How many of you think these pre-season rankings of the Gophers are $#!+?

Will the Gophers finish higher than predicted?

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Otis

Otis

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I’m just not seeing where these ranking experts are coming from. I see a pretty talented Gopher team for next year. There is not a lot of depth at some positions, but there is considerable depth at several key spots!

Let’s review:

QB: this is a little thin and I guess untested at the B1G level but Brosmer should be good for 4 or 5 more successful passing plays per game than the Greek rifle. That alone on lasts years team gives us 3 or 4 more wins. Wittke has some experience so I would say this is an upgraded position.

RB: DT is arguably the best RB in the conference when healthy. Add in the nice collection of transfers that have come in and are full grown men and this position looks better than last year. When a 200 yard rusher in a single game is arguably the fifth string back, you’re in pretty good shape. Upgrade!

WR: This is where things go a little haywire. But, we weren’t that strong last year! Jackson is good and the incoming transfers of Williams and Driver are athletic upgrades over what we lost. Add in a healthy Brockington and we should be at least 4 deep. That should be an improvement over last year. Plus, it’s not like we have been a passing team ever under Fleck. Passing is just to keep the Defense honest at Minnesota. Improved.

Offensive Line: These guys are solid. Ersery could be a first round draft choice next year. Carrol will likely be drafted. Johnson should be solid at center and we got the manster transfer from UTEP. Add in the talented freshman from last year and these guys should be above average in the B1G and massive. Is this group an upgrade? It could be, and last years group was solid. Certainly at least as good as last year.

TE: I hesitate to even grade this. Fleck uses TEs as a 6th offensive lineman. And just to be straightforward, how could this be any worse than last year? Let’s hope the QB finds one of these guys in his progressions and that guy can reliably catch the ball. Upgrade/downgrade? Who knows?

DL: Striggow, Eastern, Joyner, Howard, Kissayi. Ok, Kissayi is a stretch. But this position looks pretty deep thanks to our DL coach. We should be able to rotate these guys and keep them fresh with little fall off in performance. This might be the best DL Fleck has had! Upgrade.

LB: what a difference a healthy Cody Linenberg would have made last year. Well, he’s healthy now. The young guys like Baranowski got thrown to the Wolves and showed massive improvement as the season progressed. This should be an improved unit even though we have no impact transfers. I’ll grade this as a wash.

DBs: Robinson and McMillan had better be pretty good as this is the spot I find the hardest to be positive about. Wiley need to cut down his penalties and who is going to replace Nubin? Perich is probably the guy, but for all his gifts he is just a freshman and did not early enroll to get that Spring Ball experience. The returning safeties are not well known to me so this feels like a downgrade. But, an improved pass rush can make DBs look very good! So maybe, this won’t be too bad of a group.

Overall Defense: We lost our best coordinator. Will the new guy improve the defense? Odds are against him, but PJ will help keep the status Quo on the D plan and that should help.

Kicking game: Punter and Kicker are solid!

So, I see more reasons to be positive than negative. The schedule is the schedule. We play in the B1G. It could be easier, but if you take out USC and Michigan, you’d probably get OSU and Oregon. So, why aren’t people just happy we are avoiding the likely top 2 teams and playing UCLA instead of Washington? We play Iowa and Wisconsin every year.

I think this team will surprise and make most pundits look bad. With a little luck and a healthy team we could get to 9 wins!

Certainly not the 14th or lower B1G team IMO.

Go Gophers!!
 

Last year was a valley for my fandom. I've been following the team for about twenty years and setting aside Mason's Michigan collapse, I can't remember feeling more dejected.

2024 feels like house money for me. If we win six games I'll get it, but I do think we are significantly better heading into this season than the prognosticators think.

Beat UNC in the opening game and the optimism will quickly rise. I absolutely think this team can get to 8 wins.....9 would be a true achievement given realignment and all the new faces in key roles.
 

I'm a 'Maybe'. There were a lot of compounding problems last year stemming from the offense's inability to stay on the field. If the QB is a meaningful improvement and the depth at RB is as good as it appears to be, we should be able to stay on the field more frequently. That said, it's completely fair to have questions about the secondary and we are still too dependent on Lindenberg's health at LB.
 

I feel like this year is one of the hardest to project because it is the first year with the expanded Big Ten. Know one really knows how well the Pac 12 style of football will translate (could be good or bad) and there are a number of teams that are a bit of a mystery (Michigan, Washington and UCLA to name a few). I also feel like with the number of players that move in the offseason, these preseason rankings mean less than they already did.
 

