Chip Scoggins: Loss returns Gophers football fans to program's routine

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BleedGopher

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per Chip:

This team was supposed to be different. Maybe not perfect or overpowering, but different.

Surely this Gophers football team wouldn’t tease fans and bring heartache like so many others in years past. Longtime followers of the program know too well how that story goes. Build expectations, get everyone excited, generate some buzz and …. Splat.

Same old, same old.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/280428292.html

Go Gophers!!
 

Bloggin' Scoggins: Ugly loss for Gophers puts damper on season

Thud.

That’s the sound of the Gophers season slamming into a brick wall. We should have known better than to believe this team might be different.

Saturday’s game was supposed to be a final tune-up for the Gophers before the grind of November hit.

Instead, the Gophers looked asleep for the first half and coughed up a late lead to lose 28-24 to an Illinois team that entered the game 0-3 in the Big Ten.

Thud.

The Gophers had visions of returning home 7-1, 4-0 in the Big Ten with a pivotal four-game stretch on tap, starting with Iowa in two weeks.

And now? Yawn.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/280416162.html

Go Gophers!!
 

Chip obviously doesn't read gopherhole. Nothing to be concerned about. A loss to the worst big 10 team...no big deal. We control our destiny..it will all work out. If it doesn't that is only because we really are not that good (or insert any other excuse that makes you feel good about losing).
 

GO4INLALALAND said:
Chip obviously doesn't read gopherhole. Nothing to be concerned about. A loss to the worst big 10 team...no big deal. We control our destiny..it will all work out. If it doesn't that is only because we really are not that good (or insert any other excuse that makes you feel good about losing).
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Great point. No negativity on GH today. /s
 



GO4INLALALAND said:
No reason to be negative...I mean Ill is better than OSU..we should not even have expected to win today.
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Not sure what threads you have been reading. Plenty of negativity on here today. You should be happy.
 



Scoggins has a point: the weird lethargy of the Gophers in the first half (which has happened before). They looked like they were on sedatives. And the first half game plan was lame. It should have been obvious to Kill & coaches that Illinois would be sky high and would jam the box to stop Cobb and dare Leidner to throw.
 



This game just goes to show that at this level of ball, or any level, you better come prepared to play every down. Today the gophs would have won if the other team hadn't showed up. However they did and now the gophs have a reason to come to practice and work hard the next two weeks. Will they win any of the next four games they play? Hard to say but, they will show up wearing some combination of maroon and gold and I will cheer for them just as lustily as I have for the past 60 years. Go Gophers!
 

tOSU blew a 17-0 lead to PSU and almost lost the game. Needed 2OT to win. It isn't pretty, but it happens.
 

GO4INLALALAND said:
Chip obviously doesn't read gopherhole. Nothing to be concerned about. A loss to the worst big 10 team...no big deal. We control our destiny..it will all work out. If it doesn't that is only because we really are not that good (or insert any other excuse that makes you feel good about losing).
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Is Illinois the "worst" Big Ten team? Maybe, but they didn't look like it yesterday. Remember, this team had lost their starting quarterback a few games ago and their coaches were experimenting with a two quarterback rotation until yesterday when their coach realized he should abandon it. They also played Wisconsin at Wisconsin the game before yesterday far, far tougher than Maryland did yesterday. The same thing could be said about Purdue the week before: they have inserted a new starting quarterback and they are improving.

I'm not trying to deflect blame away from the Gopher players and coaches, but I am saying that fixing the "worst" Big Ten team is no sure thing. The truth, as I see it, is that the Big Ten has four truly good or very good teams and the rest aren't all that far from each other. I agree that since the Gophers aren't among those four teams they are "not that good" but I also don't think any of the bottom 10, at least as the season progresses, is head and shoulders above the others.

