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Objectively speaking, they should be in the 4-6 range. They've done similar to what former #4 Penn State had done up to that point (MN had one top 5 win while PSU had two top 20 wins. That should be equal).

What will actually happen? 8-10.
 
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I hope someone at ESPN asks the question (if we are ranked below Alabama) how beating a Top 5 team isn't better than losing to a top 5 team.
 

It's all because of pre season rankings though...the gophers resume is better than half or more of the teams in front of them but because they didn't start the year out ranked they have a harder time jumping those teams
 

All I know is that it sure is fun that the Gophers are deep in the mix for the CFP. Watching the maroon and gold block M pop into the ESPN CFP pick was awesome. The rankings will take care of themselves by end of season.
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mnsports1 said:
Jesse Palmer has us as 6
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This where I think they should land too. If the CFP committee really does their job, all two loss teams should be behind Gophs, and it will be hard to put any one loss teams ahead of them. If you look at the opponent records of most one loss teams, it's hard to make an argument they deserve a spot in front of Gophs, really hard.
 


Panthadad2 said:
All I know is that it sure is fun that the Gophers are deep in the mix for the CFP. Watching the maroon and gold block M pop into the ESPN CFP pick was awesome. The rankings will take care of themselves by end of season.
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You go Joey!
 



I know its fun to be talking these details.

But damn, im just taking this all in. That we are even being discussed is like bizarre world. So surreal. I just love it
 



Fox panel had Gophers at 9 last night.

Herbstreit has us at 6
 

The media are all only focused on the bookends. Close games against mediocre opponents early in the season and then our beating of Penn State. But we also kicked butt in between in the B1G and that should count for something, especially when looking at the record of the likes of Utah and Oregon. Our win against Nebraska gave us no boost. But Illinois is turning into a quality win. They are better than .500 now and going bowling.
 

I know this is absurd, but Minnesota has a better SOS than Clemson right now.
Neither team has lost.

How do you compare the two?
 

There’s a reasonable case to be made for Minnesota at 3. I don’t think we would beat Clemson or Bama very many times, but if we’re talking marquee wins and not taking losses, who but LSU and OSU has us beat at this moment?
 



OddStack said:
Fox panel had Gophers at 9 last night.

Herbstreit has us at 6
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Fox is simply confused and haven't done their homework.

6 is correct ballpark, but probably too low.

6 is more of a "I really feel they are about here" vs a "who did they beat and who did they lose to" ranking.
 

fmlizard said:
There’s a reasonable case to be made for Minnesota at 3. I don’t think we would beat Clemson or Bama very many times, but if we’re talking marquee wins and not taking losses, who but LSU and OSU has us beat at this moment?
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That's where this gets complicated.

Minnesota isn't the brand name, but if any blue blood beat a #4 team yesterday, and remained unbeaten 9 games into a season, there is no way they wouldn't be ranked top 4.

So now the CFP possibly has to move MN from 17 to top 5, or they will have a lot of questions on why 1-loss teams with no Top10 wins are ahead of the Gophers.
 


Face The Facts said:
That's where this gets complicated.

Minnesota isn't the brand name, but if any blue blood beat a #4 team yesterday, and remained unbeaten 9 games into a season, there is no way they wouldn't be ranked top 4.

So now the CFP possibly has to move MN from 17 to top 5, or they will have a lot of questions on why 1-loss teams with no Top10 wins are ahead of the Gophers.
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They shouldn't compound last week's mistake (putting us at #17) by getting it wrong again this week.
 

ProfessorBum said:
They shouldn't compound last week's mistake (putting us at #17) by getting it wrong again this week.
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I'm curious to see which route they go.
I expect they will go with downplaying the win and we end up #8-9. They want to keep Big 12 and Pac12 interested, but with each week, their chances of passing a Clemson, LSU, OSU, or even a 1 loss PSU become tougher.

CFP committee has to keep it interesting for teams who won't get in.
 

