ESPN's Bennett on MN: "the pieces are there for a West Division contender."

[BleedGopher]

per his Q&A:

@KyleFjetland: @BennettESPN what needs to happen next season for the Gophers to have a successful season?

Brian Bennett: I think Minnesota has a chance to be one of the top turnaround teams in the league in 2015.

The Golden Gophers only went 5-7 in the regular season, but they lost to TCU by six points, Michigan by three points (after being stuffed on the goal line to end it) and Iowa by five points. All this while dealing with terrible injury luck most of the season, losing some of their best players.

And after getting stuck with the brutal crossover schedule of Michigan and Ohio State last year (combined record: 21-4), things ease up in 2016 with Penn State, Maryland and Rutgers from the East. All three nonconference games are at home and are highly winnable (Oregon State, Indiana State and Colorado State). Minnesota needs much better health this year, better play in the trenches and a big senior season from quarterback Mitch Leidner. But the pieces are there for a West Division contender.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post...-michigan-state-how-minnesota-turns-it-around

Go Gophers!!

 

[Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0]

Floyd, Bits of Broken Chair, and the Axe are as good as ours. The games are just mere formalities.

 

[Go4]

i believe in claeys

 

[Stuff]

The Gophers were also supposed to contender last year. Hopefully, the team can stay healthy and have more success against easier Big Ten opponents.

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

 

[corcoran1]

No one in the conference is deep enough to lose both starting DTs, and three, or four if you count Bobek, starting olinemen and win the championship of anything. Maybe we were delusional in thinking that three previously injured olinemen would be healthy, but without them we would have been predicted to be as competitive as Purdue.

 

[Sparlimb]

No one in the conference is deep enough to lose both starting DTs, and three, or four if you count Bobek, starting olinemen and win the championship of anything. Maybe we were delusional in thinking that three previously injured olinemen would be healthy, but without them we would have been predicted to be as competitive as Purdue.

Well Ohio St is. But certainly not us...

7-5 would be a nice finish to ML7's career.

 

[PMWinSTP]

No one in the conference is deep enough to lose both starting DTs, and three, or four if you count Bobek, starting olinemen and win the championship of anything. Maybe we were delusional in thinking that three previously injured olinemen would be healthy, but without them we would have been predicted to be as competitive as Purdue.

No, not really. Frankly, the o-line can really only get better, actually glad to see new faces. Real shot at 9-3.

 

[vagopher]

I can't wait.