Expectations vs Reality: My humble opinion on the state of the program and its future based on my own experiences with Gopher Football

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MNVCGUY said:
When has anyone associated with the team ever said throwing to the Running Back or going more uptempo is going to be implemented? Not sure what team you watched last year but BSF led the team in receptions and was second in yards so umm we do throw to the TE.
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The “we” I’m referring to is “us”, as in us posters.

A recent example would be this: https://gopherhole.com/boards/threa...gopher-offense-look-like.109562/#post-2630705

But I’m not gonna detail this into a argument on whether we throw to the TE or not, the overwhelming point is we keep waiting for the offense to be opened it and it just never is.
 

Rockraven said:
I disagree with this take. I remember the Rose Bowls and a national championship. My father also went to the U and remembered the true Golden Era. I find inadequate satisfaction in moderate success.
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Another relatively new to the board high-achiever telling me what I should be satisfied with. Buh-bye!
 



PhillyGopher said:
Another relatively new to the board high-achiever telling me what I should be satisfied with. Buh-bye!
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Been in the board about
PhillyGopher said:
Another relatively new to the board high-achiever telling me what I should be satisfied with. Buh-bye!
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Been on the board over 10 years. Lol. Surprised you don’t recognize this moniker. Others have.
 


Rockraven said:
I disagree with this take. I remember the Rose Bowls and a national championship. My father also went to the U and remembered the true Golden Era. I find inadequate satisfaction in moderate success.
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If you remember this, pat yourself on the back for knowing how to use a computer and post online, even if it reeks of grumpy old man. 🙃😛
 


Replacement Gopher said:
I’ve lowered my expectations to: win the big ten west once in my lifetime. I’m told those are too high.
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Welp, next year or bust, then.

Highly suspect divisions are done once UCLA and USC join in 2024.


Schedule next year is much tougher than 2021 and 2022, but as others have pointed out, it is pretty similar to the schedule Iowa had to face this year. So may we go out with a bang!
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
NE and WI are going to be in year 0!
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There never was, never is a year zero for a coach who is receiving a pay check for a BT football coach who has accepted the awesome challenge, the incredible potential, the unending demands and the great honor of being THE University of Minnesota of Minnesota, BIG TEN head football coach. This coach IS the highly visible local face and name of the BIG TEN brand of football for the U of M. There are no “free seasons…”

To be a Big Ten coach, every Big Ten contest becomes a barometer of the current Big Ten standing & the historical Big Ten standing of the University of Minnesota’s ranking and record vs. BigTen Conference member schools. There is no alternative truth. What is: is.

Coach Fleck is working hard. Coach Fleck IS a Big Ten football coach. He IS exactly what his Big Ten record says he is. In the overall history of the past five or six decades, he ranks very highly against other University of Minnesota Big Ten Football coaches. His ranking has been rising from the lower left corner toward the upper right corner of the graph. He has a new 7 year contract in place and that IS a good thing for the prospects of The U of M as a BT football conference member.

Go GOPHER. Beat the stinking badger. Beat the stinking hawkeye!
 
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SamSquatch said:
I agree with this mostly but the losses haven’t been dumbfounding, they have been semi-often if not consistent.

We haven’t ever won the weakest P5 division in football while Northwestern, Purdue, and Illinois have.

We can win 8 games and claim above average but we don’t win when stakes are high. This isn’t so much a Gophers thing as an MN thing. This state is a magnet for losing when important. Always bet on an MN team to lose when important.
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The B1G, SEC, and ACC are the only conferences with divisions and just because the B1G west is easier than the East every year doesn’t mean it’s the easiest division every year. Even this year the acc coastal isn’t much better.
 

I think Fleck has done a good job. Kill (and Lord do I hate bringing him up because it will likely add about 200 comments to the thread) did a nice job cleaning up a mess, but even if he had remained healthy (and this is all conjecture on my part), he had taken the program about as far as I think he could have. Fleck has built on that and instilled a similar (although differently-worded) approach and I see us as a solid B-grade program right now.

As others have said, Fleck needs to grow a bit as an in-game coach (and I don't know how the dynamics work between Fleck and his coordinators), but he's basically running the same system that Kill ran with a better QB and I don't know if that style is going to elevate the program to the level we'd all love to see. I'm not for installing the Air Raid or any of those other touch football offenses, but our passing game seems fairly rudimentary. We just don't have much suddenness in our approach. To solve that problem, we need to keep recruiting well, but an additional wrinkle or two on both sides of the ball would help. Fleck has done a good job modeling Iowa and Wisconsin, but we need a little more to take the next step. Maybe that happens with Kaliakmanis and what he brings to the table.
 

Liberal Minnesota has no chance to compete in the new "pay for play NCAA football system".

