from someone who witnessed firsthand The Debacle In The Desert....

[50PoundHead]

If there are any games to get upset about this year it would be the Iowa & Wisconsin games. Both winnable and far more meaningful than this one.

Only game that bothered me much. Thought we'd play better in the bowl game, but Syracuse had some talent. I didn't know much about them going in, but they were faster and more athletic that we were.

 

[50PoundHead]

No offense? You're welcome to hold hands with Reusse, but both of you need to understand that a fan is by definition insane where it concerns his or her team of choice. What do you expect on a fan board?

Gee. Tough standard.

 

[Gladeskat]

It's one game. The Gophers were upset by a lesser team. It sucks! Do you think they're the first team to ever lose a game they expected to win?

I think occasionally getting upset goes with the territory - the territory of being favored, which is unfamiliar to most Gophers fans.

If you think you're upset, think how Nebraska's fans felt after watching their team lose to the Gophers for the first time in 50 years!

Think how Northwestern fans felt after watching Minnesota lose to a team we were ahead of 34-7 at halftime and beat 48-27.

 

[march madness]

O-line struggling in pass blocking and especially blitz pickup

I knew it would be tough to run against Syracuse. I thought our Qb's could get outside more often on the ground. Would have loved to see wr, te, and rb screens but for some reason none were called. Qb's struggled throwing except that 4th quarter, but I thought the oline pass blocking was horrible. Syracuse isn't great against the pass, they don't have a great pass rush, and our blitz pickup was laughable.

Great season with the needle pointing up. Almost everyone back on offense, and 6-7 starters on defense. Looking forward to impovement next year.

 

[RodentRampage]

No offense, but I find stances like this ridiculous. I mentioned it in another thread, but it is crazy to me how some people (especially some of the media) act like Gopher fans are the only ones who "make excuses" or try to stay positive after a bad loss. I question how many of these people have actually spent time around other fan bases.

I remember Souhan talking on the radio about how Gopher fans are the only fan base in the country that completely forgets all the bad moments in their history. His argument was that fan bases like the Vikings and Bills look back at their bad moments of the past all the time. Gopher fans don't. First of all, that is effing ridiculous. Secondly, it questions if he has ever really spent time around Gopher fans, and thirdly, it was obvious he didn't follow college sports at all because his only two examples were pro sports teams.

My problem with takes like yours is that for some reason some people can't figure out that people can be disappointed, yet can still try and stay positive. Trust me, I'm as pissed off about the loss as anyone else (just ask my wife, haha), but I'm still gonna try and look at some of the positives. Let's face it, our favorite football team has had a bunch of embarrassing/bad losses over the years, and haven't had a lot of good wins. If I wasn't able to try to stay positive most of the time, I'd go crazy.

The more "insane" thing to me is those who act like they know how others should feel and react after bad things happen. Just because someone's reaction isn't the same as yours doesn't mean they are "settling for mediocrity". I just prefer to be positive even in the rough times because, in my opinion, that is what being a fan is all about. You may disagree and that is perfectly fine. Just don't look down on others when they don't think the same way you do.

And one last thing, how anyone of us reacts after a loss like this has zero influence on anything the Gophers do in the future. The notion that my or anyone else's reaction has any bearing on the future of the program is crazy.

+1 Gopher fans do not forget about bad things that can happen, anyone reading Gopherhole can see that we will talk about the 2003 Michigan loss any day. Any loss can be the topic of conversation. Want to talk about the 2005 Wisconsin loss, the 2006 Texas Tech loss, the 2010 South Dakota loss, or the 1983 Nebraska loss? You'll find plenty of people who want to talk about them.

But that's not enough for some people. No one is happy with the loss in the bowl game, but some people are upset because Gopher fans are remaining fans of the Gophers despite losing the game. The poster with the Grinch analogy is correct. In "The Grinch that Stole Christmas", the Grinch steals the presents, decorations and Christmas dinner, and is shocked that the people are still celebrating.

