Minnesota at #18 in NCAA 2020 Preseason Rankings

I hope you are right, as I have the BADgers going to the Conf Title game next year. They won't have an Illinois like loss next year so 7-2 won't be good enough to win the conf. I also am not sure about Iowa, they could be very good as well. I think both UW and Iowa could be better than they were last year, and UMn won't be worse, just different, and I hope we pull off the Iowa game, but it being so early scares me, not sure our defense will have everything figured out by then? But I really feel sorry for whichever Top Ten team has to play us in a bowl game, lol. We'll start to get the reputation as the Giant killer, lol. Going into bowl games underrated because of getting beat up in the tougher than anyone believes B1G West Division, and then whipping up on the overrated teams from weaker conferences we play in our bowl games. But that is only if 2021 doesn't ruin our always the underdog image as I think that will be our TITLE contending season!!!
You have been reported for your badger love
 

Have we started a season with a preseason ranking in a while?
 

I like the idea of Iowa being ranked really high, that way when we beat them, it will be a big major upset and will be seen as a big win on our resume. And if we lose, it will have been expected.
 

You have been reported for your badger love


No way, I HATE the Badgers, just feel like they will be good enough next year to defend their home turf against us. I'm hoping they are our only loss, and we win the Division title!!
 

Are the rankings more reflective of the strength of the Big Ten West as opposed to a lack of respect to the Gophers? While i think an undefeated regular season has some probability to it for the Gophers, I think it is equally probable we lose 4-5 games this year. Our margin over our opponents is not that high and our recruits dont rank as program changers. I think our highest probabilty is a 2 - 3 loss team. Hense the preseason ranking. Worse teams in other divisions may not be as good. However only predicted to lose 1 or 2 games. You should do preseason ranking based on where you think teams end up, not based on a best to worst team.
 


I figured we'd drop about 5 spots. Hopefully we climb a bit after spring games and whatnot to open the season at 15 (±1). 18 feels a bit low to me, but I understand that we seemingly have an unproven defense with all the starters that left. I think they'll step up (some even had a decent amount of playing time last year and did fine)
Why would our ranking go up after spring games?
 

Can totally understand the line of thinking you put forth here as to where to rank us and I think that is pretty close to what we will really see. But for the USA Today to not even put us in the top 25 while ranking Iowa 10th seems really out there. Nothing to get worked up about since it is just preseason fluff but I would still be curious to know why they dropped us so far.
That feels like a little Iowa caucus math there. I wouldn't be surprised if things are much different when their real pre-season poll comes out.
 

Win the 2 NC games, the BIG teams that we should be better than and be competitive
against Micheeeegan, Hogeyes, and Becky. Not an easy task.

My concern is on D replacing the big play capabilities of Winfield and the leadership and experience of the departed SR's on D.
 




I think getting ANY preseason ranking is a pretty big achievement as far as Gopher history goes.

Yeah maybe there's some "They're the Gopher's they'll level off" type bias ... but even then we get ranked? That's kinda huge.


We had to wait a long time just to get ranked in the first place last year.


 




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