of games.
 

NotAFanOfBecky said:
You know what’s interesting is Iowa has games/seasons like this all the time with lousy offense and lucky breaks. At first I’ve been upset but now I’m kind of happy. Because if (and hopefully when) they figure out the line play this could be a very good team. There is a lot of coveted/highly ranked guys on both lines. That tells me there is talent. Coaching? Fundamentals? Player effort? Player mistakes? What is it? Look at UCLA and how they have turned it around. Look at how much things can change week to week. I personally see a lot more mental mistakes than physically getting beat. That gives me hope they can turn it around.
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Since they got a new OC Iowa has scored 30+ points in 6/12 B1G games. 3 of those 6 have been 40 or more.

They averaged 26.6 points per game in the conference last season with 2nd/3rd/4th string QBs getting most of the snaps. That was 7th in the B1G.

They currently sit at 30 points a game in conference games in 2025 which is 6th in the B1G.

Bad passing offense? Absolutely. But they are running the ball very well again this year. The one thing Wisconsin does well is stop the run and Iowa ran over them.
 

Gopher Mac said:
Problem is our OL can't be fixed by waving a magic wand. Our players on the line our not good enough to compete in the Big Ten. We don't have better players sitting on the bench. Going to take a one or two year rebuild. I don't know what is going on with the DL. I think we have talent but it has not shown up this year so far.
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I started a thread a while back saying last year's team was better than this years (as evidenced by the number of draft picks & UDFAs we had) and next year's will be too. My guess is we hit the portal HARD next year for OL. We did this offseason, but we just missed on those guys. It happens. Fix the OL and the running game, passing game and defense will improve, the defense by getting more rest. I would not be surprised at all if we pick up an above average receiver because of Drake's gravitation.

All our best players...and average players will be back for another year. They either are too young or not quite good enough to get drafted. One more year of development means a lot at their age. I am very confident next year will be better!
 

Xerxes_ said:
Since they got a new OC Iowa has scored 30+ points in 6/12 B1G games. 3 of those 6 have been 40 or more.

They averaged 26.6 points per game in the conference last season with 2nd/3rd/4th string QBs getting most of the snaps. That was 7th in the B1G.

They currently sit at 30 points a game in conference games in 2025 which is 6th in the B1G.

Bad passing offense? Absolutely. But they are running the ball very well again this year. The one thing Wisconsin does well is stop the run and Iowa ran over them.
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The new OC is certainly better
 


RememberMurray said:
A 9-win regular season? Wow.

I have three questions for you:

1) How long have you been a Gopher football fan?

2) How many 9-win regular seasons have the Gophers had in that time period?

3) Based on your answers to Questions 1 and 2, how often would you expect to have a 9-win regular season?

The Gophers have won 9 games in a season multiple times under Fleck if you include bowl wins. But if you set your expectations at 9 regular season wins you are setting yourself up for frequent disappointment. How many programs in the B1G — or in any other conference — achieve 9 win regular seasons routinely? Not too many.
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Just for fun I went through last 4 years of Big Ten and Pac 12 standings to see how many times teams got to 9 regular season wins from 2021-2024

9+ Regular Season Wins
4 Times - Oregon (Pac12 x 3, BIG x 1), Ohio State
3 Times - Michigan, Penn State
2 Times - Washington (Pac12 x 2)
1 Time - Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan State, USC (Pac12), UCLA (Pac12)

9 Wins (including bowl game victory)
2 Times - Minnesota
1 Time - Wisconsin, Purdue

Didn't reach 9 wins (with or without a bowl game) during that stretch
Rutgers
Maryland
Northwestern
Nebraska

Bottom line - Getting to 9 wins is hard for the non-helmet schools.

If you include bowl games there are 6 teams in the Big Ten that have reached 9 wins or better in at least 50% of of the past 4 seasons and we are one of them.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I'd love to see us play with a lead. We start so slow and are having to play from behind.

  • Game one we had the lead and Taylor rushed for 141 yards
  • Game two Didn't matter what we did, defense scored us points first.
  • Cal game we took the lead in the 3rd, but had some critical mistakes and drops that cost us. Game was very similar to Rutgers and Purdue.
  • Rutgers down 14 and at the half and won. Dropped a bunch of INT's that could have flipped the game sooner
  • Purdue down 10 and at the half and won. Made plays to win late.

In the two B1G wins the defense has allowed 7 and 3 points in the second half of games.
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Nice post. Cal game was there for the win. Defense does seem to rally when needed later in the game.
 

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