CFN: 5 Potentially Disappointing College Football Teams (Big Ten: Minnesota)

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BleedGopher

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per CFN:

Big Ten: Minnesota
Let’s use the same philosophy that put Northwestern in this spot last season.

It’s hard to get the same breaks twice.

Give 2019 Minnesota credit for coming through against a strong Penn State team, and there wasn’t anything fluky in the win over Auburn. However, it got to start the season against South Dakota State, Fresno State and Georgia Southern.

This year, the non-conference games are against Florida Atlantic, Tennessee Tech, and BYU. They should be able to win all three of those, but lose one, and the dynamic of the year changes.

Last season, the Gophers got to fatten up on Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland in a slew of scrimmages to get ready for the big moment against Penn State. This time around, they have Iowa in Week 3, four road games in five weeks in October, and worst of all, the road games are rough.

They have to go to Wisconsin after playing at Maryland, and they get Illinois and Michigan State on the road in back-to-back weeks. Throw in the date at Nebraska, and the home game against Michigan, and forget about another 11-2 run.

Don’t expect the team to totally fall off the map – the fundamentals of PJ Fleck’s program are strong – but losing S Antoine Winfield and linebackers Carter Coughlin and Kamal Martin really, really hurts.

The offense as whole, though, should be terrific, and the defense gets back enough to be okay, but no one will overlook Minnesota anyone, and again, that schedule …

The boat won’t sink, but it’ll have to row upstream.

collegefootballnews.com

5 Potentially Disappointing College Football Teams: 20 for 2020 Offseason Topics No. 7

20 key offseason topics for 2020: No. 7. Which five college football teams have the potential to disappoint? – Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak 20 for 2020 Offseason Topics …
collegefootballnews.com collegefootballnews.com

Go Gophers!!
 


Kind of nice having good enough preseason expectations to be considered a potential let-down.
 

The defense may be a pleasant surprise. I don't know how this shut down impacts the Gophers. PJ Fleck's team thrive on the Spring practices. With that taken away, I don't know if any team is in game conditioning by the time they are allowed to have group practices.

The scary thing thing is if this pandemic lingers on. What then?
 




We will run out Iowa and Maryland and be 5-0 going to Madison.

That game will determine whether we can have a special season.
 

They will be most disappointing when, like all other teams, they don't get to play any games this season.
 

The night is dark and full of terrors
 



If there is a season, it will all hinge on the defense. basically, what it comes down to is this:
allow 1 less point than the offense scores.

If the offense scores 35, defense has to hold the other team to 34.
if the offense scores 40, defense has to hold the other team to 39.

I would not be surprised to see some high-scoring games early in the season, and then see what Rossi and co. can do to improve things down the stretch.
 



I think it is fair to have some skepticism about this team considering the losses on the defensive side of the ball. The schedule is potentially tougher although swapping Michigan for Penn State as a tough crossover at home is possibly an easier game than last year. Going to Sparty instead of Rutgers is a much more difficult test but 2020 should be a good year to get Sparty in their house.
 



Let's say Minnesota drops down to 8-4 this year. How dissapointing will that really be? That means a winning B1G season and a nice bowl game.

Nebraska on the other hand, has a good chance of not getting to a bowl game again. They open with Purdue, which is a toss up, their out of conference schedule has two challenging teams, South Dakota State and Cincinnati (plus Central Michigan) and their B1G crossovers are Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers. They could easily lose 4 out of division games leaving them to win 4 B1G West games to get to bowl eligibility.

My vote is for Nebraska to again be the the dissapointment of the B1G.
 


BilldGopher said:
Dink I think.
Click to expand...
I disagree. The Gophers finished in the top 10 last year. It isn't that hard to imagine them being unranked at the end of the season if they didn't get some of the breaks they got last year. Heck, they could have easily gone 0-3 in NC play last year without a few breaks. If the Gophers had lost one or more NC games and lost to PSU (if Clifford's last pass had been on target they score the game winning TD instead of the loss clinching INT), I would think they end up unranked as their SOS for wins would have been awful. Wouldn't have had a good opponent in the Bowl to boost their SOS, either.

Not to mention they were relatively healthy last year. The positions they had injuries at were pretty deep, so that helped.

I think for any team that did finish in the top 10, you at least expect to end up ranked the following year, probably top 15-20 or it's disappointing. With a potentially tougher schedule (definitely is from a home/away standpoint, maybe not from a team standpoint), they could easily be disappointing. If Iowa had the season the Gophers did last year I think everyone would say they're primed for a disappointing season.
 
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short ornery norwegian said:
If there is a season, it will all hinge on the defense. basically, what it comes down to is this:
allow 1 less point than the offense scores.

If the offense scores 35, defense has to hold the other team to 34.
if the offense scores 40, defense has to hold the other team to 39.

I would not be surprised to see some high-scoring games early in the season, and then see what Rossi and co. can do to improve things down the stretch.
Click to expand...
Wait. Let me get this right. We just need to score more than the other team and we will win? Brilliant!
?
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
I disagree. The Gophers finished in the top 10 last year. It isn't that hard to imagine them being unranked at the end of the season if they didn't get some of the breaks they got last year. Heck, they could have easily gone 0-3 in NC play last year without a few breaks. If the Gophers had lost one or more NC games and lost to PSU (if Clifford's last pass had been on target they score the game winning TD instead of the loss clinching INT), I would think they end up unranked as their SOS for wins would have been awful. Wouldn't have had a good opponent in the Bowl to boost their SOS, either.

Not to mention they were relatively healthy last year. The positions they had injuries at were pretty deep, so that helped.

I think for any team that did finish in the top 10, you at least expect to end up ranked the following year, probably top 15-20 or it's disappointing. With a potentially tougher schedule (definitely is from a home/away standpoint, maybe not from a team standpoint), they could easily be disappointing. If Iowa had the season the Gophers did last year I think everyone would say they're primed for a disappointing season.
Click to expand...
You're taking the bit way too serious!!
 


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