The Gophers haven't been ranked in the AP since 2022?!

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And in 2022 we were only ranked for one week at that. Immediately got bounced by Purdue in a game that would later decide which team went to the B1G title game with Mo having been out with an injury. The fact that that isn’t the game I want back most that year really says a lot.
 

Yes, they were ranked for one week in 2022. It came after going 4-0 in the first four games with a 49-7 victory over Colorado in game 3 and a 34-7 victory over Michigan State in game 4. They lost to Purdue 10-20 in game 5 and were not ranked again that season.
 

It certainly feels that way to me about half of our games even the ones that we win are so ugly. A lot of positives with the program but a good percentage of the time game day is not included in that.
 


I think it's overall an uphill battle for Minnesota. The AP (and coaches) voters don't seem to trust Minnesota and 2019 was a good example with how long it tooked to get ranked. It's not entirely without reason, though.

More often than not, the Gophers have lost their game directly after getting ranked. Here are seasons where they lost their next game after cracking the Top 25.
  • 2000, No. 22 by Oct. 21 at 5-2 after beating No. 6 Ohio State. They then lost to Indiana, 51-43 and fell out. Finished 6-6 with a MicronPC Bowl loss
  • 2002, No. 23 by Nov. 2 at 7-1 after beating Michigan State. They lost to No. 6 Ohio State 34-3 and fell out. Finished 8-5 with a Music City Bowl win
  • 2005, No. 18 by Oct. 1 at 4-0 after beating No. 11 Purdue. They lost to Penn State 44-14 and fell out. They reentered at No. 22 and fell out again, finishing 7-5
  • 2013, No. 23 (Coaches Poll) by Nov. 23 at 8-2 after beating Penn State. They lost to No. 17 Wisconsin 20-7 and fell out. Finished 8-5 with a Texas Bowl loss
  • 2014, No. 22 by Nov. 22 at 8-3 after beating No. 21 Nebraska. They lost to No. 14 Wisconsin 34-24 and fell out. Finished 8-5 with a Citrus Bowl loss
  • 2020, started at No. 21. Lost season opener to No. 18 Michigan 49-24 and fell out. Finished 3-4
  • 2022, No. 21 by Oct. 1 at 4-0 after beating Michigan State. They lost to Purdue and fell out. Finished 9-4 with a Pinstripe Bowl win
Here are seasons where Minnesota won a game after getting ranked in the Top 25
  • 2003, First ranked at No. 24 after beating Lousiana at 4-0. Reached high of No. 17 by Oct. 10 at 6-0 after beating Northwestern. They then lost to No. 20 Michigan 38-35. Stayed in Top 25, finished 10-3 with a Sun Bowl win at No. 20
  • 2004, started at No. 25, Reached high of No. 13 on Oct. 2 at 5-0. They then lost to No. 14 Michigan 27-24. Later fell out of Top 25, finished 7-5 with with a Music City Bowl Win
  • 2008, First ranked at No. 25 after beating Illinois at 6-1. Reached high of No. 20 by Nov. 1 at 7-1 after beating Purdue. They then lost to Northwestern, 24-17 and fell out. They finished 7-6 with an Insight Bowl loss
  • 2019, First ranked at No. 20 by Oct. 19 at 6-0 after beating Nebraska. They reached high of No. 8 after beating No. 4 Penn State. Stayed in Top 25. Finished 11-2 with an Outback Bowl win at No. 10
Of the 11 seasons where Minnesota was ranked in the AP Top 25, there were 6 they lost the next game. There's also 2020 where they were ranked in the first week and lost. Although it should be noted, of those losses, four were to ranked teams.

Also, of the three unranked teams they lost to, one was 2005 Penn State which finished ranked No. 3, and the other was 2022 Purdue which won the West Division. So, it's been kind of a mixture of Minnesota missing their shot but also running into another good-to-great team, making it hard to stay ranked consistently.

Regardless, I think the AP, and Coaches, have a wait and see view on Minnesota, making them weary to even give a ranking.
 

BleedGopher said:
Is this right? I can't believe it's been this long. Yikes.


Go Gophers!!
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It is kind of shocking but makes sense when you consider 2023 was the Kaliakmanis mess. 2024 had a slow start with NC loss plus early big ten losses against Iowa and Michigan so tough to get ranked and last year the team was very up and down.

Hopefully 2026 leads to a return to the rankings.
 


MNVCGUY said:
It is kind of shocking but makes sense when you consider 2023 was the Kaliakmanis mess. 2024 had a slow start with NC loss plus early big ten losses against Iowa and Michigan so tough to get ranked and last year the team was very up and down.

Hopefully 2026 leads to a return to the rankings.
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I would guess they will have to be 5-0 to get ranked this season. Thoughts?
 



gopherbadgerman said:
I would guess they will have to be 5-0 to get ranked this season. Thoughts?
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Probably not a bad prediction at this point. So much will hinge on where we start and what happens with the teams in front of us. Those early season polls need multiple weeks to actually figure out who is good and who isn't.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
I would guess they will have to be 5-0 to get ranked this season. Thoughts?
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I think 4-0 might do it because that would include a win over MS St. and Washington on the road. Washington is getting some preseason Top 25 votes. Michigan (game 5) is squarely within the preseason top 25 right now so a loss to them at home may or may not drop us from the rankings if we are ranked after 4 games. As mentioned multiple times in this thread, the Gophers were 4-0 the last time they were ranked.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
To be fair they have not really deserved to be ranked since then anyway.
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Correct.
It’s all schedule, but this team has been solidly 30-50 range but the schedule has broken that the losses are early enough to not become over ranked.
2023 was the exception where they were not even close.
 
