Judd Zulgad: Why is there now a feeling Minnesota won't get to nine victories?

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BleedGopher

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per Judd:

A preseason prediction that the Gophers football team would win nine games this season was made based on the confidence that Jerry Kill's team would win three of its four nonconference games.

A reasonable expectation was the Gophers would lose their home opener to highly ranked TCU, before rebounding to beat Colorado State, Kent State and Ohio.

That's exactly what happened.

So why is there now a feeling Minnesota won't get to nine victories?

Because as the Gophers prepare to open Big Ten play on Saturday at 16th-ranked Northwestern, we might know less about this team than we did when the season began. This became clear as the Gophers barely got past MAC opponents the past two weeks, beating Kent State and Ohio by three points apiece.

There are a combination of factors for the uncertainty. Some are in Kill's control and some aren't.

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/...urround_Gophers_as_Big_Ten_season_opens093015

Go Gophers!!
 


Nine wins and 6-2 would be the best season the Gophers have had in 50 years. Anyone who expects that in a year they crossover against the #1 team in the country is insane.
 




Winnipegopher said:
Nine wins and 6-2 would be the best season the Gophers have had in 50 years. Anyone who expects that in a year they crossover against the #1 team in the country is insane.
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I'm assuming going 6-2 in conference would be the best in 50 years, but 9 wins total would not. The Gophers went 10-3 (5-3) in 2003.
 

If you include the bowl game it's not insane. In fact I think it's a reasonable goal, perhaps even the expectation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

harley_gopher said:
Who is this Judd zugland? And what makes him credible?
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I think to help supplement income from recording Renter's Warehouse commercials some choose to write an article for a radio station website. I dunno.
 

Won't get Nine victories, just because we had one football game against Kent State that wasn't the automatic beat down everyone thought the Gophers are bad yet they are 3-1 which was everyone's prediction until this point.
I like our chances to get nine victories or more, but let's play them one game at a time and continue to let the doubters believe otherwise. It's time to go in to Evanston and kick some Northwestern butt, Gophers are a good team let the naysayers and doubters believe otherwise.
There are going to be a lot of Gopher fans in Chicago this weekend, and were not going there just to kiss the Mildcat's butts, were going there to sing the Rouser and celebrate another Golden Gopher victory.
 



mcgi0024 said:
If you include the bowl game it's not insane. In fact I think it's a reasonable goal, perhaps even the expectation.


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I agree that it is not an insane goal, but expectations for this program (until the facilities are built) should only be to make a bowl game.
 

Winnipegopher said:
Nine wins and 6-2 would be the best season the Gophers have had in 50 years. Anyone who expects that in a year they crossover against the #1 team in the country is insane.
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I predicted 9 wins because they won 8 last year playing the same crossover games they have this year. I could care less what happened the past 50 when last year's results suggest 9 wins is possible.
 

Winnipegopher said:
Nine wins and 6-2 would be the best season the Gophers have had in 50 years. Anyone who expects that in a year they crossover against the #1 team in the country is insane.
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LOTS of people predicted 9 for the Gophers. If their "insane" prediction proves wrong, it'll be a profitable winter for me.
 

Gopher Warrior said:
LOTS of people predicted 9 for the Gophers. If their "insane" prediction proves wrong, it'll be a happy winter for me.
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Fixed it for you because we all know you're not a Gophers fan.

Your only contribution to the football board is to tell us how stupid we are.
 



Win the JUG, the PIG and the AXE, and no matter what else happens it will be a season to remember. Find a way. Win close...win ugly...surprise the hell out of a Big Ten Team or two along the way. Beat the stinking cat on Saturday, Gopher!
 

If we win 9 games, I will donate one of my three testicles to science.
 


GopherHomer said:
I agree that it is not an insane goal, but expectations for this program (until the facilities are built) should only be to make a bowl game.
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6 wins is the goal that Brewster achieved in half of the years he was here. 6 wins is the minimum of the range that should even be considered acceptable, anything worse would be miserably disappointing.
 

