8 win seasons could be tough

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Some Day...Maybe

Some Day...Maybe

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Enjoy this win and season. With the new climate of college football It ain’t gonna be easy for our Gophers to have 8 win plus seasons going forward. For those wishing Fleck would move on be extremely careful what you wish for. Minnesota is really lucky to have him. A lot of us don’t realize where Gopher football ranks as a coaching destination. I’d say it’s not in the top 40.
 


I would love to see the math behind your take

The variance in the new schedule is huge.

What if the gophers played UCLA and Penn State instead of Ohio state and Oregon this year?

The way the schedules work now, hard schedules will be harder, easy schedules will be easier.

Probably harder to draw a 12-0 schedule.
Probably easier to draw a 10-2 schedule.
 

Some Day...Maybe said:
Enjoy this win and season. With the new climate of college football It ain’t gonna be easy for our Gophers to have 8 win plus seasons going forward. For those wishing Fleck would move on be extremely careful what you wish for. Minnesota is really lucky to have him. A lot of us don’t realize where Gopher football ranks as a coaching destination. I’d say it’s not in the top 40.
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What?
 

Some guy said:
I would love to see the math behind your take

The variance in the new schedule is huge.

What if the gophers played UCLA and Penn State instead of Ohio state and Oregon this year?

The way the schedules work now, hard schedules will be harder, easy schedules will be easier.

Probably harder to draw a 12-0 schedule.
Probably easier to draw a 10-2 schedule.
Click to expand...
I'd agree with that. The variance makes a huge difference. Also easier to draw a 4-8 schedule too...

Gophers could have conference schedule of:
Wisconsin
Iowa
OSU
Michigan
Indiana
Illinois
Oregon
USC
Nebraska

That would be tough sledding...

And you are right:
Wisconsin
Iowa
UCLA
Northwestern
MSU
Rutgers
Maryland
Washington
PSU

Makes a big difference. Could be a better team at 3-6 in conference than 5-4 or 6-3
 


gopherbadgerman said:
I'd agree with that. The variance makes a huge difference. Also easier to draw a 4-8 schedule too...

Gophers could have conference schedule of:
Wisconsin
Iowa
OSU
Michigan
Indiana
Illinois
Oregon
USC
Nebraska

That would be tough sledding...

And you are right:
Wisconsin
Iowa
UCLA
Northwestern
MSU
Rutgers
Maryland
Washington
PSU

Makes a big difference. Could be a better team at 3-6 in conference than 5-4 or 6-3
Click to expand...
For sure


Regardless of your schedule though the goal is to have a system that can sustain and win 6+ against the hard schedule and take advantage of the easy one.



I know the games vs power 5s non conference are fun. But we would be better served as a program playing absolute doormats.

Raises the floor by a game
 

Some guy said:
For sure


Regardless of your schedule though the goal is to have a system that can sustain and win 6 against the hard schedule and take advantage of the easy one.
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Agree. But that might mean scheduling cupcakes in the preseason. Personally I like playing one P4 team in preseason.
 






Tech Machine said:
I think Iowa is really good this year, like really good, they only got 8.
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Yeah but they also gave a game away to 8-4 Iowa state
Their best win was against…..wait for it…Minnesota

So im not convinced they were “really really good”
I just think they were clearly better than the middle


It kind of proves my point actually

Iowa lost to 8-4 Iowa state
Best 7-5 Nebraska and 7-5 Minnesota

Iowa was 2-4 against teams with winning records and people out here saying they’re very very good.

Minnesota currently 1-5 vs teams with winning records.
That could go to 1-3 if northwestern and cal lose tonight. (And gophers would be 0-2 vs .500 records)
 
Last edited:

gopherbadgerman said:
I'd agree with that. The variance makes a huge difference. Also easier to draw a 4-8 schedule too...

Gophers could have conference schedule of:
Wisconsin
Iowa
OSU
Michigan
Indiana
Illinois
Oregon
USC
Nebraska

That would be tough sledding...

And you are right:
Wisconsin
Iowa
UCLA
Northwestern
MSU
Rutgers
Maryland
Washington
PSU

Makes a big difference. Could be a better team at 3-6 in conference than 5-4 or 6-3
Click to expand...
It’d be interesting to see if schools like MN start to be more strategic with their NIL spending YOY. Go for the CFP in years with easier schedules and maintain a baseline of good HS recruits in years with tough schedules.
 

I'm enjoying a 7-win season as much as I can...After re-calibrating my expectations like 6 times this season. Still not good enough. If we are still celebrating 7-win seasons a few years from now, I'm not sure I'll be very into the team anymore.
 



Some guy said:
Yeah but they also gave a game away to 8-4 Iowa state
Their best win was against…..wait for it…Minnesota

So im not convinced they were “really really good”
I just think they were clearly better than the middle


It kind of proves my point actually

Iowa lost to 8-4 Iowa state
Best 7-5 Nebraska and 7-5 Minnesota

Iowa was 2-4 against teams with winning records and people out here saying they’re very very good.

Minnesota currently 1-5 vs teams with winning records.
That could go to 1-3 if northwestern and cal lose tonight. (And gophers would be 0-2 vs .500 records)
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I see your point, maybe just really good. Losses were all very close, we only had one close loss.
 

We'll always play 3 non-conference games, of which at least 2 are usually relatively easy wins and often the third is too. There will always be a few conference teams that are rebuilding or really struggling that should be relatively easy wins too. Between those two that's about 4 relatively easy wins. Split the rest of the games and you're 8-4.

Outside of years with particularly tough schedules, 8-4 should be a reasonable target. You'll miss that some years but it should usually be well within reach.
 

Going forward, the Gophers will dominate. They will recruit all the best players. They will coach with flawlessness and precision. And they will never again win fewer than 10 games in a season.
 

I just want to see better records to get better announcing crews

There are some real crap ones out there
 

Some guy said:
Yeah but they also gave a game away to 8-4 Iowa state
Their best win was against…..wait for it…Minnesota

So im not convinced they were “really really good”
I just think they were clearly better than the middle


It kind of proves my point actually

Iowa lost to 8-4 Iowa state
Best 7-5 Nebraska and 7-5 Minnesota

Iowa was 2-4 against teams with winning records and people out here saying they’re very very good.

Minnesota currently 1-5 vs teams with winning records.
That could go to 1-3 if northwestern and cal lose tonight. (And gophers would be 0-2 vs .500 records)
Click to expand...
Home field also matters. Iowa got Oregon, Penn State and Indiana all at home. They beat Penn State and lost the other two by 7 total points. Iowa lost 4 games by 15 total points. They were really good this year but couldn’t get to the special season mark. They also needed last minute heroics to beat MSU and PSU.
 

The struggle was real for us this year against Purdue, Michigan State and Rutgers those three along with Wisconsin are four of the bottom five teams in the conference. We were non competitive as bad as any other teams against Ohio State and Oregon and I still have nightmares about 41-3 and the last 6 quarters of play against Iowa. Beating up on a shitty Wisconsin team is great and a good way to close out the regular season.
 


caliGopher said:
Top of the B1G gets Screamin' Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt. Anything is better than those two. I'd even take Joe Buck calling baseball again over that total clown show.
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Agree 100%

I get it that some people enjoy Gus, and I’ll even concede that he is OK calling basketball, but he is clueless on football, I never have his games not on mute.
 

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