Gophers let down their fans and themselves

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Great Plains Gopher

Great Plains Gopher

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They apparently believed the clippings and the hype on BTN. It was fairly obvious that, given missteps in early games won, and the thumping from TCU, that both Purdue and Illinois would be tough games. Illinois was bound to be sky high because of homecoming, their coach on the hot seat, the tribute to Red Grange, the new unis, etc. The Gopher 3rd Q offense should have been the first Q offense - instead they ran Cobb into a brick wall for 30 minutes. Defense gave up big plays for the second week in a row and Mitch didn't get rolling 'til the 3rd Q. Streveler can run, but apparently can't pass, while Leidner can pass (at times and not much above .500) but can't run. Gophers need a QB who is quick, can pass above 60% and can run when needed. They don't have him. Realistically, there is maybe a 50/50 chance of picking up one more victory (obviously Iowa), but it could be 0-5 in this half of the season.
 

To say they let down their fans seems a little harsh. None of us fans can be certain what the team is working with. Maybe they far outperformed their actual talent over the past 12 B1G games and we should be grateful!
 

DoubleAlum said:
To say they let down their fans seems a little harsh. None of us fans can be certain what the team is working with. Maybe they far outperformed their actual talent over the past 12 B1G games and we should be grateful!
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Very good point. It's fun to watch these kids work to compete. They aren't such elite athletes that they can just flip on the switch when they want to and win a game. Give credit to the Illini for playing harder than we did today and winning on their homecoming. Time for Iowa and getting Floyd back!
 

Today sucked. Period.

As a fan this is balanced against the sheer JOY taken from the last 3 games.

Even if we lose the next 4 games...and any bowl too...we still had the beatdown of Michigan, beating a surging NW team, and the first come-from-behind for a win against Purdue.

This spread of three games was as good as it's been as a Gopher since the 4 game B10 streak of last year.

For now all we get are streaks.

I believe there's still a chance for one more this season. If it doesn't unfold this year, so be it.

Not sure what figures today in terms of football psychology. Kudos to Illinois to have figured it out for this particular Saturday. We've been in their shoes too. Of course too often.

Disappointed, yes. Feel let down, no. Still four more games. Can't wait.

Go Gophers!
 

Holy cow, to the majority of posters, get over it. Anyone see Penn St lose to Michigan and then the very next game take OSU to OT?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


Ahoy-hoy chaps,

My sincere condolences for today's misfortunes. I must say, I was surprised to see you lose to a team with a meager 4 national foot ball championships, but if it's any consolation, my Tigers suffered a setback today as well, falling to the win-at-any-cost, admissions-standards-be-damned Crimson. Drat, I say! Compounding the misery, we were breaking in a new tailgating butler who seemed completely perplexed by the difference between "very dry" and "extra-dry." Appears to be time to get some new caterer recommendations (just to be clear, if you were thinking of recommending your service, we're not interested in someone who serves "offal" or whatever-it-is that you public school folk consume).

Anyhoo, it looks like the loss may drop you out of contention for one of the the four spots vying for this season's D1-A national championship. By my calculations, this will keep you 19 championships behind Old Nassau for the all-time record, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. Yet it would seem that your final four games are likely wins as you outclass each of you remaining foes in total national championships (with the exception of Ohio State, which I gather has accumulated some/all of their championships through nefarious means, not unlike Harvard).

Best of luck in your remaining foot ball contests.

Keep your peckers up,
Archie
 


Every team we've played has had a better qb. I for one am sick of watching Leidner overthrow wide open receivers. Get Perra in there. And let;s get a new O coordinator while we're at it.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
They apparently believed the clippings and the hype on BTN. It was fairly obvious that, given missteps in early games won, and the thumping from TCU, that both Purdue and Illinois would be tough games. Illinois was bound to be sky high because of homecoming, their coach on the hot seat, the tribute to Red Grange, the new unis, etc. The Gopher 3rd Q offense should have been the first Q offense - instead they ran Cobb into a brick wall for 30 minutes. Defense gave up big plays for the second week in a row and Mitch didn't get rolling 'til the 3rd Q. Streveler can run, but apparently can't pass, while Leidner can pass (at times and not much above .500) but can't run. Gophers need a QB who is quick, can pass above 60% and can run when needed. They don't have him. Realistically, there is maybe a 50/50 chance of picking up one more victory (obviously Iowa), but it could be 0-5 in this half of the season.
Click to expand...

Demry Croth fits the bill.
 



Great Plains Gopher said:
They apparently believed the clippings and the hype on BTN. It was fairly obvious that, given missteps in early games won, and the thumping from TCU, that both Purdue and Illinois would be tough games. Illinois was bound to be sky high because of homecoming, their coach on the hot seat, the tribute to Red Grange, the new unis, etc. The Gopher 3rd Q offense should have been the first Q offense - instead they ran Cobb into a brick wall for 30 minutes. Defense gave up big plays for the second week in a row and Mitch didn't get rolling 'til the 3rd Q. Streveler can run, but apparently can't pass, while Leidner can pass (at times and not much above .500) but can't run. Gophers need a QB who is quick, can pass above 60% and can run when needed. They don't have him. Realistically, there is maybe a 50/50 chance of picking up one more victory (obviously Iowa), but it could be 0-5 in this half of the season.
Click to expand...