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gopherbadgerman said:
To be fair they have not really deserved to be ranked since then anyway.
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One frustration is that a lot of teams that don’t deserve to be ranked get ranked anyway. Minnesota finished 8-5 the last two years and were ranked 0 times. Tennessee, on the other hand, finished 8-5 last year and were ranked 12 times.

Below is an incomplete list of teams that have been ranked since 2022 based on worse results:
  • Nebraska - ranked 3 times the last 2 years, finished 7-6 both seasons
  • Wisconsin - ranked 4 times since 2022, never finished better than 7-6
  • Clemson - ranked 3 times last year, finished 7-6
  • Florida State - ranked 7 times the last 2 years, finished 2-10 and 5-7
  • Kentucky - ranked 10 times since 2022, never finished better than 7-6
  • Florida - ranked 7 times since 2022, all rankings during years they went 6-7, 5-7, and 4-8
  • Auburn - ranked 2 times since 2022, finished 6-7 or worse each season
  • South Carolina - ranked 3 times last year, finished 4-8
  • LSU - ranked 8 times last year, finished 7-6
 



matt said:
One frustration is that a lot of teams that don’t deserve to be ranked get ranked anyway. Minnesota finished 8-5 the last two years and were ranked 0 times. Tennessee, on the other hand, finished 8-5 last year and were ranked 12 times.

Below is an incomplete list of teams that have been ranked since 2022 based on worse results:
  • Nebraska - ranked 3 times the last 2 years, finished 7-6 both seasons
  • Wisconsin - ranked 4 times since 2022, never finished better than 7-6
  • Clemson - ranked 3 times last year, finished 7-6
  • Florida State - ranked 7 times the last 2 years, finished 2-10 and 5-7
  • Kentucky - ranked 10 times since 2022, never finished better than 7-6
  • Florida - ranked 7 times since 2022, all rankings during years they went 6-7, 5-7, and 4-8
  • Auburn - ranked 2 times since 2022, finished 6-7 or worse each season
  • South Carolina - ranked 3 times last year, finished 4-8
  • LSU - ranked 8 times last year, finished 7-6
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Yeah, every year we see examples of truly awful pre-season rankings. The problem is that it often takes a while for those teams to drop out of the rankings.

On the flip side, if you start out of the rankings it can be much tougher to get in depending on what happens with the teams in front of you.

I wish the first rankings didn't come out until like week 5 or 6 but they can't do that because they need to hype those mythical early season matchups involving "top" teams.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I wish the first rankings didn't come out until like week 5 or 6 but they can't do that because they need to hype those mythical early season matchups involving "top" teams.
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I wish that too. It’s just frustrating when you see tweets like this that give the perception that the Gophers have been one of the 12 worst P4 teams over the last several years when that is not at all the case.
 

matt said:
I wish that too. It’s just frustrating when you see tweets like this that give the perception that the Gophers have been one of the 12 worst P4 teams over the last several years when that is not at all the case.
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It is frustrating but at the same time the only ranking that really matters is the one at the end of the season. The rest are just window dressing to give people something to argue about during the season.

I find it odd that you get credit for beating a ranked team if they were ranked at the time you played them (regardless of where they finish) but not if they were unranked when you played them but ended up in the final rankings.
 

MNVCGUY said:
the only ranking that really matters is the one at the end of the season.
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This is where I (and a lot of others) vehemently disagree with you. Rankings throughout the season result in more media exposure, more fan engagement, and more excitement for the team.

This also means more money via more NIL donations from fans, more ticket sales, more merchandise sales, more concessions, and more viewers on TV.
 

MNVCGUY said:
. . . I wish the first rankings didn't come out until like week 5 or 6 but they can't do that because they need to hype those mythical early season matchups involving "top" teams.
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Agree. But I'm always puzzled by the hindsight focus on interim in-season rankings, when the end-of-season ranking is the one that matters. Unfortunately, the Gophers have only finished 3 times in the final AP poll in the last 60 years: 2019 (#10), 2003 (#20), and 1999 (# 18).
 

MNVCGUY said:
. . . .

I find it odd that you get credit for beating a ranked team if they were ranked at the time you played them (regardless of where they finish) but not if they were unranked when you played them but ended up in the final rankings.
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Agree both should be tracked. The Gophers' victory over Fresno State in 2018 is an underappreciated good victory. Fresno State was unranked at game time, but finished ranked # 18. If I have my facts right, Fresno State is 1 of only 5 victories by PJ over a team that finished the season ranked. The other 4: Penn State-2019 (# 9); Auburn-2019 (#14), Iowa-2023 (#24), and Illinois-2024 (#16).
 

I fully expect 8 regular season wins will guarantee a top 25 ranking since the B1G is unquestionably the best football conference in the country.
 



matt said:
One frustration is that a lot of teams that don’t deserve to be ranked get ranked anyway. Minnesota finished 8-5 the last two years and were ranked 0 times. Tennessee, on the other hand, finished 8-5 last year and were ranked 12 times.

Below is an incomplete list of teams that have been ranked since 2022 based on worse results:
  • Nebraska - ranked 3 times the last 2 years, finished 7-6 both seasons
  • Wisconsin - ranked 4 times since 2022, never finished better than 7-6
  • Clemson - ranked 3 times last year, finished 7-6
  • Florida State - ranked 7 times the last 2 years, finished 2-10 and 5-7
  • Kentucky - ranked 10 times since 2022, never finished better than 7-6
  • Florida - ranked 7 times since 2022, all rankings during years they went 6-7, 5-7, and 4-8
  • Auburn - ranked 2 times since 2022, finished 6-7 or worse each season
  • South Carolina - ranked 3 times last year, finished 4-8
  • LSU - ranked 8 times last year, finished 7-6
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Name recognition goes a loooooong way. At least Florida State had that big win against Alabama to start the last year though so they somewhat earned it for the moment.
 


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