9-2, 5-2 should be expected

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ToddisGahd said:
FWIW, Kirk Herbstreit said the same thing. So did Brad Edwards. It's not like saying Wisconsin is a top 10 team is outrageous. I think we (yes, I'm a Badger fan) are closer to the 12-15 range. I think the Gophers are in the 27-35 range. Regardless, it's been great to see the Gophs turn it around. I live in uptown and I've seen more Gopher fans walking around in their colors the past 3 Saturdays than I have in the last year and half combined.

I do think we are a horrible matchup for you guys though, and that the teams are probably closer than the spread/score would indicate simply because of matchups.

Also BYU is better than Iowa, but Iowa might be a better win simply because the game was played on the road. I think a win at Minnesota would be behind both of those wins in terms of quality. @NW was a good win at the time, before NW completely fell apart and lost their whole offense due to injuries. Crazy how that team just collapsed.
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Minnesota is a better win than BYU. If only because it's a conference win.
 

Formo said:
Minnesota is a better win than BYU. If only because it's a conference win.
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I'm not talking in terms of impact, just quality of the opponent and situation. FWIW, BYU was only a 7.5 point underdog at Madison. They had won five straight and had wins @Texas (blowout), @Utah State (blowout), Georgia Tech (blowout), @Houston and Boise State. All of those teams are currently ranked in the top 40 in the country by Jeff Saragin. BYU is 19th. Minnesota is 56th.

Obviously this isn't the end all be all and it's not even close to a perfect system, but BYU is a better team than Minnesota IMO. Not by much, probably around 5-8 points better on a neutral field. BYU had the system to beat Wisconsin though, which is why I consider them a better win. Their QB can sling it and they were the only team in the country, other than Wisconsin, with two players average over 100 YPG rushing. Minnesota is a much more favorable matchup for Wisconsin. I think the spread, assuming Wisconsin beats Indiana this weekend, will open at -12.5 or so.
 

ToddisGahd said:
I'm not talking in terms of impact, just quality of the opponent and situation. FWIW, BYU was only a 7.5 point underdog at Madison. They had won five straight and had wins @Texas (blowout), @Utah State (blowout), Georgia Tech (blowout), @Houston and Boise State. All of those teams are currently ranked in the top 40 in the country by Jeff Saragin. BYU is 19th. Minnesota is 56th.

Obviously this isn't the end all be all and it's not even close to a perfect system, but BYU is a better team than Minnesota IMO, but not by much....I like 5-8 points better on a neutral field.
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Fair enough. I guess I just put more weight on conference wins vs. non-conference wins, simply because of the standings within the conference. I would be very interested in seeing a BYU-Minnesota match up because I honestly believe that they match up well. Both play sort of the same style of offense, so the defenses would have an advantage simply due to the familiarity. Would probably be a low-scoring affair. It would probably come down to the depth of the team (admittedly, don't know anything about BYU's starters much less their depth).
 

Formo said:
Fair enough. I guess I just put more weight on conference wins vs. non-conference wins, simply because of the standings within the conference. I would be very interested in seeing a BYU-Minnesota match up because I honestly believe that they match up well. Both play sort of the same style of offense, so the defenses would have an advantage simply due to the familiarity. Would probably be a low-scoring affair. It would probably come down to the depth of the team (admittedly, don't know anything about BYU's starters much less their depth).
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BYU's offense is more dynamic than Minnesota, simply because their QB is very, very good. He's on pace for 3,200 yards passing and about 1,300 yards rushing. Nelson could maybe get to that point, but he's not in even close right now. BYU also throws A LOT more than Minnesota. Their starter has attempted 317 passes to Minnesota's collective 189, and have done so in one less game. They also average more yards rushing than Minnesota (13th nationally).

They also have a top 30 defense in points allowed.

In short, they are better than the Gophers in most ways. I still think you matchup with them well though, because your pass D is decent and you guys can run the ball and keep their QB off the field. I think somewhere in the -5.5 on a neutral field sounds about right.
 

Great, this thread has turned into a badger fans telling us that BYU would beat the gophers.
 


gopherbadgerman said:
Wisconsin has gotten more love in this thread than the entire year. Wisconsin is good, if they were great they would not have lost to ASU. Maybe to OSU, but not ASU. I just have a feeling that MN is going to pull it off. And for the record, I think Wisconsin is better than MSU, but I think MN loses to MSU next week on the road after upsetting the Badgers. But I would be happy with 1-1 to end the year. Gator Bowl or the BW3 Bowl would be a given with one more win I think.
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ASU is also highly underrated according to Sagarin... #5 in the country by predictor value, which is three spots ahead of Wisconsin. Based on that, it is not a surprise that they beat Wisconsin at home. Wisconsin is very, very good.
 


I am not one to put too much faith in the computers myself, but since there seems to be a lot of talk about how the computers don't like Minnesota I thought I would mention that some have a more favorable view than the Sagarin. The Colley Matrix is one of the computer rankings used by to formulate the BCS rankings. That system currently has the Gophers at 23 and Wisconsin at 26. The GAMER system of RealTime RPI has the Gophs ranked 29 and Wiscy at 21, predicts the Gophers lose 29-24 and gives them a 39.7% chance to win.

http://www.colleyrankings.com/currank.html

http://realtimerpi.com/cgi-bin/football/scouting?team1=1023&team2=1028&gender=1&home=&date=11-23
 

SKOOKM said:
I am not one to put too much faith in the computers myself, but since there seems to be a lot of talk about how the computers don't like Minnesota I thought I would mention that some have a more favorable view than the Sagarin. The Colley Matrix is one of the computer rankings used by to formulate the BCS rankings. That system currently has the Gophers at 23 and Wisconsin at 26. The GAMER system of RealTime RPI has the Gophs ranked 29 and Wiscy at 21, predicts the Gophers lose 29-24 and gives them a 39.7% chance to win.

http://www.colleyrankings.com/currank.html

http://realtimerpi.com/cgi-bin/football/scouting?team1=1023&team2=1028&gender=1&home=&date=11-23
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That sounds reasonable. For some reason I just feel this is the year.
 





ToddisGahd said:
BYU's offense is more dynamic than Minnesota, simply because their QB is very, very good. He's on pace for 3,200 yards passing and about 1,300 yards rushing. Nelson could maybe get to that point, but he's not in even close right now. BYU also throws A LOT more than Minnesota. Their starter has attempted 317 passes to Minnesota's collective 189, and have done so in one less game. They also average more yards rushing than Minnesota (13th nationally).

They also have a top 30 defense in points allowed.

In short, they are better than the Gophers in most ways. I still think you matchup with them well though, because your pass D is decent and you guys can run the ball and keep their QB off the field. I think somewhere in the -5.5 on a neutral field sounds about right.
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BYU's QB has a nice arm, better than Nelson's. But I think if Minnesota kept runnining with strictly Nelson (instead of splitting snaps with Leidner for all those games), Nelson's rushing stats would have been very comparable. I'm going on a limb here and also saying that BYU's probably got one more talented WR than Minnesota has, which also helps the QB (more 3rd down completions = more dynamic playcalls, etc)

I'm not arguing that Minnesota would blow out or even beat BYU (neutral field or otherwise), but am saying it's closer to pick'em than a -5 spread.
 




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