Breaking News! Gophers Aren't as Bad as They Looked!

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Go Gophs said:
Their defense IS as bad as it looked.

Call it what you want, but you can't give up 49 points to anyone. Not a single team. Not the National Champion if you want to be taken seriously. The defense is borderline terrible and needs a ton of work.

That said, I agree that overall, this team is not bad. They are a good team, but being embarrassed like that shouldn't happen to a team that says they want to win the BT West.
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Last year in the CFP LSU put up 63 vs then #4 Oklahoma and then followed it up with 42 vs #3 (and reigning champ) Clemson.

Hell, the year before Alabama put up 45 vs then #4 Oklahoma, and then Clemson put up 44 on Alabama.

Should we have not taken any of those teams seriously? Their ranking seems to say otherwise.
 

Taji34 said:
Last year in the CFP LSU put up 63 vs then #4 Oklahoma and then followed it up with 42 vs #3 (and reigning champ) Clemson.

Hell, the year before Alabama put up 45 vs then #4 Oklahoma, and then Clemson put up 44 on Alabama.

Should we have not taken any of those teams seriously? Their ranking seems to say otherwise.
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NO. Their defenses. NO. Big 12 as a whole is the no defense league.

Also, Oklahoma probably averaged 50 points a game on offense. Same with Clemson.

This is the Big Ten. Give up 49 you won't win unless you're Ohio State.
 

Go Gophs said:
Their defense IS as bad as it looked.

Call it what you want, but you can't give up 49 points to anyone. Not a single team. Not the National Champion if you want to be taken seriously. The defense is borderline terrible and needs a ton of work.

That said, I agree that overall, this team is not bad. They are a good team, but being embarrassed like that shouldn't happen to a team that says they want to win the BT West.
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Your point about not giving up 49 and being taken seriously is valid but you can't pin that full 49 on the defense. The offense was responsible for 7, the bum kickoff setup Michigan on the doorstep for another 7 and the fake punt deep in our own territory put the D in a really tough spot on that series as well.

Doesn't change the fact that the D will need to play better for this team to contend in the West, just pointing out that not all the points allowed on Saturday were the Ds fault. Offense and Not-so-special teams deserve some of the blame as well.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Your point about not giving up 49 and being taken seriously is valid but you can't pin that full 49 on the defense. The offense was responsible for 7, the bum kickoff setup Michigan on the doorstep for another 7 and the fake punt deep in our own territory put the D in a really tough spot on that series as well.

Doesn't change the fact that the D will need to play better for this team to contend in the West, just pointing out that not all the points allowed on Saturday were the Ds fault. Offense and Not-so-special teams deserve some of the blame as well.
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It works both ways, Michigan missed 3 chip shot FGs which "helped" the Gopher's D out.
 


Go Gophs said:
NO. Their defenses. NO. Big 12 as a whole is the no defense league.

Also, Oklahoma probably averaged 50 points a game on offense. Same with Clemson.

This is the Big Ten. Give up 49 you won't win unless you're Ohio State.
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You were give two examples involving the National Champions, which were bold in Taji34 response.
 

We have to remember Wisconsin came in and beat us up last year, and we followed that up with a W over Auburn in a bowl game.

Also this is a completely new team this year. Last year it took us at least 4-5 weeks before we got it together. Fortunately our schedule supported that and that's why you schedule those games. Then we're ready later in the year for teams like Michigan and Penn St.

We'll get a lot better week-to-week and a loss like that to Michigan expedites the process.
Hopefully in a year or two we get to the point where we're able to shorten that learning curve and be ready for good teams in the non-conference. Though the result was disappointing, I like looking forward to having a good team on the schedule early in the year. Next year we have Ohio St. right off the bat so hopefully a game like this prepares us for that one next year.

I think there's plenty of reason for optimism and I look forward to the rest of the year to see how our squad plays on Friday/Saturdays, I expect the results to be a lot better starting with a lopsided W against Maryland Friday night.
 

Let's see how it plays out but I'm confident that Michigan buttkicks everyone on its schedule except ohi o state and we slowly get our act together in defense. I'm also confident the offense starts clicking. No worries unless covid raises its head.
 

Hopefully they can fix the defense by next week, they seemed lost from the first play of the game. Not buying the Winfield covering things up last year as the later half of the 2018 season defense played pretty well without Winfield. Hopefully it's just guys getting used to playing big minutes in Big Ten football. Also if I remember correctly Minnesota stopped practicing for 2 weeks after the season was postponed while Michigan kept at it.
 




Another thing to consider, had we played Penn State or Auburn week one last year I would have expected a similar outcome to last week's game to have happened. We start slow, I just hope over the next two weeks we get wins and gel enough to beat Iowa.

What does this mean for OSU opener next year? Well, likely not anything good. We'll likely be facing another new QB unless Feilds doesn't declare for the NFL. One big plus over this year is PJ and team know that game is coming first and can begin game planning as soon as possible, where this year they had far less time.
 





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