Of course, the Grinch learns a lesson about Christmas, but our local grinches do not learn a lesson about fandom. If Seuss' Grinch had behaved the way our local grinches have, he probably would have become outraged and burned Whoville to the ground. Fans continuing to be fans even after a loss shouldn't shock anyone - it's a sign of being a good fan. Even with the loss in the bowl game, an 8-win season is still an accomplishment. Coming into the season, winning 8 games was pie-in-the-sky. This was the Gophers best record in 8 years. Sure, we would have liked to have one more win, but turning on the Gophers because we didn't get it? That Gopher fans aren't doing this may offend our local columnists, but too bad.

There are those who insist that continuing to support the Gophers actually hurts the team, and that somehow by not supporting them, they are actually helping. This is fuzzy at best, how this works is not at all clear.

 

[killme]

Our quarterbacks did not play well down the stretch, partly because our wide receiver corps were thin and inexperienced at the beginning of the year and our best guy got hurt. The three-game losing streak to finish the year is disappointing, but progress was made this year and there is fuel for motivation in the weight room this winter. Still, we were a play away from pulling out all three games. The culture here is deep-seeded and the right stud could lift this program to the next level.

I'm interested to see the QB competition this spring. Someone needs to take over this team.

 

[PartoPitinosPosse]

It seems sometimes that some sports fans feel that the inferior team is supposed to know their place, they are supposed to just lie down and accept defeat. And with close to a month to prepare, inferior teams should do what? Practice only the young players and play the Bowl game in a way just so their players don't get hurt?!

And we found out first hand that the majority of Syracuse fans didn't believe that their team was the inferior team. It's possible SU's players and coaching staff also didn't believe they were inferior. Either that, or as happens at times, even when a team knows its inferior, they also know that upsets can and do happen. And fans and players and coaches know that they can take pride in being the team that pulled off the upset.

And Syracuse fans offered up lots of evidence that they believed showed that Syracuse wasn't really all that inferior. And although every media type I saw make a prediction, picked the Gophers, I didn't see any of them predict a blowout, they all seemed to think Minnesota was the better team, but not much better. It's possible those media types weren't as confident as a lot of Gopher fans were. If 2 teams are close in talent, then that means that there would not be a lot of room for error. And as has been pointed out, all 5 of our losses this year were by teams ranked among the Top 30 in rushing defense. SU fans tried telling us that was one of the reasons they held out hope that their team could beat the Gophers.

 

[GoldenUMNGopher]

HUGE difference between Michigan's season this year and the Gophers!!!

HUGE.


Michigan seems to be regressing, while Kill has our team on the rise. 8 wins is more than 6, right? And 6 was more than 3, right?!

Hahahah, what does that say about us when they still destroy us while they are regressing? Lets hope Michigan doesnt turn their program around.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Hahahah, what does that say about us when they still destroy us while they are regressing? Lets hope Michigan doesnt turn their program around.

It says we are a lower level program that is trying to get better. Not sure why that is so funny. Everyone's grandma knows Michigan has had a much better program than the Gophers.

 

[Deleted_User]

You are making my point that your original post was unfounded, untrue and just plain lacking any insight or factual basis. We struggled all year with good defenses, the better the defense the more we struggled...especially against good run defenses, which Suckacuse has. We didn't regress in the bowl game compared to previous games...our 4 game winning streak in the B1G was against teams that couldn't stop the run and our 4 losses were against 4 teams that could stop the run.

If we would have beaten any of the top 4 run defenses we faced (MSU, Wisc, IA, scUM) and then lost to Suckacuse, I would say "regression" is a reasonable word to use...but we didn't. Didn't even really come close from an offensive stand point of scoring enough to win those three games.

No, Suckacuse isn't as highly ranked as MSU, Sconnie or IA, but, food for thought to better illustrate my point, using actual facts and evidence...the Gophers lost 5 games this year. The rushing defense ranks in FBS for those 5 teams is as follows: Link

MSU - 2
Sconnie - 5
IA - 17
scUM - 28
Suckacuse - 26

Against these 5 times our offense sucked - very consistently sucked. Why? Because if we can't run the ball we aren't good right now. We didn't regress against Suckacuse as you asserted...we didn't get better as the year went on either as you asserted. The evidence shows that against top 30 rush defenses we did not score TDs and we did not win.

Thank you.