Tough schedule. Injuries. Lost some key players.

If we get to a bowl game I'll be happy. Too much on the plate this year to set the bar too much higher.
 

jaymil said:
I predicted 9 wins because they won 8 last year playing the same crossover games they have this year. I could care less what happened the past 50 when last year's results suggest 9 wins is possible.
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I think what you mean to say is that you couldn't care less. If you could care less, how much less could you care?
 



One thing I think is worth noting, which I mentioned to MinneStoa the other day, is that pretty much every year under Kill, we have felt better about our team at the end of the conference season than we did at the end of out of conference (which is the opposite of how I felt about the basketball team for the last eight years). I'm still optimistic. I think 4-6 B1G wins is what I am expecting.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Tough schedule. Injuries. Lost some key players.

If we get to a bowl game I'll be happy. Too much on the plate this year to set the bar too much higher.
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Yep!

Seven W's and a bowl game may be the ceiling with what I have seen thus far. Other than Purdue and maybe Illini & Neb. at home, I would put the Gophers as underdogs at this time.

The D can not carry the team and its difficult to hold BT teams under 20 ppg. Plus I'm not confident that this D will do that as there have been glaring pass D breakdowns in each game where there have been wide open receivers. Having three starting DB's on the shelf has to be a major concern.

No question that the O must improve with Mitch and the OL needs to get healthy and be more effective.

We have to fix our punt return game and that may mean that #22 is replaced.
 


Somebody go bring up that season win total thread. Majority of this board was 8-10 wins; there's no denying that. It's funny to now read the responses which, in a nutshell read, "are you nuts, we've never been that successful, we shouldn't expect those things".

How many "vegas is wrong!!!" outbursts were there when they came out with their 5.5 o/u? Now we'll have to upset a couple teams to win that bet. The homers will blame injuries and bad luck; some will correctly blame Kill's stubbornness, their inability to recruit and develop quarterbacks and their terrible o-line recruiting in 2013 (1 recruit) and 2014 (3 recruits, with 2 being total reaches at the end of the recruiting cycle).
 

Teams are allowed to improve throughout the year. Let's just see how this turns out. The gophers are 3-1, just like most expected, and have yet to play up to their potential.

I for one am happy that they haven't peaked yet this year.
 

sonnygarcia said:
Somebody go bring up that season win total thread. Majority of this board was 8-10 wins; there's no denying that. It's funny to now read the responses which, in a nutshell read, "are you nuts, we've never been that successful, we shouldn't expect those things".

How many "vegas is wrong!!!" outbursts were there when they came out with their 5.5 o/u? Now we'll have to upset a couple teams to win that bet. The homers will blame injuries and bad luck; some will correctly blame Kill's stubbornness, their inability to recruit and develop quarterbacks and their terrible o-line recruiting in 2013 (1 recruit) and 2014 (3 recruits, with 2 being total reaches at the end of the recruiting cycle).
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Most people in that thread had the gophers starting 3-1. Winning 3 more games to get to the over seems likely, we are favored in 3 (although Nebraska is basically a pick em) winning 1 or 2 of the other 4 (not counting Ohio state) seems doable. It seemed more doable before the season based on what a disaster Northwestern and Michigan looked like, especially Michigan. My preseason pick was 15-0 winning the national championship, but many were at 7 or 8 wins pre bowl. I think 7 looks very likely and 8 looks 50/50 based on remaining schedule.

Might want to save up your "I told you so" post for better material. This one was pretty weak
 


Clark W. Griswold said:
Teams are allowed to improve throughout the year. Let's just see how this turns out. The gophers are 3-1, just like most expected, and have yet to play up to their potential.

I for one am happy that they haven't peaked yet this year.
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Exactly. Let's play the games before we add up the wins and losses. We're 3-1 and battle tested. No reason to be a chicken little and concede the entire Big Ten schedule.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Fixed it for you because we all know you're not a Gophers fan.

Your only contribution to the football board is to tell us how stupid we are.
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There are a few nuts on this thread that we could donate:rolleyes:
 

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