ProfessorBum said:
They shouldn't compound last week's mistake (putting us at #17) by getting it wrong again this week.
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Yeah, should have been right around #12 last week, so that is where I move them from for this week. Should be #6 and no lower than #8.
 

Flash30 said:
I like how a lot of the comments from fans around the country put mn at 4. Although they could be Minnesotans replying to the tweet. It’s still nice to think that fans think we belong.
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Yeah, that was crazy! Crazy Good!! Most of them seemed like non-Minnesotans, or at least I hope most were not? Couple Minnesotans admitted how crazy cool it was just to be getting talked about in the conversation.

I don't do twitter, but I sure did want to respond to all of those Oregon fans who were dissing Minnesota.

And that person who said Bama and Minnesota talked about in the same sentence being so crazy? Some of these fans are either really young or have bad memories. 2 of UMn's most recent bowl wins are against Bama and Oregon. ;)
 

KillmeNow said:
Yeah, that was crazy! Crazy Good!! Most of them seemed like non-Minnesotans, or at least I hope most were not? Couple Minnesotans admitted how crazy cool it was just to be getting talked about in the conversation.

I don't do twitter, but I sure did want to respond to all of those Oregon fans who were dissing Minnesota.

And that person who said Bama and Minnesota talked about in the same sentence being so crazy? Some of these fans are either really young or have bad memories. 2 of UMn's most recent bowl wins are against Bama and Oregon. ;)
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Everyone of course assumes we were just beating bad teams. We conference. Etc.
So the "narrative" of us not beating a good team worked really well until yesterday.

Now we have the 2nd best win in all of college football. Only better win was LSU over Bama.
Suddenly you need to come up with a new story on why Minnesota is not a contender.
Clemson's SOS is weaker.
Bama, Oregon, Georgia... all of these other teams that are supposed to have better resumes with a loss suddenly don't.
 

Yesterday was amazing - but to read serious speculation that the Gophers should be in even the top 10, let alone 3-6, is incredible to me. This is bringing tears to my eyes! Everyone else is starting to see how good this team is.


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Of us and the 16 teams above us:

Only LSU has had a win against a higher ranked team than we have. Ignoring location, we have the second best win.

If you look at records against teams who were ranked at the time, LSU and Ohio State are clearly ahead of us. Georgia is 2-0 with a loss to a team outside of the top 25 which is arguably better. Clemson is in the same situation as us. Utah, Oklahoma, and Kansas State are also 1-0 against ranked teams but but all have at least 1 other loss and Kansas State has 3. Penn State is 2-1 which is arguably better but we beat them head to head. Depending on how you value different thing, we are anywhere from 3rd to 7th looking primarily at performance against the top 25.

The only thing you can hold against the Gophers in terms of who they beat is that they lack an impressive road win. That's also true for Clemson and no one is holding that against them. They were ranked above LSU even when LSU had a road win against a top 10 team. If they are consistent, we should be 6th at worst if Clemson is 5th, is even with us in record against the top 25, and their best win was less impressive than ours. If Alabama and Penn State drop below Clemson, they should also drop below us and we should be in 4th. Performance on the road shouldn't be any more important than performance at home anyway considering that all CFP games are played at a neutral site.

If you go beyond purely who teams beat, there are a few more things you can hold against the Gophers. The first and biggest is that they don't have the recent history of success that other teams have. They should be judging us purely on what we've done this year but there's always bias. The Big 10 is also not considered to be as good as the SEC but again, we should then be no worse than 1 spot below Clemson. Most efficiency ratings I've seen put us between 10th and 20th. I don't see as much value in those because the team has improved so much since the non-conference games that are hurting our efficiency and because a win is a win but I'm sure that's part of what hurts us.

I would say we deserve to be somewhere between 3 and 6 but will likely end up around 9th.
 

mjfelton15 said:
It’s crazy on that Herbstreit twitter thread that so many people from outside of MN are calling for us to #4. That is awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much love for the Gophers from non-MN residents. I rarely see this much love for the Gophers from our own damn residents.