 

[cncmin]

Huh? Did you watch the last two games of the year against Wisc or MSU or the game against IA? This offense struggled all year against teams that can stop the run and/or rush the passer. I may have had some fun mocking Suckacuse but make no mistake, their defense is the real deal, especially against teams like the Gophers.

We have been consistently inconsistent all year on offense and we were again in this game. The old saying, a team with two starting QBs really has no starting QB is proved yet again by this years team.

The idea that a So & R-FR QB tandem that couldn't consistently move the ball against good defenses all year somehow regressed in the bowl game after not moving the ball against a top 30 rush defense is idiotic and not based on any statistical or factual basis.

Not this again. For the last time, please, even Limegrover himself admitted that his early-season playcalling, including against Iowa and Michigan, was extremely conservative and that they opened up the playcalling beginning in the NW game, with good results.

The playcalling began to regress back toward conservatism again in the second half of the PSU game, where instead of keeping the throttle down they decided to conservatively secure the victory. Fine. But how much bad offense was necessary to decide to regain the ingenuity that got them the 4 mid-season victories? Apparently not enough. They never went back to the pathetic, boring offense of the first 6 games, but the playcalling undoubtedly got much more vanilla beginning the second half of the PSU game, and with it, there went the Gopher offense back into relative doldrums. Either they decide to keep the offense open and exciting, or Gopher football will struggle to be exciting.

The Syracuse D is ok. Still, there was no excuse to not be able to move the football, and even less excuse to fail to call simple plays like RB and WR screens, which other teams seem to use against the Gophers at will with good success. If every other play call is a run up the middle, I don't care how many TE and RB shifts there are prior to the snap, the defense will know almost exactly what to expect half of the time. The team is just not physically dominant enough to run a successful offense in that manner. Perhaps the loss of Engel put fear in Limegrover, as certainly much of the offense involved the Nelson/Engel combination. Certainly Nelson didn't look as comfortable after losing his favorite receiver. Still, the way you instill confidence in your QB is to allow him to make some sure passes - i.e., screens and short routes - get the confidence up, then attack. Limegrover gave the QBs little reason to be confident, and also stopped attacking, excepting some deep jump ball throws. The sooner the coaching staff regains its balls, the better.

 

[andy]

I don't understand what people mean when they say fans need to "demand" more or "expect" more out of their team. Do we need to talk tougher on a message board or something? Get more pissed off? Sorry to break it to the tough-talkers, but being a fan consists mostly of two things: 1) watching, and 2) hoping. In other words, it's passive. I would love to get in the locker room and scream at the guys and tell them I demand more out of them, but I gave up on bs macho fantasies like that a long time ago.

 

[andy]

I will add, however, that if you can attend games and be loud, that does help the home team in a not-so-passive manner.

 

[GophersInIowa]

I don't understand what people mean when they say fans need to "demand" more or "expect" more out of their team. Do we need to talk tougher on a message board or something? Get more pissed off? Sorry to break it to the tough-talkers, but being a fan consists mostly of two things: 1) watching, and 2) hoping. In other words, it's passive. I would love to get in the locker room and scream at the guys and tell them I demand more out of them, but I gave up on bs macho fantasies like that a long time ago.

I'm scheduling a "chain yourself to the gates at TCF Bank Stadium" event to show we demand more from this program. By doing this, Kill, the other coaches, and all the players will know WE MEAN BUSINESS! This will make them work harder and win more games!!!

Who's with me?

 

[station19]

I don't understand what people mean when they say fans need to "demand" more or "expect" more out of their team. Do we need to talk tougher on a message board or something? Get more pissed off? Sorry to break it to the tough-talkers, but being a fan consists mostly of two things: 1) watching, and 2) hoping. In other words, it's passive. I would love to get in the locker room and scream at the guys and tell them I demand more out of them, but I gave up on bs macho fantasies like that a long time ago.

I'm scheduling a "chain yourself to the gates at TCF Bank Stadium" event to show we demand more from this program. By doing this, Kill, the other coaches, and all the players will know WE MEAN BUSINESS! This will make them work harder and win more games!!!

Who's with me?

Two of the better posts of the year and there ain't time for a whole lot more.