Is the Indiana program doing better than Minnesota?

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Some guy said:
I think people forget that. The big ten is always going to have at least 4 ranked teams.
Indiana is one of 4 teams with a great record. The big ten is really strange this year. A lot of parity.
Ohio state = very good team
Indiana, northwestern, and Iowa = above average to good teams

everyone else = below average


I would say this is a really down year for the big ten
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Ohio State - legit top 4, and our only team that deserves the CFP
Indiana - easily the second best
Iowa, Wisconsin, NW - would all lose to IU, but are each better than a lot of the other teams in the Big Ten
 

Iceland12 said:
That COVID has affected the Big Ten and all of College Football is unarguable. That Wisconsin is a really good team? They aren't. They are 2-2 and they've earned that record.

They crushed two bad teams, that are now both 2-4. They lost to two teams, NW and Indy, that are a combined 11-2. They are both good teams. Yes, right now much better than the U. In those losses the Badgers scored a combined 13 points.

Could they have been a really good team? Sure. Just like Penn State, Michigan and yeah the Gophers, they were ranked in the Pre-Season Top 25. Then COVID happened. Then they started to play the games.

Everybody has had to deal with COVID, so take that away. Then all you have to go by is their record.

They are 2-2. That's not even good.
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The Iowa Wisconsin game will give us another datapoint.

If what you said holds, I would expect Iowa to beat them. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Wisc wins. They've had Iowa's number every bit as much as they've had our number, lately.
 

WhoFellDownTheGopherHole? said:
The season is disappointing, some of the defensive position recruiting gaps are frustrating, i still think Simon was the better answer at OC and our secondary play has bewildered me.


Those things aside, 11-2 happened. You can find ways to pick on it all you want, but it was fucking phenomenal and easily the most memorable season of any in my 35 years or so of paying attention. PJ has the right attitude, he has so much energy and he (by all accounts) does things with high character. Perfect? Hell no. He's made some weird clock and field position decisions, but the kinds of things he has fucked up on are typically the kinds of things i can live with. Zero off field concerns - that can't be overstated. We have freshmen here this year and coming in next that look like athletes and actually rate that way. I think really 2022 will probably give us a good idea of what's realistic here. I still see the long game with this football team and PJ's vision, and nothing happening this year really worries me for our trajectory. Gophers haven't done much for shit for most of the last 60 years, fans might be asking for a lot really quick. That's ok though, that's what 11-2 does to you.

Love and appreciate Tanner, but he's a throwback QB. Whenever he does leave, the Gophers are about to join the rest of the country and the evolving sport in general and open up their offense with a multi-dimensional athlete there. It will change so much about how the Gophers play offense. Right now this year kind of reminds me of the last few painful years of watching the Vikings outdated Tampa 2 defense suck it up all over the NFL, but it is what it is and I still think we'll get there.

I don't care what Indiana is doing, good luck to them, i like our team. :)
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I like your take. I just think what we are trying to do today is what we will be trying to perfect tomorrow.
 

MplsGopher said:
The Iowa Wisconsin game will give us another datapoint.

If what you said holds, I would expect Iowa to beat them. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Wisc wins. They've had Iowa's number every bit as much as they've had our number, lately.
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Not a fan of either team, but I expect both teams to play a great game and the better team to win. Not having a true home field definitely evens the playing field.
 

MplsGopher said:
What does the last part (bolded) mean??
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It means I don’t see them having any type of consistent success unless they improve their recruiting. They play three teams every year that recruit like 50 spots higher than them every year. Maryland and Mich state also recruit much better and I suspect Rutgers will be recruiting strong now as well. We at least recruit in the ball park of every one on our side of the conference.
 


btowngopher said:
It means I don’t see them having any type of consistent success unless they improve their recruiting. They play three teams every year that recruit like 50 spots higher than them every year. Maryland and Mich state also recruit much better and I suspect Rutgers will be recruiting strong now as well. We at least recruit in the ball park of every one on our side of the conference.
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Seems like Allen has done well with the recruits he's gotten so far, this year?

And winning should help recruiting. But of course, we will see.
 

MplsGopher said:
Seems like Allen has done well with the recruits he's gotten so far, this year?

And winning should help recruiting. But of course, we will see.
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I’m talking long term, we should all be well aware of how hard it is to break through and become a consistent winner in this conference.
 