We live in strange times my friends, very strange


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We just proved our place to all the non-believers. And seeing all those teams at the top? Boring. Nobody wants to see those same teams win year after year. For all the fans of those teams that play second fiddle to the few teams that control their conference on a yearly basis....they have a legitimate rooting interest in the Gophers now.
 


Panthadad2 said:
All I know is that it sure is fun that the Gophers are deep in the mix for the CFP. Watching the maroon and gold block M pop into the ESPN CFP pick was awesome. The rankings will take care of themselves by end of season.
c4060c619119a0b5584dcdc6cbb4185c.jpg
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So this^^^

I actually think we will be anywhere between 7 and 10, and that is just fine for now. We will move ahead of all the 2 loss teams and will probably jump Baylor. Nothing wrong with that.

What we have to do now is take care of our business. Beat Iowa and Northwestern the next two weeks and it is pretty certain that while doing so one or two in front of us lose. We could be 6 or 7 by then hosting Wisconsin. If we take care of business and finish 12-0, we will be in top 5 if not top 4 heading to Indy.

The only thing that matters right now is IOWA!!!!


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U2Gopher said:
So this^^^

I actually think we will be anywhere between 7 and 10, and that is just fine for now. We will move ahead of all the 2 loss teams and will probably jump Baylor. Nothing wrong with that.

What we have to do now is take care of our business. Beat Iowa and Northwestern the next two weeks and it is pretty certain that while doing so one or two in front of us lose. We could be 6 or 7 by then hosting Wisconsin. If we take care of business and finish 12-0, we will be in top 5 if not top 4 heading to Indy.

The only thing that matters right now is IOWA!!!!


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I have them between 9 and 12, beat Iowa and go up to the 7-8 range, win out and go 12-0 they should be 5. Two teams from the B1G are not getting in the playoff unless it is Ohio State and Mich or Penn St.
 

jovs said:
I have them between 9 and 12, beat Iowa and go up to the 7-8 range, win out and go 12-0 they should be 5. Two teams from the B1G are not getting in the playoff unless it is Ohio State and Mich or Penn St.
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Why? Seriously. Who came up with that rule?

Didn't Michigan whoop up on Notre Dame? And Wisconsin beat Michigan and Illinois beat Wisconsin and we crushed Illinois? And PSU also beat Michigan and we beat PSU? We beat GSU who beat App St who beat an almighty SEC team, S Car.

We are one of only 5 undefeated teams and have the 2nd best win of the year. If we beat UW and Ia, we'll have a decent road win and another Top 25 win. Then if we win the Conf title game vs an undefeated OSU, how do we not get in and how do you drop OSU out?


I mean, I think our resume is already better than Clemson's, but it would be nice if they lost to WF or even better if they lost to the South Carolina team that lost to the App St team that lost to the GSU team that we beat, lol.


Ok. Before the final Top 4 ranking comes out.


Baylor plays OU. Eliminating one of them from the discussion most likely. Although they could meet in a Title game rematch?

Oregon will have to play Utah in their Conf Title game probably. This eliminates the loser.

Auburn could take Georgia out of the discussion? They could also take Bama out of the discussion, too?



If UMn wins out, and OSU does as well, both could easily be ranked ahead of the Pac and Big 12 winners, so if Clemson also loses, there would be room in the cfp for 2 B1G teams. We'd have to do our part, and some SEC teams would have to do their parts as well. ALOT of non-SEC fans are getting sick of the assumption that there must be two SEC teams in the playoffs. So there is an outside chance the committee will only put one SEC team in, like I said, if they help out and lose of course. Wouldn't guarantee 2 B1G teams, but would open the possibility. And there is the very small chance that it's 2 B1G and 2 SEC teams, but it would have to be very clear cut that Clemson and the Pac and Big 12 winners were not worthy.
 

The CFP put us at 17 because they figured PSU would beat us and that Bama would beat LSU. Then they would have a reason to move Bama up and keep LSU above PSU as well, you know because the SEC is so much better and PSU didn't really beat all that strong of a team.
We blew all that thinking up with our impressive win and should be in the top 6, but I would bet we are around 8 to 10
 
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