Gophers playing better/worse/equal to what you thought BEFORE the season?

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stevedave23

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I've been quite surprised by the level of expectations most of the media and some fans have had regarding this team. So taking a step back from the emotions of winning and losing, are the gophers playing better, worse or equal to how you thought they'd play BEFORE the season started?

My $0.02

UNLV: Worse
New Hampshire: Better
Western Michigan: Better
Syracuse: Better
Iowa: Equal
Northwestern: Worse
Wisconsin: Equal

Overall: Slightly better

Perhaps my expectations were too low compared to everyone else but I had them winning 5 games this year which matches my opinions on the first 7 games.
 

Defense - Despite breakdowns is playing better overall than expected

Offense - Dealing with injuries but overall has been worse than expected.

Special Teams - Has been significantly worse, our return game is non-existant, the punting is eradic and the field goal kicer is at .500 for the season to go along with a missed extra point.

I thought 6 wins was a realistic expectation before the season started. That may or may not happen at this point based on teh way the team has played to date.
 

UNLV: Equal, first game jitters/slop got us here, to be expected.
New Hampshire: Better, crushed a FCS opponent like they should, not a given in the past
Western Michigan: Better, lost best player on team in process, still won handily
Syracuse: Much better, first time defense has won a game for the team in a long time.
Iowa: Worse. Wheels came off D, loss of Gray became more obvious when D wasn't bailing O out.
Northwestern: Better- I don't get the angst over this one. Maybe someone can explain it.
NW is good this year, we messed up the opening kickoff, spotted them a touchdown, were without our best player/numerous other injuries, and we still came within inches of winning. Yes it sucks we lost, but not a horrible loss.
Wisconsin: Equal, all things considering, this was us v Michigan last year. If you compare those games, we did fine, even exceeding expectations going into the half.

Overall: Slightly better, I said 5-7, 6-6 if we upset someone out of nowhere, which i thought would be Iowa. I think we take Illinois, and have a chance against Purdue and MSU. I still think that last week of the season here, on senior day, in the cold has a chance to be ripe for a W like it was the last 2 years.

I also see tons of bright futures on the field. The amount of contributors that are 1st or 2nd year players is going to pay off down the road. In 2 years we will basically have the same team we fielded on Sat, add in Bobek at C, Harbison at WR, and whatever we can add via recruiting the next 2 seasons, i think our O will be able to play like Kill/Limegrover want them to, and our D will have some size and technique to match with their obviously improved speed from this year.
Just my opinion. We win 7 next year and 8+ in 2.
 

I predicted 7 wins so we shall see. I thought Gray and Gillum would have big years, and I thought the defense would be okay against the run but get lit up against the pass.
 

Ole, to explain the angst over Northwestern, it was a game that we lost by one score, and threw away by committing too many unforced errors (7 fumbles, are you kidding?). In a rebuilding process, when conference wins are few and far between, fans will be annoyed when we miss an opprotunity and downright angry when it is given away.

As for improvement, 12 is a divisible number, so lets look at it in three parts because I think whether we started this season better than we started last season is a very different question than whether we end this season better than we ended last.

Out of conference (1-3 last year, 4-0 this year): Definitely an improvement, growing pains learning a system last year was able to hit the ground running this year. Obviously we did not play USC last year, but I think pretty inarguably an improvement.

First 4 conference games (0-4 last year, 1-3 or 0-4 this year): The team seemed to quit on Kill last year at this phase, and while there have been stretches where they don't look 100% effort or focused (stop with the lazy arm tackles and stupid formation penalties), the blowouts have not been as ugly as vs. Michigan and Purdue last year. If we win against Purdue, I think inarguably an improvement, if we lost to Purdue, same record but I think better.

Last 4 conference games (2-2 last year, ? this year): The team got some confidence last year. We were right in it with MSU on the road and grabbed wins against Illinois and Iowa. We have a pretty easy Illinois team on the road, but we get MSU at home. Let's look to compare last year's MSU and Illinois games to this year's. They come near the same time against the same opponents.
 


About what I expected: 5 or 6 season wins, which is still possible. The injuries have been the wild card.
 

The national media has us going 0-8 in the Big Ten so I am not sure what most people feel our final record will be.

Go Gophers !!!!!!!!!
 

UNLV: Worse
New Hampshire: Better
Western Michigan: Equal
Syracuse: Better
Iowa: Worse
Northwestern: Equal
Wisconsin: Equal
 

I think the season is going ok and about how I expected it to go before they started 4-0. My expectations rose a little after the good start, but before the season started i thought they would win a couple conference games. I still think it can happen, but we need to get some of the starters back on the field. The injuries aren't helping us at all.
 



Great Plains Gopher said:
About what I expected: 5 or 6 season wins, which is still possible. The injuries have been the wild card.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I thought the D would struggle to stop the run. I thought the DB play would be improved, but I didn't expect the emergence of Wilhite, which has obviously been nice. I thought the O would be MUCH farther along at this point, but mainly because I thought Gray would be a monster. All in all, the record is about what I thought it would be. I guess it's the WAY it's happened that has me inexplicably disappointed.."
 

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