After 3-4 season, Gophers’ P.J. Fleck pointing out narrow margins in wins and losses

[BleedGopher]

per Greder:

“The margin for error for people who have really, really successful win-loss seasons, and the people who don’t is simply they won close games,” Fleck said from his desk at the Larson Football Performance Center. “And the times we’ve won close games and been able to finish the game and won close games, we’ve had really good years. Sometimes when you don’t, you sit there and go, ‘Hey, it was these three or four games that could have spun it.’ ”

After 3-4 season, Gophers’ P.J. Fleck pointing out narrow margins in wins and losses

For 2021, the Gophers are right up there as one of the most experienced teams in the country with 20 returning starters.

www.brainerddispatch.com

Go Gophers!!

 

[Some guy]

Yeah. Huge gap between #3 and #80 in the country:
The gap between 12 and 45 isn’t that big though.

make a few plays more last season and the team is 5-2

make a few fewer plays in 19 and the team is 6-6

 

[Spaulding!No!]

Brewster makes this claim and Barreiro would play the clip for 10 straight years.

 

[Some guy]

Brewster makes this claim and Barreiro would play the clip for 10 straight years.

I’m not sure Barreiro would disagree that winning close games is important in differentiating average teams from good ones

 

[60's Guy]

Yes winning close games is the difference in mediocre or excellent. But, if you are good enough to beat teams by wider margins, you don’t have to rely on officials calls to win. Or game saving anything.
Change your best. Get better.

 

[Some guy]

Yes winning close games is the difference in mediocre or excellent. But, if you are good enough to beat teams by wider margins, you don’t have to rely on officials calls to win. Or game saving anything.
Change your best. Get better.

Yeah I’m pretty sure that’s what he is saying

 

[MGGopher]

Lose big
Lose small
Win small
Win big

Progression of program building has been stated many times and is the same in every sports from HS to pros. MN FB mostly lives in the middle, although they occasionally foray into one of the extremes.

 

[MNVCGUY]

The 2020 season could easily have gone very differently. 2 OT loses and one of them (Maryland) a direct result of our kickers being decimated by COVID. Finish 5-2 and people suddenly have a very different take on the season even though the results would have only swung by a couple of points.

Would have loved another crack at Maryland with our kicking game in tact and our defense playing the way it was towards the end of the season. That game would have gone very differently.

But all that is in the rearview mirror now. Time to go out and show that 2019 was for real.

 

[Gophergrandpa]

The short 2020 season proved how important all three phases of the game are: offense, defense and special teams. When all three are good, you are a very good team. The Gophers went 3-4, with a couple of close, winnable losses, with only a good offense. The defense was awful in the beginning, and improved slowly, but still wasn't that good at season's end. The kicking game was very poor all season (for reasons beyond coaching control) and the Gophers appear to have abandoned even trying to make up positive yardage in the kick return game--even though the kicking and kick return game can "flip" the field. So, with two out of three cylinders not firing properly, the Gophers still went 3-4 in an all Big Ten schedule: a credit to our offense's skill and experience. If the kicking game had been just half decent (still without a kick return game), we could easily have gone 5-2 ... even with a very underperforming defense.

If our offense plays to it ability this season, and our defense is meaningfully improved (it will be because of experience, development and transfers), the difference in a close game or two will again come down to our kicking and kick return games. I believe the team has taken necessary steps to makes us reasonably competitive in the kicking game. I don't think the kick return game--which can win you a game and change momentum instantly--is a "thing" for this version of the Gophers, though (I'd love to be proved wrong).