It's completely possible that we are a better team than last year, but still have a similar or worse record. And really, as you sort of highlighted in your position breakdown, there are just a ton of unknowns. You are taking the glass half full approach and I appreciate that, but I could see where someone could look at the roster and spin it the other direction. Remember almost every team right now thinks they have upgraded their roster over last year. Some are right, some are wrong.
 


All I know is that for the past few decades the national sports media knows nothing about Gopher football and couldn't care less. We're usually put at the bottom, or at best - middle, because we seldom win anything. Until we win some big games consistently nothing will change.
 

The defense couldn’t stop opposing teams due to young players, injury, confusion and chaos. Then the highly regarded defensive coordinator quit. The offense was b.a.d. and sleep-inducing even for diehard fans. Not a single play from scrimmage over 50 yards. The QB sucked. The receivers outside of Jackson couldn’t catch the ball. Less than 20 pts per game. The running back room was down to playing walk ons -who admirably did all he could.

So, I kind of get it. Plenty to prove across the board. Come out swinging on UNC and all the disrespect starts to go away.
 

Mr. 131 said:
Last year was a valley for my fandom. I've been following the team for about twenty years and setting aside Mason's Michigan collapse, I can't remember feeling more dejected.

2024 feels like house money for me. If we win six games I'll get it, but I do think we are significantly better heading into this season than the prognosticators think.

Beat UNC in the opening game and the optimism will quickly rise. I absolutely think this team can get to 8 wins.....9 would be a true achievement given realignment and all the new faces in key roles.
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To me this is one of the strongest signs that Fleck has been an absolute success here. We've become accustomed to being a winning team, and a less than stellar year has some of us questioning reality. It's been a long time since we looked at the schedule trying to figure out where we could eke out a couple wins to be bowl eligible. Now we're pissed when we don't get to the eight win mark.

Last year sucked, but that's because we've had some major (relative to our program) successes. The cupboard isn't bare here, failure is growth, and we're going to make a nice comeback this season!
 




I don't think it's likely they finish outside the top 10. A capable QB and a healthy defense will fix a lot of the things that ailed the team last year.
 

It is not hard at all to see why we would be ranked low in pre season rankings.
We were not very good last year. Our defensive coordinator bailed on us after a down year.
We hired an unproven DC.
We have a new unproven QB from a lower division with unknown inexperienced backups.
We have nobody that has NFL draft buzz. The schedule is viewed more difficult.

Many of our starters didn't practice in the spring...sitting out to heal and raise the floor.
We practiced in secret so nobody could scout us or evaluate us.

We could be good but I think good has a ceiling of 8 wins. I think the number is 4.5 for a reason.
As a fan I hope it's wrong but other than optimism or trusting PJ to find a way it's pretty unknown what we'll actually be.
 

Rankings meaningless. Pregame chatter meaningless. Coach and perform when the lights come on. Recruit. Practice. Coach. Like champions.
 




I think it’s fair.

Untested QB
Excellent RB
Bad WRs

Lots of defensive questions
 

One thing the Brewster years taught me is the outside media typically is more accurate than Gopherholers (including me). The big exception was 2019. Other than that, things have been a bit too optimistic around here.
 

Barry Sanders averaged over 31 carries a game his senior year. If we get that from Darius Taylor we are looking at 9+ wins. Gophers have had many great running back including Street Cloths Thompson, but DT may be the best.
 

I think last year we had a terrible offense and you have to wonder was it all the QB or was play calling particially to blame. If it was the new OC's than the new pieces will not make a lot a difference.

Then we have an unproven DC and while once again the pieces look good, their is no reason to believe the DC will put them in the right position.

I think the bad ranking is more about coaching uncertainty and our schedule than overall lack of talent.
 

60's Guy said:
It is not hard at all to see why we would be ranked low in pre season rankings.
We were not very good last year. Our defensive coordinator bailed on us after a down year.
We hired an unproven DC.
We have a new unproven QB from a lower division with unknown inexperienced backups.
We have nobody that has NFL draft buzz. The schedule is viewed more difficult.

Many of our starters didn't practice in the spring...sitting out to heal and raise the floor.
We practiced in secret so nobody could scout us or evaluate us.

We could be good but I think good has a ceiling of 8 wins. I think the number is 4.5 for a reason.
As a fan I hope it's wrong but other than optimism or trusting PJ to find a way it's pretty unknown what we'll actually be.
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I think our new QB and DC are more "proven" than people are giving them credit. Both were excellent (Brosmer the best) at FCS doing the same jobs. Let's be honest...if they had pulled off those same accolades at NDSU or SDSU people here would be elated. But for some reason because they were at random schools out east, they are discounted. They have proven they can be successful, now they just need to do it at Minnesota. Even Rossi, who had been successful here, couldn't get it done last year. And keep in mind, Rossi was completely unproven as a DC when he took over here.
 
