If the Gophers had beat Illinois and Bowling Green...

Donate To GopherHole




Would have ranked us. Would have been 8-1 going into Iowa on a 8 game win streak. Ranked top 15. 10-2 would still be about 15 with only loses to tOSU and Iowa.
 


JWG said:
True. Odd how 8-4 and 10-2 make little difference. Though we'd most certainly be in a New Year's Day bowl vs. waiting on Las Vegas vs. Nashville.
Click to expand...
Right, 10-2 wasn't good enough in 2019 to go to Indy. Lose the head-to-head tiebreaker and someone else gets the chance to take on the East.

Bummer this year it's not Ohio State either.
 







HitMeAgainIAmStillMoving said:
Come on, if my aunt had a package..... we have to get past this.
Click to expand...

I agree. The "what if" stuff can be fun, and a little bit addictive, though. I can't say I blame people for doing it (especially since I do it myself!), but, yeah... we can and should also enjoy the fact that we had a decent season, beat one of our two biggest rivals, and are likely going to a pretty fair bowl game.
 


UpAndUnder43 said:
Iowa would still be in the B1G title game. Kinda weird if you think about it as those are the two games we kick ourselves for as fans.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but we’d be 10-2, with the axe, despite losing Mo, Trey, Bryce … and the only taint to a remarkable season would have been losing to Iowa.
 



RememberMurray said:
I agree. The "what if" stuff can be fun, and a little bit addictive, though. I can't say I blame people for doing it (especially since I do it myself!), but, yeah... we can and should also enjoy the fact that we had a decent season, beat one of our two biggest rivals, and are likely going to a pretty fair bowl game.
Click to expand...
That was kinda the point of my post. Even changing those outcomes changes very little as the season goes
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
That was kinda the point of my post. Even changing those outcomes changes very little as the season goes
Click to expand...

I agree.

If we would have lost to Wisconsin, I'll admit I would have been disappointed in 2021 overall. But the win over the Badgers, plus the strong showing in Iowa City, and the way our defense played all season has me feeling good about the future. I'd love to see a big performance in a somewhat attractive bowl against a quality opponent.
 
Last edited:

I'm hoping the Whisky win puts us in the top 25 tonight. It's amazing how the W-L is everything in all these polls - strength of schedule means little or nothing, e.g. Illinois is a much better football team than anyone anticipated at the beginning of the season, so losing to them is not the end of the world. They prepared well for us and beat us at the line. At 8-4, we should be ranked.
 


Great Plains Gopher said:
I'm hoping the Whisky win puts us in the top 25 tonight. It's amazing how the W-L is everything in all these polls - strength of schedule means little or nothing, e.g. Illinois is a much better football team than anyone anticipated at the beginning of the season, so losing to them is not the end of the world. They prepared well for us and beat us at the line. At 8-4, we should be ranked.
Click to expand...

There are only two 8-4 teams in the AP poll:

Arkansas whose losses came against Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Auburn.
Texas A&M whose losses came against Arkansas, Miss State, Ole Miss, and LSU.

We lost to a below average Illinois team and a lousy Bowling Green team. We aren't going to be ranked. We will probably get some votes however. And depending on how we show with whatever Bowl game we get....there's a decent shot of being ranked to open the 2022 season. But....that's only if Nebraska drops a level.
 


Great Plains Gopher said:
I'm hoping the Whisky win puts us in the top 25 tonight. It's amazing how the W-L is everything in all these polls - strength of schedule means little or nothing, e.g. Illinois is a much better football team than anyone anticipated at the beginning of the season, so losing to them is not the end of the world. They prepared well for us and beat us at the line. At 8-4, we should be ranked.
Click to expand...
illinois losses are to:
5-7 Rutgers (WTF)
11-1 UTSA
6-6 Virginia
6-6 Maryland
8-4 Purdue
8-4 wisconsin
10-2 iowa

Combined record of Illinois losses is 54-30
 




fmlizard said:
Minnesota with wins over BG and ILL is the 2019 team, but with an Axe.

We forget how incredibly close the 2019 team was to losing one or more of its non conference games to non-P5 teams. The Gophers were 1:100 at best to survive all 3 of those.
Click to expand...
In both of these seasons, we were better than Iowa, but they just have our number.

Much like we have Purdue's number.
 

If the Gophers had beat Illinois and Bowling Green...

...the I-O-W-A loss would be all the more biting...
 

WriterGoph said:
And Mike Sanford would likely still be the OC!
Click to expand...
How average was our offense this year under Sanford when we needed it in those 4 losses. This was the final ranking for the FBS in Total Defense.

1638316511181.png

If we had any kind of sustained passing game what could we have accomplished this year with this defense. Of course you can see our two biggest rivals on this list and they have the same issue.

FYI...... 98th in Total Offense

1638316988577.png

Link to NCAA stats: https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/22
 


stocker08 said:
There are only two 8-4 teams in the AP poll:

Arkansas whose losses came against Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Auburn.
Texas A&M whose losses came against Arkansas, Miss State, Ole Miss, and LSU.

We lost to a below average Illinois team and a lousy Bowling Green team. We aren't going to be ranked. We will probably get some votes however. And depending on how we show with whatever Bowl game we get....there's a decent shot of being ranked to open the 2022 season. But....that's only if Nebraska drops a level.
Click to expand...
Gophs also beat a 16th ranked CFP team to close out that 8-4 season.
 


99Gopher said:
How average was our offense this year under Sanford when we needed it in those 4 losses. This was the final ranking for the FBS in Total Defense.

View attachment 15676

If we had any kind of sustained passing game what could we have accomplished this year with this defense. Of course you can see our two biggest rivals on this list and they have the same issue.

FYI...... 98th in Total Offense

View attachment 15677

Link to NCAA stats: https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/22
Click to expand...
11th in scoring Defense as well. Those are elite rankings.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom