2019 Regular Season Summary

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Spoofin

Spoofin

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I’m not real interested in rehashing the WI game. Hit the tailgate lot at 8:30 and am still a little bummed at how a great day ended. I do, however, have an interest in discussing how folks view the season as a whole. My take:

10-2, 7-2. National attention, Gameday, Top 10 rankings. Blowing out B1G schools. All Awesome and Spectacular.

Losing to IA and WI. Going 1-2 after starting 9-0. Missing the B1GW and Rose Bowl opportunity. Going 1-2 against ranked teams. All not so awesome.

There were many great parts of this year. Best Gopher team in a long while and the ride was really fun to live and watch. I have a hotel booked in Pasadena after all!

My overall recollection of the 2019 team will be that this was a very good team that just wasn’t as good as many of us thought or wanted to believe. They did benefit from an easy schedule and some breaks - but also took full advantage of those things in an impressive style. They just were exposed at the end for having only taken a big step forward and not a giant leap forward. IMO, this isn’t the pinnacle - I fully expect this ride to continue, we just aren’t there yet or maybe where we thought/wanted to believe we already were.
 

Fair and accurate assessment.
 

Going into the year, I was hoping for at least an 8 win season. Anything less than that and it would have been hard to sell to recruits and fans that we are improving as a program but with 8 wins, after getting 7 last year, we could sell progress.

I would have been thrilled with 9 wins and anything more than 9 wasn't even on my radar.

So in short, I am still beyond thrilled that we won 10 games (at least) for the first time since 2003.
 

After last season, we were happy that we beat a team (Fresno St) for the first time in 20 years that finished in the top 25.

This season, we are likely to end up ranked around #15.

Not the ending we wanted, but progress.
 

I know some of you won't, but I'll be interested to see the list of "most since" and "first since" after the bowl game.
The Gophers will have one more opportunity to show that this was a special team/season.
 


Spoofin said:
I’m not real interested in rehashing the WI game. Hit the tailgate lot at 8:30 and am still a little bummed at how a great day ended. I do, however, have an interest in discussing how folks view the season as a whole. My take:

10-2, 7-2. National attention, Gameday, Top 10 rankings. Blowing out B1G schools. All Awesome and Spectacular.

Losing to IA and WI. Going 1-2 after starting 9-0. Missing the B1GW and Rose Bowl opportunity. Going 1-2 against ranked teams. All not so awesome.

There were many great parts of this year. Best Gopher team in a long while and the ride was really fun to live and watch. I have a hotel booked in Pasadena after all!

My overall recollection of the 2019 team will be that this was a very good team that just wasn’t as good as many of us thought or wanted to believe. They did benefit from an easy schedule and some breaks - but also took full advantage of those things in an impressive style. They just were exposed at the end for having only taken a big step forward and not a giant leap forward. IMO, this isn’t the pinnacle - I fully expect this ride to continue, we just aren’t there yet or maybe where we thought/wanted to believe we already were.
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Bingo. I think that's what made this year different. Yes, on paper it was an easy schedule this year, but Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska and Northwestern (at least defensively) weren't Rutgers level terri-bad. We thoroughly dominated the middling teams. That hasn't happened in a long time. This one stings, but the team is much better than the paper tiger some (looking at you Sansevere, and probably Souhan) are going to try and make them out to be.
 

I thought this was a 6 - 7 win team. Team was better than I thought.

Still plenty of work to do.
 

Very well said Spoofin and I agree 100% with your take (which is not something I ever expected to write).

It always sucks to lose to the Badgers and especially in the manner that we did yesterday but some that are freaking out about it need to take a step back and look at the big picture. 10-2, 7-2 is awesome and not something that anyone around here should take for granted. Many will fixate on the 2 because of who those loses came against but those people will be missing the fact that this program took a big step forward this year. When the season started this was not a Rose Bowl or bust kind of year, it turned into that for some, but this team is not there yet.

The exciting part is that those big picture goals (CFP, Big Ten Title) don't feel nearly as unobtainable as they did just a few years ago. This team proved that we are capable of getting to heights this program hasn't seen in a long long time. The offense should only be better next year and hopefully the defense and special teams will make a similar leap as well. There will be a lot of new faces on defense but that isn't necessarily a terrible thing, the guys we are losing meant a lot to this program and helped pave the way to the future but this was not the end. The hope is they laid the foundation to even bigger and better things in the years to come.

In a month the team will take the field in a very good bowl game. Not the one we were hoping for but also not a bottom of the barrel game either. There is a thread with a link to the last few minutes of Fleck's post game presser yesterday. Anyone that has not watched it should. Yesterday sucked, no if ands or buts about it, but this was not the end, this was the beginning.
 

Compare our program to other Big 10 West schools.

I would say are three established programs: Wisconsin, Chryst has five years but really is a continuation of the program and they continue to be the most dominant team; Iowa and Ferentz at 21 years where his breakthrough year was year 4; Fitzgerald at 14 years and his one division championship came in his thirteenth year.

Then you have four programs that have brought in a new coach in the last four years: Illinois with four years of Lovie, now limping into his first bowl game after one big upset and a couple other fun games; Purdue and Brohm with a lot of buzz for two years and regression in year three (curse of the threat to jump jobs, see Mason, Glen?); Scott Frost and Nebraska - lots of analysis on this board about his fine work; and lastly PJ at Minnesota.

it seems to me that PJ is already making a case to have a program to compete with Iowa, exceed jNW. He looks to be above the other new West coaches currently. He brings excitement to the program. He needs to bring some muscle to compete with Wisconsin. But, nothing suggests yet that PJ/MN has plateaued. Missed opportunity this year? Yes. Something to build on? Definitely.
 