If they can beat Iowa next game, I'll be satisfied with the season. If they can manage to beat any of the three honestly "good" teams they play after that, then we should all be ecstatic.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Scoggins has a point: the weird lethargy of the Gophers in the first half (which has happened before). They looked like they were on sedatives. And the first half game plan was lame. It should have been obvious to Kill & coaches that Illinois would be sky high and would jam the box to stop Cobb and dare Leidner to throw.
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Absolutely right. I think the coaches thought that a team who had been the worst defensive team in the league against the rush couldn't adjust, but when the opponent's default offensive play is a handoff to their leading running back, it shouldn't be a hard decision about where to focus the defensive efforts. Minnesota did adjust to Illinois' defense but it took them a little too long to do it and Leidner still just isn't consistent or confident enough when he has to be the guy. I'm not giving up on him yet as he has improved and has two years left.

Of course, it took the defense a little too long to adjust to Illinois' offense too. I know that Maryland went down 0-14 against Iowa and won but I hope the Gophers don't tempt the same situation next game.
 



cjbfbp said:
Absolutely right. I think the coaches thought that a team who had been the worst defensive team in the league against the rush couldn't adjust, but when the opponent's default offensive play is a handoff to their leading running back, it shouldn't be a hard decision about where to focus the defensive efforts. Minnesota did adjust to Illinois' defense but it took them a little too long to do it and Leidner still just isn't consistent or confident enough when he has to be the guy. I'm not giving up on him yet as he has improved and has two years left.

Of course, it took the defense a little too long to adjust to Illinois' offense too. I know that Maryland went down 0-14 against Iowa and won but I hope the Gophers don't tempt the same situation next game.
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If the offensive gameplan comes out lethargic and numbingly dull like it has been for about 80-90% of the Gopher games over the past several seasons, then expect more of the same.
 

cjbfbp said:
Is Illinois the "worst" Big Ten team? Maybe, but they didn't look like it yesterday. Remember, this team had lost their starting quarterback a few games ago and their coaches were experimenting with a two quarterback rotation until yesterday when their coach realized he should abandon it. They also played Wisconsin at Wisconsin the game before yesterday far, far tougher than Maryland did yesterday. The same thing could be said about Purdue the week before: they have inserted a new starting quarterback and they are improving.

I'm not trying to deflect blame away from the Gopher players and coaches, but I am saying that fixing the "worst" Big Ten team is no sure thing. The truth, as I see it, is that the Big Ten has four truly good or very good teams and the rest aren't all that far from each other. I agree that since the Gophers aren't among those four teams they are "not that good" but I also don't think any of the bottom 10, at least as the season progresses, is head and shoulders above the others.

If they can beat Iowa next game, I'll be satisfied with the season. If they can manage to beat any of the three honestly "good" teams they play after that, then we should all be ecstatic.
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Everytime we lose to a bad team someone posts something like this. Illinois was terrible, their 3 other wins were against powerhouse schools like Youngstown State, Western Kentucky, and Texas State. They were without their starting QB who had been one of the only good things in their offense this season, and they had a run defense that couldn't stop anything.

Upsets happen but the bottom line is that the Gophers laid an egg yesterday and lost to a team they should have beaten. Heck over the past 2 weeks we are a missed 52 yard field goal away from potentially losing to two of the worst (and they legitimately are two of the worst) teams in the Big Ten this year.

The sky isn't falling the sun is shining today and all that jazz but I think we have seen these past two weeks that the championship steam this team was getting was pre-mature. We are still firmly planted in the middle of the Big Ten, better then where we were under Brewster but still a long ways from where we all want to be.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Everytime we lose to a bad team someone posts something like this. Illinois was terrible, their 3 other wins were against powerhouse schools like Youngstown State, Western Kentucky, and Texas State. They were without their starting QB who had been one of the only good things in their offense this season, and they had a run defense that couldn't stop anything.

Upsets happen but the bottom line is that the Gophers laid an egg yesterday and lost to a team they should have beaten. Heck over the past 2 weeks we are a missed 52 yard field goal away from potentially losing to two of the worst (and they legitimately are two of the worst) teams in the Big Ten this year.