With that said, I am happy as hell with 8+ wins a year.

We need to make the Big10 title game and we should have but unfortunately had some bad luck.

PJ, IMHO, is the best chance we have of a "special season" in my lifetime (44 years).

Also, we finished in the AP Top 10. That is, again IMHO, as amazing as I can imagine after the 40 years of fandom before that.
 




Replacement Gopher said:
Correct.
Head-scratching loses have been consistent and could have easily included 2019 as our non-conference wins were incredibly close.

We all agree, it’s nice to get back to Mason-level success (maybe even better than Mason), but we did lose to a really bad MAC team and we have yet to beat Iowa when multiple games were there for the taking.

And we all agree we’d like to see a play to win instead of hang on to win mindset, passes to running backs and tight ends, the occasional up tempo snap… every year we say we will implement these things next year, and we never do.

That’s fine, but then beat Iowa and/or win the Big Ten West or some people will start questioning your decision-making. That type of pressure comes with any high-paying, high-profile job.

If the OP was the Wisconsin AD they’d still have Chryst. Who is to say who is right or wrong, but those who feel PJ is infallible usually don’t refute anything we say, they just resort to name-calling. Even the OP says he feels to share his opinion on a message board, and anyone with a different opinion is a “nobody”. Ok.
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There’s no maybe in my opinion. The program is better.
 

DarthGopher said:
If you remember this, pat yourself on the back for knowing how to use a computer and post online, even if it reeks of grumpy old man. 🙃😛
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I am likely younger than you in every way other than chronically. I own a health and fitness company. As you age, I can help. 😉
 


the one thing we don't know today is what the conference will look like after USC and UCLA come aboard.

Divisions - Pods - or no divisions. those decisions need to be made (or if they've already been made in some back room, they need to be announced.)

that in turn will determine the schedule, and what teams will have to do in order to qualify for a Conference Championship game.

If the Gophers have to finish #1 or #2 overall in the Conference to make the Championship game, that basically means the Gophers will have to have one of their best seasons ever while OSU, Mich and PSU all have down years. is that possible? Sure. but realistically, those are some pretty long odds.

so, I think it's difficult to even say what expectations should be until we know what the new reality is starting in 2024.

as far as 2023, have to hope they strike lightning in a bottle again and find a way to win the West. because I suspect it's only going to get tougher going forward.
 

Yep. It’s going to get tougher every year. That is our task to get better and tougher better faster than everyone else. PJ had a down performance year. An anomaly. We need to at least match PSU’s level of play every single year. That is doable. We are Minnesota! Time to remember and live that. We are tracking!
 

Gophers_4life said:
Hate this all you want but: Fleck knew that 2020 was going to be a bad year for Gopher football. He knew it all along, and why he (to my recollection) seemed to put it out there early that he was just fine with the season not being played, player's and fan's safety is all that matters, etc. etc.

If it had been a normal year ... it would've been worse. Covid actually moderated it a bit.
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I disagree….we had Bateman back that year and hopes were high. We had a ton of players out all season once they started and we were still two plays away from being 5-2 in the B1G that year. In my opinion you are remembering the way you want to frame it.
 

SamSquatch said:
We haven’t ever won the weakest P5 division in football while Northwestern, Purdue, and Illinois have.
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ACC Coastal is definitely worse. PAC 12 got rid of divisions because both divisions were routinely worse. Big 12 can’t even have divisions anymore because the Bug Ten West stoke the team that won one of its divisions almost every year.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
the one thing we don't know today is what the conference will look like after USC and UCLA come aboard.

Divisions - Pods - or no divisions. those decisions need to be made (or if they've already been made in some back room, they need to be announced.)

that in turn will determine the schedule, and what teams will have to do in order to qualify for a Conference Championship game.

If the Gophers have to finish #1 or #2 overall in the Conference to make the Championship game, that basically means the Gophers will have to have one of their best seasons ever while OSU, Mich and PSU all have down years. is that possible? Sure. but realistically, those are some pretty long odds.

so, I think it's difficult to even say what expectations should be until we know what the new reality is starting in 2024.

as far as 2023, have to hope they strike lightning in a bottle again and find a way to win the West. because I suspect it's only going to get tougher going forward.
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My understanding is they already have decided no divisions after next year. My guess is they will go with three protected rivalry games.
 
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mngg11 said:
I'm fairly certain that there have been titles almost identical to this one, maybe fairly recently, but I'd just like rehash what I've said in a few recent threads and what I've seen others comment in the past as well: it's amazing that we've gotten to the point as a fanbase that an eight win season with a ninth win including a bowl is a disappointment. I don't see this as a driving issue because I think most of us in the fanbase and most regular posters on this board are objective and most of us, myself included, are thrilled at the level of success we've had, but man does this place become a nightmare when things aren't going well. I think it's great that we're in a position where we can bitch about failing to win games we should win, but sometimes when we get doom and gloom, I have to step back and think about a lot of years where we were just crossing our fingers to be bowl eligible come season's end.