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Schnauzer said:
One thing the Brewster years taught me is the outside media typically is more accurate than Gopherholers (including me). The big exception was 2019. Other than that, things have been a bit too optimistic around here.
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Man, save the pseudo prescient bullshit for week six. It's the offseason, people are optimistic and have every reason to be after last year. Quit shitting in people's cheerios because you're a miserable status quo Gopher fan. The media has been fucking wrong more times than they've been right about this team, particularly since Fleck came here
 

Schnauzer said:
One thing the Brewster years taught me is the outside media typically is more accurate than Gopherholers (including me). The big exception was 2019. Other than that, things have been a bit too optimistic around here.
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I don't know. I feel like for many of our 8 or 9 win seasons the media was still predicting 3-5 wins those years.
 

If the consensus is the offensive and defensive line quality and depth is good that’s a pretty good foundation; then they only need some playmakers on offense to stay healthy (looking at you Darius) and defense (Cody) and some guys in the secondary to play well.

Brosmer has good stats, seems smart, and seems uber-competitive. If he can be a comparable to Morgan I think most of us would be ecstatic. He doesn’t need to have a howitzer-level arm in college (or NFL for that matter…fighting words).
 

Otis said:
I’m just not seeing where these ranking experts are coming from.
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Probably because your post contains about 10 times more information than they've bothered to learn about the Gophers.

Remember after the 2020 Covid year these same idiots had Indiana as a preseason top 25! Why? Well they just looked at how Indiana did the previous year and phoned it in, so to speak.
 

Schnauzer said:
One thing the Brewster years taught me is the outside media typically is more accurate than Gopherholers (including me).
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Well, when you're bad to mediocre year in and year out for many years, it's not hard to be correct when predicting for that kind of team.

Edit: I think the issue that many feel now is that you have to actually evaluate our roster before just mailing it in that we'll be average/bad since Fleck is bringing in talent like we haven't seen (even though it might not work out sometimes).
 
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I trust Brosmer and think our offense will be better and even slightly more balanced than last year. All things equal, that would've probably gotten us 2-3 more wins.

My main worry is the defense, need to get the top of the defense secured again. I'm optimistic about the DC hire, but not sure how much he can really do if its just a lack of talent.

I think they make a bowl game again this year, even if it's only at 7-5. I do think we have the potential for 9 wins this year, but there are so many unknowns that it'll be easier to tell once we are halfway through the season.
 

Talent is just not great IMO…

I think gopherhole overrates the talent level by a good amount.
 

mngg11 said:
To me this is one of the strongest signs that Fleck has been an absolute success here. We've become accustomed to being a winning team, and a less than stellar year has some of us questioning reality. It's been a long time since we looked at the schedule trying to figure out where we could eke out a couple wins to be bowl eligible. Now we're pissed when we don't get to the eight win mark.

Last year sucked, but that's because we've had some major (relative to our program) successes. The cupboard isn't bare here, failure is growth, and we're going to make a nice comeback this season!
Click to expand...

Aside from just not having the best season, for me it was that I absolutely bought into the AK hype train and thought last season was going to be the final push for a Big Ten West title. I do absolutely think Fleck has been a success here.
 

Schnauzer said:
One thing the Brewster years taught me is the outside media typically is more accurate than Gopherholers (including me). The big exception was 2019. Other than that, things have been a bit too optimistic around here.
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As a betting man you can’t trust local media, a biased fan base, or overly optimistic unknowns.

I’m a Viking and gopher fan living in Bronco country.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
Talent is just not great IMO…

I think gopherhole overrates the talent level by a good amount.
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That’s just the nature of fans. Ever optimistic and looking for players they can feel good about. Honestly, I think we have a few above average players with three or so that are very good. We have a lot of average players with some that could surprise in a good way. We also have question marks that may not pan out. Pretty typical of the majority of college teams.

Someone posted that we have 11 four star players on the roster, which if they all perform to that level may be the best foundation we’ve had in a while.

Franky, this year I’m more concerned about the coordinators than I am about the players.
 

It's really garbage to shit on your team and their perceived talent level before they even take a snap. Ima leave it at that. This isn't the 2023 Gophers taking the field, it's an undefeated 2024 Gophers squad with a lot of upgrades and offseason growth. Give them a fucking chance.
 


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