Gophers need a big victory

[Great Plains Gopher]

Saturday night would be fine - at Iowa would be even better. Haven't had a big victory since Michigan in 2005, unless you count Iowa in '06. We're due!

 

[mittens22]

Good luck...

 

[soneillumn]

One could make the argument that this would be the biggest win in the Brewster era, given what our offense has done previously without Decker, and that few would see the Gophers winning Saturday night.

 

[Hates Monikers]

This is a really important game for Brewster. It's tough but winnable, first of all. But if you win this and beat Illinois and SDSU, as they should, they finish with 7 wins overall and 4 in the BT. Then you can point to another year of progress/improvement (BT wins, anyway). Not to mention a better bowl. Lose, and the program appears to be sputtering, again beating only the worst teams in the league.

Programs typically get a boost in recruiting and interest when a coaching change is made, and we got that. But by about year three or four, fans and recruits need to see that progress is being made. Despite the two recent ugly losses, beating MSU (another team in Year Three of a coaching regime) will go a long way toward keeping that on track.

 

[BleedGopher]

One could make the argument that this would be the biggest win in the Brewster era, given what our offense has done previously without Decker, and that few would see the Gophers winning Saturday night.

I respectfully disagree with this. Our own struggles shouldn't force us to lower our standards. Michigan State is a middle of the road BT team this year. They are 3-2 in BT play and 4-4 overall. We are at home and we absolutely should win this game. If we don't, it will be very disappointing. Obviously they are a solid team and have beat some decent teams, but at this point, beating Northwestern on the road will probably be our most significant win to date, even if we beat Michigan State (since it will be a home game, and NU/MSU are both currently fighting it out with us and a few others in the middle of the BT).

This won't be an easy game, but it is a very important, yet winnable game.

For us to take the next step in the program, winning tomorrow is easily a critical part of the process.

Go Gophers!!

 

[MBAGuy]

I respectfully disagree with this. Our own struggles shouldn't force us to lower our standards. Michigan State is a middle of the road BT team this year. They are 3-2 in BT play and 4-4 overall. We are at home and we absolutely should win this game. If we don't, it will be very disappointing. Obviously they are a solid team and have beat some decent teams, but at this point, beating Northwestern on the road will probably be our most significant win to date, even if we beat Michigan State (since it will be a home game, and NU/MSU are both currently fighting it out with us and a few others in the middle of the BT).

This won't be an easy game, but it is a very important, yet winnable game.

For us to take the next step in the program, winning tomorrow is easily a critical part of the process.

Go Gophers!!

I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. MSU was a lot of people's darkhorse pick to with the BT this year and I don't think there's any doubt they're regarded better nationally than NU. Outside of the Wisconsin game, they've been competitive every week against some reasonably good opposition. Despite the fact this is a home game for us, a win here may be the best in Brewster's tenure, imo. Just my opinion, though.

 

[GoAUpher]

I respectfully disagree with this. Our own struggles shouldn't force us to lower our standards. Michigan State is a middle of the road BT team this year. They are 3-2 in BT play and 4-4 overall. We are at home and we absolutely should win this game. If we don't, it will be very disappointing. Obviously they are a solid team and have beat some decent teams, but at this point, beating Northwestern on the road will probably be our most significant win to date, even if we beat Michigan State (since it will be a home game, and NU/MSU are both currently fighting it out with us and a few others in the middle of the BT).

This won't be an easy game, but it is a very important, yet winnable game.

For us to take the next step in the program, winning tomorrow is easily a critical part of the process.

Go Gophers!!

I also have to disagree slightly. They started the yearly poorly and disappointed many folks. But they have turned it on recently and would have been a legit B10 title contender had they beaten Iowa. I think they are a upper level B10 team that has struggled to execute (resulting in an average record thus far).

That said, I agree that recent struggles shouldn't lower anyone's expectations and a win against an unranked opponent at home shouldn't be in the running for the best win of Brewster's tenure. To be honest, I don't know that it's worth ranking the W's that way right now. At this point its pretty clear Brew is lacking a signature win. His next shot is @ Iowa. Until then, MSU, Illinois, and SD State are are games we should/could win and thus they shouldn't be signature anything.

 

[inflectionpoint]

I have to say that this should be considered a rather significant victory, but not because MSU is a top ten team. They are a solid team, to be sure, but the significance of the victory lies in our circumstances.

1. We are in year 3 of Brewster, it is of utmost importance we see some signs of our Rose Bowl future.
2. Perception-wise if we lose this we will likely have a (numbers-wise) worse record than last year and moderate fans will claim stagnation and the failure of Brew. He needs this, but us avid fans need this too, in order to maintain the spirit of Gopher Nation.
3. Need this for recruits.
4. Need it, or a good result for the psyche of the team.
5. Sort of repetitive but we really need this for everything Gopher related for us to say we are (beginning to) arriving. We can follow up Brew's talk and will continue to be a growing program.

MSU fans don't see it as that important of a game, but it has big ramifications for the Gophers. I'd say its a smaller scale inflection point. Win or very strong play and we turn back upward after the very worrisome past few weeks. Lose and things get emotional and we are in danger of spiralling downward.

Just my opinion.

 

[Art Vandelay]

I respectfully disagree with this. Our own struggles shouldn't force us to lower our standards. Michigan State is a middle of the road BT team this year. They are 3-2 in BT play and 4-4 overall. We are at home and we absolutely should win this game. If we don't, it will be very disappointing. Obviously they are a solid team and have beat some decent teams, but at this point, beating Northwestern on the road will probably be our most significant win to date, even if we beat Michigan State (since it will be a home game, and NU/MSU are both currently fighting it out with us and a few others in the middle of the BT).

This won't be an easy game, but it is a very important, yet winnable game.

For us to take the next step in the program, winning tomorrow is easily a critical part of the process.

Go Gophers!!

I agree with Bleed. Beating a 4-4 middle of the pack team AT HOME should not be a significant victory. Maybe that just shows how truly desperate and stagnant a program is if you're reaching that far. Is MSU any good? Yeah, they can play, but they're still .500 and favored by a FG which means the game could go either way.

 

[Too Long in the Wasteland]

I remember in 1998 (year 2 of the Mason regime) when we beat MSU in a very exciting game. To many of us that was the first sign that maybe Mason could turn things around from the Wacker wasteland. Unfortunately, Mason never got us much past middle of the pack.

Hopefully history repeats itself tomorrow. I agree with the others in this thread that while beating MSU won't rank up there with the wins over PSU (1999) and tOSU (2000), it will be the most significant victory of Brewster's tenure. Maybe it comes a year after Glen's W over the Spartans but Glen also left the cupboard a lot more bare than Wacker did.

I agree that to win we have to raise our game quite a bit. Particularly in terms of executing on 3rd down (both sides of the ball) and limiting dumbazzed penalties. But I think we also need MSU to screw the pooch a bit, as they've been wont to do. Just once I'd like to see us luck out and catch a team when they're crapping the bed, like PSU & tOSU have both done this season. We always seem to play them a week or two later. At a minimum maybe MSU comes out flat after a heartbreaking loss? That would be good payback for 2003, when we stunk it up in EL a week after our loss to SCum.