18. Minnesota (11-2)
"It's difficult to climb into the top-10 and become a championship contender. It's perhaps harder to stay there consistently. That's the task ahead for P.J. Fleck, who led the Gophers to an 11-2 season and another statement win against Auburn in the Outback Bowl. Minnesota loses a ton on defense (All-America pick Antoine Winfield Jr.) and top running backs Rodney Smith and Shannon Brooks and WR Tyler Johnson — and OC Ciarrocca is now at Penn State. But QB Tanner Morgan (3,253 passing yards, 30 TDs) will still get to throw to Rashod Bateman (1,219 yards, 11 TDs)."
Here's a look at the preseason Top 25 college football rankings for 2020. Clemson and Alabama are again contenders, though this season will look different. The Big Ten and Pac-12 are among the conferences not playing this fall because of COVID-19.
www.ncaa.com
Losing Antoine Winfield Jr., and having to replace three coaches: Kirk Ciarrocca, Jim Panagos, and now Rod Chance adds to the 2020 preseason story. We can't forget the impact of losing key members of the Empire Class.
Who will emerge as team leaders? How will the Gophers adapt to the changes? How well will the Gophers lock and reload?
What are your expectations, W-L, for 2020?
Any thoughts?
I think Coach Fleck is a VERY BRIGHTLY SHINING STAR in the coaching ranks, and it may be early to be saying this, but he very possibly could be the best coach in the country, and not just in how he manages/coaches the games, but just in general, how he manages everything day to day, and not a lot of coaches are going to want to remain lingering in his very long shadow for long periods of time. My guess is that now that Fleck has reached his final destination job, guys that may have stuck with him from WMU to here, are going to start looking for places where they can shine on their own right, and/or they are going to be looking to go back home, because now they can, programs near where they grew up are going to say, "oh, you coach under PJ Fleck, well we want you coaching here" and they'll jump at those kinds of opportunities. I'd say, strap yourself in for a wild ride, EVERY offseason we should be expecting to lose at least one assistant coach from here on into eternity. This isn't the 30s or 40s anymore when men loyally stuck with great head coaches. Too much money in the business nowadays to not move around and try to position yourself exactly where you want to be when you can, and UMn assistants CAN. Fleck's brightness rubs off on them, at least as far as outsiders are concerned. No outsider fully 100% believes the University of Minnesota could be having anything to do with Fleck's success, no way, it HAS TO BE 100% the Coaching staff, and likewise a lot of people can't believe that it's all Fleck's doing, either, so they figure he got lucky and hired good asst coaches. Also, people figure great coaches are often the ones who coached under great coaches, it's why everyone wants Saban's Asst Coaches. Well, now they are going to want Fleck's, especially when people start figuring out that Fleck isn't going anywhere.
Well, that is just my theory, my take, how I perceive the situation. I could be wrong, but it's rare that I ever am.
Now as for expectations? Well, I think the offense is going to be SO MUCH BETTER than the offense that we saw for the first 4-5 games of last year, I don't think they will struggle to score points at all. But it's possible that our defense will take a few games to get into synch, so early on we might see some high scoring games, but I believe our offense will control the clock, even more than we did last year. 2 or 3 more passes each game to TEs or RBs to keep drives going and take more time off the clock could be crucial, esp early in the season while our young defense and the coaching staff is figuring things out. That could be the key to our team's success next year? And Red zone effeciency will be important, too. And Minimizing mistakes and turnovers on offense, too. Bateman will likely get a lot of double coverage, but I think our QB will continue improving and will make good smart passes, but maybe not as many deep ones. Those 40+ yard TD tosses end drives too quickly, lol. I mean, I never complained about them last year, but this year I won't complain if they happen less often as long as we are getting lots of first downs and still getting TDs. The first 3 games of the season may be key as to what kind of season we'll have, if we can win against FAU and then can come away victorious against Iowa, then I fully expect us to have another 10+ win season, as I believe we'll go on to win all of our home games, and we will probably slip up in two of our road games, the Wisconsin game is the most likely, and then the Nebraska or Illinois games could be dangerous, maybe the Maryland game, but I wouldn't be shocked if we go 11-1, either.
I don't like making predictions this early on, but if I had to, my way too early prediction would be we'll go 10-2 again in the regular season, but we won't ever crack the top ten in the polls, not even after we pull off another upset of a top ten team in a bowl game. We'll instead come somewhere in the #11-#14 range in the polls and it will again be our supposed weak schedule that will dog us the entire season.