Nice post, Spoofin. After the non-con games I would've told you this team was likely a 7 win bunch who could scratch and claw to get 8. That would've been an improvement on last year and evidence of slow progress in the progam. Boy did that sentiment ever get blown out of the water!

Super fun season. We now know how good Minnesota was this year, and it wasn't a top 10 ranking -- but still about equal to PSU, Iowa, and Michigan. Far superior to the next "tier" of the B1G, which is pretty cool since that's the space MN has occupied recently.

Missed opportunities for sure, but so many fun memories. Beating PSU, being in the conversation for the Rose Bowl and CFP into the final week of the season, getting Gameday, crushing Nebraska in the snow, etc. I agree this is part of the foundation moving forward rather than the pinnacle.
 

Given all that we had coming back from our very strong finish last year I would have said that 9-3 would have been my "good season" expectation for this season. We just had the perfect storm of guys coming back for this season. After the weak start in the non conference games that 9-3 expectation was looking lame. The O-line was looking surprisingly weak and the D-line was looking as weak as I feared. So the 10-2 regular season finish was very good. We won every game our talent could except perhaps Iowa, and we won one game were we played well enough to grab an uphill game against Penn State. All and all, very well done and super encouraging for the long run.
 

It was a ton of fun. Didn't end up being the dream season. But you take the good with the bad I guess. It's all apart of the sport. PSU win was an incredible high. And then the end of the season was a terrible low.
 

My expectation was 8 wins so obviously the current 10 is nice. A couple plays from 11 and a West title (at Iowa). Hard to be too down on that. Play Iowa ten times we win at least half. The team is on the cusp. Conference-wide some teams were worse than expected and some were better and that will be the case every year.

Wisconsin played their best football yesterday and we aren’t good enough yet on either side of the ball to overcome that. However, every reason to think the team will be competitive in the west going forward.
 



My curse is that I can always see both sides of the coin.

The Gophers won 10 games with a team that had some very good individual players - but the overall depth and talent level is still not on a par with the teams that are consistent top-10 national teams. Plus some glaring weaknesses in special teams.

So, on one level, you could argue that the Gophers over-achieved this year. But a lot of fans got caught up in the ride and - being fans - focused on all the positives and overlooked any questions or concerns.

Now, I see the program at a key moment. The recruiting still has to keep improving. they need more depth and higher-quality depth. The Seniors have to be replaced, and the younger players & red-shirts need to improve.

I do not "expect" 10 wins next year. I would be happy with 10 wins, but I don't expect it.
 

T
short ornery norwegian said:
My curse is that I can always see both sides of the coin.

The Gophers won 10 games with a team that had some very good individual players - but the overall depth and talent level is still not on a par with the teams that are consistent top-10 national teams. Plus some glaring weaknesses in special teams.

So, on one level, you could argue that the Gophers over-achieved this year. But a lot of fans got caught up in the ride and - being fans - focused on all the positives and overlooked any questions or concerns.

Now, I see the program at a key moment. The recruiting still has to keep improving. they need more depth and higher-quality depth. The Seniors have to be replaced, and the younger players & red-shirts need to improve.

I do not "expect" 10 wins next year. I would be happy with 10 wins, but I don't expect it.
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The good news is that I think Fleck and co. agree with you. They see the deficiencies and work to fill them. They immediately knew QB and WR were issues, so they recruited elite talent that could contribute right away. They got Dunlap and Faalele on OL. They signed 4 - 6 really impactful DL last year.

I believe they know what they're doing and are not satisfied in the least with this season. They want better players at every position and will either recruit them or work to coach up what they have.
 

Pretty much.

They played a little above their talent level, by beating Penn State, and a little below by almost losing each of the three non-conference opponents. The teams they played in between are all garbage, but they didn’t have any letdowns. They beat all of the teams they were supposed to beat. Do that every year, and 7-8 regular season wins should be the floor most seasons, with a chance to improve on that by upsetting more talented teams. That’s pretty much Iowa at this point. That’s where the program is at.
 

I want to Thank the Gophers players, coaches, support staff, band, cheerleaders, game day operations and fans for the most fun season of my lifetime. Especially the senior class that stuck it out and led the younger players through a lot of turnover. Looking at the schedule before the season, my head said 8 wins, my heart said 9 wins and my wildest fantasies said 10 wins. Even though after PSU, those fantasy dreams looked for more, I can't possibly be disappointed. Going forward, they need to be better and stronger on the line of scrimmage. That's where football is won and lost. They need some diversification on offense. Have to have the threat of throwing to the tight end and running back and also have the threat of the quarterback running once in a while (Although I was glad this year Morgan didn't run much since we only had freshmen backups). I love how PSU, Iowa and Wisconsin all can use their Tight Ends in the passing game. What a great safety valve to be able to pick up 5-6 yards. The coaches need to improve their clock management and in game adjustments. They need to find a way to make opposing quarterbacks more uncomfortable. What a HUGE step the program took this year!! If they improve as much each of the next 3 years as they have the past 3 years, there might be CFP speculation every year. GO GOPHERS!!!
 

We rode Morgan's arm and TJ's, CAB's, and especially Bateman's hands.

Our ability to make plays, not just short plays, in the air, is what set us apart this year. We need to focus on the run game and the defense.
 

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