The sky isn't falling the sun is shining today and all that jazz but I think we have seen these past two weeks that the championship steam this team was getting was pre-mature. We are still firmly planted in the middle of the Big Ten, better then where we were under Brewster but still a long ways from where we all want to be.
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Do you have a solution or are you just venting? Serious question.
 

Believe whomever or whatever you want, the fact is the Gophers should never have lost to Illinois.

Go Gophers.**

**Registered trademark of Bleed Gopher.
 

The worst part of this loss is that it brought all the momentum to a screeching halt. People were talking about the team. Trips were getting organized to go to Lincoln and Madison. Students that normally don't go to games were buying Iowa tickets way in advance. Maroon and gold was all over downtown. People were letting themselves get excited.

Now nothing. The vibe at Blarney's was very depressing. Which I guess is somewhat of an improvement. Two years, most students there wouldn't have even know there was an away game.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Do you have a solution or are you just venting? Serious question.
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Venting about the posters that try to turn teams like Illinois into something they are not in order to justify why we lost to them.

As for solutions, no one in here has those, that is up to the guys making 6 or 7 figures a year to work out. But for the sake of discussion here are my thoughts.

1. Recruit/develop a QB that you can count on to win the game for you. Leidner wasn't the only problem yesterday but he missed a bunch of throws that could have extended drives.
2. Find some true playmakers at the WR position
3. Figure out a way to look prepared in the 1st quarter the way they seem to in the third quarter. In game adjustments seem to be working fairly well but two weeks in a row now they have looked unprepared and unable to stop what the opponent was throwing at them early.
4. The easy one from a outside standpoint - Recruit better athletes

Kill has done a good job stabilizing the program and bringing it back to the middle of the pack where it lived for the most part during the Mason years. But there is still a long ways to go and the question remains as to whether or not Kill and his staff can put the pieces in place to take that next step.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Everytime we lose to a bad team someone posts something like this. Illinois was terrible, their 3 other wins were against powerhouse schools like Youngstown State, Western Kentucky, and Texas State. They were without their starting QB who had been one of the only good things in their offense this season, and they had a run defense that couldn't stop anything.
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The assumption of your post is that a team's fate is static. Have you never heard of the concepts of upward mobility, improvement, or simply situationally favorable matchups? Most of the teams in this conference recruit a roughly similar caliber of players and have a similar caliber of coaching and training resources (the greatest exceptions come at the top of the league). Do you think that a team that starts poorly is destined to be terrible every game of the entire season? I bet you weren't nearly as irritated by this type of phenomena when a 3-9 Gopher team beat an Iowa team just a season removed from a BCS bowl victory a few years ago.
 

cjbfbp said:
The assumption of your post is that a team's fate is static. Have you never heard of the concepts of upward mobility, improvement, or simply situationally favorable matchups? Most of the teams in this conference recruit a roughly similar caliber of players and have a similar caliber of coaching and training resources (the greatest exceptions come at the top of the league). Do you think that a team that starts poorly is destined to be terrible every game of the entire season? I bet you weren't nearly as irritated by this type of phenomena when a 3-9 Gopher team beat an Iowa team just a season removed from a BCS bowl victory a few years ago.
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I understand where you are coming from and like I said upsets happen but I don't think for a second that Illinois suddenly turned into a good team and is going to to on some sort of winning streak. They have won 2 Big Ten games over the past 2 seasons and it is pretty much guaranteed that their coach is getting fired at the end of the season.

The Big Ten is very flat in terms of the talent gap between the good teams and the bad ones right now but that still doesn't change the fact that the Gophers lost to a bad team yesterday. My main issue is with the people that try and turn a team that we beat or that beats us into something it isn't. The fact of the matter is that we have beaten 6 average to bad teams, gotten blown out by a really good team, and lost to a bad team so far this season. We have 4 regular season games left and all of them are against good to very good teams.
 

The gophers still control their own destiny (and they don't even need to best ohio state)
 

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