Something isn't adding up here.

We were ranked between 24 and 31 in the polls and Illinois and Purdue were ranked somewhere between 70th and 95th. We should be blowing those teams out and winning by at least two touchdowns. Wisky was around 20th and they blew out a 36th ranked Maryland team. I realize polls may be meaningless, but then I wonder why so many people felt so strongly that Minnesota deserved a top 25 ranking. We just can't have it both ways.

I started a thread about Minnesota's "identity" and self-perception last night and feel strongly that I'd like to see our coaching staff begin to talk to our players about blowing out lesser teams. The more they talk about how one or two plays, penalties or turnovers are going to determine the outcome of a game, the more we seem to find ourselves in these close battles with teams that are perceived by football "experts" as significantly inferior.

Either we're a top 25 team that can play like a top 25 team, or we're a top 70 team that has to battle against every opponent we ever play. Until the mindset changes, or pollsters start to pull their arses out of their heads and rank us appropriately, fans are going to keep feeling that the Gophers are chokers and same old, same old.

I for one think the Gophers have been way over-rated and therefore I've been thrilled watching them in every game. They aren't letting me down at all. They've been very entertaining and exciting. To the eye test, Illinois seemed like a pretty competent ball club. They're talent seems as good or better than Purdue and Indiana, and the polls seem to indicate that as well. They didn't play like the worst team in the B1G. Far from it.

We're still a ways away from being a great team and the non-conference games sort of put a spotlight on that for me. I think I predicted 5 or 6 wins at best this year and we've already achieved that. If we get to 7 or even 8, that will be huge. I think Coach Kill even said this summer that although we'll be a better ball team than last year, our record might not reflect that given the schedule. And, I think he was dead on!
 






ArchibaldMThrockmortonIII said:
Ahoy-hoy chaps,

My sincere condolences for today's misfortunes. I must say, I was surprised to see you lose to a team with a meager 4 national foot ball championships, but if it's any consolation, my Tigers suffered a setback today as well, falling to the win-at-any-cost, admissions-standards-be-damned Crimson. Drat, I say! Compounding the misery, we were breaking in a new tailgating butler who seemed completely perplexed by the difference between "very dry" and "extra-dry." Appears to be time to get some new caterer recommendations (just to be clear, if you were thinking of recommending your service, we're not interested in someone who serves "offal" or whatever-it-is that you public school folk consume).

Anyhoo, it looks like the loss may drop you out of contention for one of the the four spots vying for this season's D1-A national championship. By my calculations, this will keep you 19 championships behind Old Nassau for the all-time record, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. Yet it would seem that your final four games are likely wins as you outclass each of you remaining foes in total national championships (with the exception of Ohio State, which I gather has accumulated some/all of their championships through nefarious means, not unlike Harvard).

Best of luck in your remaining foot ball contests.

Keep your peckers up,
Archie
Click to expand...

Saturday evening at Archie's house:

Archie's wife or partner (probably partner): "Pookie, what are you doing? It's 1 in the morning."
Archie: "Oh, I'm just pretending to be an early 20th century football player so I can make fun of Gopher fans on a message board."


Seriously, put away your little bit and answer the question. Do you tell people you do this? Creating a little character to mock people anonymously? Hell of a life you lead.
 

These are kids...I guarantee they are 10x more upset than fans. Do some of you honestly think they go out there worried about fan perception/expectations? They have their own goals/expectations, obviously, they didn't meet them yesterday. I guarantee the last thing they gave a rats ass about was "letting down the fans" Some you ass nozzles need to wake up and realize the ages of these guys and have realistic expectations. Two games in a row we have eeked out wins, we didn't do anything well enough to win this one. That whole game I felt like we were down by 30...it just never felt good. But, the players worked their ass off and gave themselves a chance EVEN WITH a sub par performance by THEIR expectations.
 

StCroix said:
These are kids...I guarantee they are 10x more upset than fans. Do some of you honestly think they go out there worried about fan perception/expectations? They have their own goals/expectations, obviously, they didn't meet them yesterday. I guarantee the last thing they gave a rats ass about was "letting down the fans" Some you ass nozzles need to wake up and realize the ages of these guys and have realistic expectations. Two games in a row we have eeked out wins, we didn't do anything well enough to win this one. That whole game I felt like we were down by 30...it just never felt good. But, the players worked their ass off and gave themselves a chance EVEN WITH a sub par performance by THEIR expectations.
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Nothing in this program is going to be linear, that isn't to create an excuse, but it will always be hard to win on the road in the Big Ten. ALWAYS. This coaching team and this young team got hit in the face with that yesterday. I do believe this program is different than any other previous program in that these coaches will respond, take accountability, and teach these kids. I do believe this team will win the next two out of four games. I'm as annoyed with this team as anyone, it was a disappointment, this team is very young with not a lot of depth. But, they do have the tools to construct wins, I truly believe that watching the 2nd half of yesterdays game.
 

hungan1 said:
Demry Croth fits the bill.
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Let's maybe let Croft graduate high school before we annoint him the savior. Basically every QB starting with Gray was gonna be the savior until they actually started playing college football.
 

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