Yes, I guess I'm satisfied with settling for being above average, and some can't stand being simply adequate or above average, but look at the arms race our program is competing against - I think with Fleck and the current admin the U is positioned to be as athletics oriented and successful as we're probably ever going to be. And that's not a bad thing. We're looking at big changes with the B1G and SEC being the two power conferences and we've got a young coach who's got a shtick that kids buy into and has been overwhelmingly successful academics wise, and we have a bunch of 3 star kids playing well above their star rating, especially on defense. I'd be thrilled to take eight wins a year on average for the rest of my life and compete for a conference title ever four or five years with Fleck at the helm. I'd rather be relevant on a yearly basis and have the occasionally dumbfounding loss than take 10 years of mediocrity before we catch lighting in a bottle and then go back to the doldrums for another decade after that lighting wears out.

Again, I'm generally preaching to the choir and bringing up things from months ago but it gets old seeing some of the same old nobodies come out of the woodwork after a bunch of late teen to early 20 somethings fail to execute against a team we should beat on paper and lose, followed by a mass of people calling for the head of the guy who's made us relevant again. Just in my feels tonight.

Happy New Year!
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Where is this mass of people calling for Fleck's head
 


mngg11 said:
I'm fairly certain that there have been titles almost identical to this one, maybe fairly recently, but I'd just like rehash what I've said in a few recent threads and what I've seen others comment in the past as well: it's amazing that we've gotten to the point as a fanbase that an eight win season with a ninth win including a bowl is a disappointment. I don't see this as a driving issue because I think most of us in the fanbase and most regular posters on this board are objective and most of us, myself included, are thrilled at the level of success we've had, but man does this place become a nightmare when things aren't going well. I think it's great that we're in a position where we can bitch about failing to win games we should win, but sometimes when we get doom and gloom, I have to step back and think about a lot of years where we were just crossing our fingers to be bowl eligible come season's end.

Yes, I guess I'm satisfied with settling for being above average, and some can't stand being simply adequate or above average, but look at the arms race our program is competing against - I think with Fleck and the current admin the U is positioned to be as athletics oriented and successful as we're probably ever going to be. And that's not a bad thing. We're looking at big changes with the B1G and SEC being the two power conferences and we've got a young coach who's got a shtick that kids buy into and has been overwhelmingly successful academics wise, and we have a bunch of 3 star kids playing well above their star rating, especially on defense. I'd be thrilled to take eight wins a year on average for the rest of my life and compete for a conference title ever four or five years with Fleck at the helm. I'd rather be relevant on a yearly basis and have the occasionally dumbfounding loss than take 10 years of mediocrity before we catch lighting in a bottle and then go back to the doldrums for another decade after that lighting wears out.

Again, I'm generally preaching to the choir and bringing up things from months ago but it gets old seeing some of the same old nobodies come out of the woodwork after a bunch of late teen to early 20 somethings fail to execute against a team we should beat on paper and lose, followed by a mass of people calling for the head of the guy who's made us relevant again. Just in my feels tonight.

Happy New Year!
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Well told. And thanks for the well wish.
 

Gophers_4life said:
The big challenge has always been, and will always be, recruiting here.

We produce a fair bit of talent in-state, but the blue chippers tend to want out and try someplace else (at least initially).

Getting kids who grew up outside the upper midwest to come to very cold and culturally different (is what it is) place is a challenge, when they have closer, more like home options.
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Is it significantly colder here than in Ann Arbor?
 

60's Guy said:
In PJ's head is the only place I've heard about them.
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PJ and Coyle both over sell the comparative level of success we’ve had considering the water Ed down Big 10 and the advent of a 12 game. I’m not saying, I would expect them to do anything differently but it’s just disingenuous. Really the easiest way to see if we’ve taken a step up is which bowl games we’ve gone to and we’ve gone to one marquee game since PJs been here.
 

I think what people are forgetting is that didn’t we come within one blown game of winning the B10 outright during the Mason era at least once?
So it can be done, we need to go up a level, have a friendly schedule and the red of our competitors have a down year
 
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I like fleck. I thinks he’s pretty damn good. Yep areas he needs to improve:
Beat Iowa
Win against ranked teams. 3 wins in 6 years against ranked teams doesn’t cut it.
 

Even though our schedule is tough next year I look forward to it. If we lose to Michigan and Ohio State, but battle them both hard that’s fun. Losing to all three of middling Purdue, Illinois, Iowa and getting blown out by a good but not great Penn State wasn’t much fun.
 

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