MplsGopher said:
Ohio State - legit top 4, and our only team that deserves the CFP
Indiana - easily the second best
Iowa, Wisconsin, NW - would all lose to IU, but are each better than a lot of the other teams in the Big Ten
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Northwestern lost to Michigan state, who is a terrible team.
Iowa lost to Purdue and northwestern. Purdue is awful.
Wisconsin has beaten nobody. Everyone is average at best. Week to week one team can look great in this group. A different week; a team can look awful.
 

Making comparisons between teams is always fraught with errors and is even worse this year with the disruption to each team's schedule, practice routine and available players being different for every team.
I guess it is human nature to compare things but to do it this year in college sports is a fool's errand.
 



Plato said:
Making comparisons between teams is always fraught with errors and is even worse this year with the disruption to each team's schedule, practice routine and available players being different for every team.
I guess it is human nature to compare things but to do it this year in college sports is a fool's errand.
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Yup. Both programs should be really happy right now.
 

Indiana seems to be built with a much more capable defense. They can play high scoring games with OSU and grind it out games with Whisky.

Very impressive.
 

MplsGopher said:
The Iowa Wisconsin game will give us another datapoint.

If what you said holds, I would expect Iowa to beat them. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Wisc wins. They've had Iowa's number every bit as much as they've had our number, lately.
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Looking at their record against each other can see your point. This century WI has a 11-7 advantage. Beat them 7 out of the last 8 too.

The books have Iowa as a favorite. Though only by a single point. A toss-up game. Probably because balanced against that dominance, Iowa is 5-2 and winning 5 in a row. All but one of by 2 TDS plus. Versus the Badgers being 2-2. Playing only twice in the last 3 weeks. Lost both of them. In both games their Offense didn't show-up.

Iowa, by their record and performance on the field, is a good team. The Badgers, by those standards, are a mediocre to average one. If they win Saturday they'll be viewed more favorably. If they lose they'll be mediocre.

People screamed for decades about a "mythical" national Championship. "It should be played on the field!"

I have that same feeling about the regular season. "You are what your record says you are."
 

Otis said:
Indiana seems to be built with a much more capable defense. They can play high scoring games with OSU and grind it out games with Whisky.

Very impressive.
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2019 Minnesota defense was as good or better than 2020 Indiana defense in my opinion.


no question Indiana is better than Minnesota in2020
 



Otis said:
Indiana seems to be built with a much more capable defense. They can play high scoring games with OSU and grind it out games with Whisky.

Very impressive.
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True but they lost their Tuttle, their starting QB, to injury in the Maryland game. If he's out for the season their ability to outscore teams may be gone.
 

Some guy said:
2019 Minnesota defense was as good or better than 2020 Indiana defense in my opinion.


no question Indiana is better than Minnesota in2020
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No way Minnesota could hold OSU to 42 points. ;)
 



Otis said:
Is there a difference? (Antoine forgive me! I know you wouldn't have allowed it.)
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I mean three years ago Ohio state wasn’t quite as good and had Haskins instead of Fields and the team gave up 30. All last years defense were a year younger.

minnesota hasn’t given up 40+ to Ohio state since 2010
 

Some guy said:
Northwestern lost to Michigan state, who is a terrible team.
Iowa lost to Purdue and northwestern. Purdue is awful.
Wisconsin has beaten nobody. Everyone is average at best. Week to week one team can look great in this group. A different week; a team can look awful.
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Week 1 games in covid year? Don't count. I put Iowa and NW in the same group. So Iowa losing to NW by 1 point proves my point. Wisconsin lost to Indiana and Iowa, and crushed the other Big Ten teams they've played. Again, it just proves my point.

I don't think we're on different pages. Just depends on your definition of "average". All five of the teams I listed are above average, by different degrees.

In the "average" camp I'd put almost everyone else in the Big Ten this year, when averaging their up and down performances over the weeks.
 

I guess it depends what you think of Minnesota this year. If you believe that Minnesota's performance on the field is due to a significantly worse battle with COVID-19 than their peers, or that Tanner Morgan's struggles are due to his father's health issues, or that the unrest in the Twin Cities played a role or some combination of the 3 then you probably think Minnesota is doing better than Indiana. If you believe everyone had similar challenges and Minnesota simply handled them worse, then you probably think Indiana is doing better. The truth is most of us (certainly not me at least) know how much more (or less) adversity Minnesota has faced than any other team. It seems like we need another year to truly know where things stand. I am personally pretty nervous about the state of our program after what I saw this year. To not show up at all against a very mediocre Iowa team really bothered me.

To me the interesting question is would you trade last years Minnesota year for what Indiana or Northwestern are likely to do this year? Lets assume Indiana beats Purdue and Northwestern beats Illinois. Norhtwestern has a B1G West title and won't lose to a rival. They also never made it as high in the rankings as Minnesota and their signature win was over a limited Wisconsin team. Indiana might win the B1G East by default and won't lose to a rival. They beat Wisconsin with a backup QB and played Ohio State tough. Like Northwestern they won't have a win of the magnitude of Penn State last year. Of course the Northwestern and Indiana years have the COVID-19 asterisk attached to them.

Personally I'd rather have the Northwestern or Indiana year. The losses to Iowa and Wisconsin last year were the two most painful Gopher football defeats for me. It was great to beat Penn State and Auburn, but it will be hard to ever forget those losses and what they prevented the Gophers from accomplishing. I want to break the streak of never winning the B1G West. In 20 years, we'd remember we won a B1G West title in the pandemic year, but the average fan of college football would just see 2020 B1G West champs...the details fade in time, but the trophy's remain. I am confident Minnesota was a better team last year, certailny more people watched nationally and the fans of the program finally got to experience a huge home win and rush the field. There are reasons to prefer Minnesota's 2019, but I'd rather have the Northwestern/Indiana year.
 

Good time to actually ask this question.

I would say both programs are doing well and it’s not clear cut who is better than the other.

I personally would rather have Fleck provided he sticks around
 

Hard to argue for Indiana when they are supposed to be having their best season in a long time and then lose to a bad SEC team in their bowl game. I'll take MN!!!!
 

Indiana is still recruiting poorly compared to the rest of the conference, they haven’t shown that they can succeed with consistency doing that like NW has.
 

btowngopher said:
Indiana is still recruiting poorly compared to the rest of the conference, they haven’t shown that they can succeed with consistency doing that like NW has.
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They got rid of their old coach because no defense. Hired a d guy. It will be interesting to see if offense stays good at IU in years 5-8 of a defensive coach.
 

In 4 years at Indiana, Tom Allen has two wins against FBS teams that ended the season with a winning record

In 4 years at minnesota, PJ Fleck has 7 wins against FBS teams that ended the season with winning records
 

46Gophers said:
Hard to argue for Indiana when they are supposed to be having their best season in a long time and then lose to a bad SEC team in their bowl game. I'll take MN!!!!
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They lost their QB. Still were competitive and had a chance to win. Would we have beaten Auburn without Morgan? Who knows.


Both ended the season with two losses.

They would've smoked their blood-rival Purdue, then lost the bowl game. We got smoked by our blood-rival in 2019, then won the bowl game. I know which I would've rather had.


Regardless, there is no point trying to compare 2019 Minnesota vs 2020 Indiana, other than "for fun".


2021 will tell the story.


From the little I've seen of him, Tom Allen seems like an awesome coach.
 

Some guy said:
In 4 years at Indiana, Tom Allen has two wins against FBS teams that ended the season with a winning record

In 4 years at minnesota, PJ Fleck has 7 wins against FBS teams that ended the season with winning records
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This mostly comes down to 2019 for us, and 2020 for them. And then that's not fair because all the Big Ten teams they beat in 2020 didn't get to pad their W-L records with non-conf wins.


Re-do the comparison with how many teams had winning Big Ten records and let's see if it still hold water. I have no idea, it might.
 

MplsGopher said:
This mostly comes down to 2019 for us, and 2020 for them. And then that's not fair because all the Big Ten teams they beat in 2020 didn't get to pad their W-L records with non-conf wins.


Re-do the comparison with how many teams had winning Big Ten records and let's see if it still hold water. I have no idea, it might.
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Took you off ignore again. Stupid me. Putting you back on because again you just make stuff up.

if by mostly from 2019 you mean 29% then yes, mostly



Allen Big Ten record
15-19

fleck big ten record
15-19

Big ten record of Allen‘s big ten wins:
30-93 (.24)


Big ten record of Flecks big ten wins:
33-69 (.32)

Number of teams fleck has beaten that finished with winning records in the big ten:
3

Number of teams Allen has beaten that finished with winning records in the big ten:
1
 



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