***Official - Positivity Only - Bowl Game Thread***

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Gophers&src=hash">#Gophers</a> win over <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Syracuse&src=hash">#Syracuse</a> in <a href="https://twitter.com/TexasBowl">@TexasBowl</a> would give <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Minnesota&src=hash">#Minnesota</a> its second 9+ win season in the last 108 years.</p>— GopherHole.com (@GopherHole) <a href="https://twitter.com/GopherHole/statuses/409887675655917568">December 9, 2013</a></blockquote>
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Go Gophers!!
 

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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/PVhTDNlbsSc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

We'll be there! Group of 6.

Never been able to go to a bowl game before. Looking forward to it.

H-town is a decent place. Not a warm sandy beach...but it will be nice.

Maybe we can meet Jerry on the trip...that would be a treat.

gophermartin
 

Another good part will be getting to see Hageman 1 more time at full strength obliterate some OL again! :)

And I get to see the band live and in person!
 



I'll be there....its only 20 minutes from my house!

Htown is not like New Orleans or Las Vegas; the good time isn't going to come looking for you. However, if you make any sort of effort to have a good time, you easily will.

There is no shortage of superlative places to eat in this area. If you cannot find one, take your temperature to make sure it isn't at room temp. The Galleria is a nice enough place to shop, the Richmond strip for partying, and everywhere for dining.

If you make it a 2-3 day trip, consider taking in Kemah, NASA, or Galveston. Kemah has an amusement park on a boardwalk next to the bay with awesome seafood. NASA is NASA. Galveston has great seafood and a ton of history around the strand. The beaches aren't as stout as South or North Padre, but if you want an ocean view you're set. There is also the new Pleasure Pier, an amusement park built on a pier that was gutted by Ike.

The weather could be in the 70's or the 40's on gameday. That's Houston in the winter, so check the weather before you head out as to what to pack.

That's the Reader's Digest version for now!
 

I hope we have a good showing as far as fans at the game this year. If it had been in Jacksonville, I would have been there. Oh well - just going to have to watch on tv.
 

I'm generally not much of a conspiracy thinker, but me thinks there is more to this match up than meets the eye. With both teams quite distant and neither team noted for traveling particularly well, I think the eyes of TPTB in college football will be taking note of attendance numbers. Also, given the TV slot, I think they're going to be eyeing the New England/Boston-NYC-DC corridor television numbers closely. While we're not exactly Michigan, Minnesota has always drawn surprisingly (to me, anyway) strong TV numbers. I think it will be interesting to see if Syracuse can draw eyeballs. For both teams, this year's match up may prove significant for future selections, but particularly for Minnesota.

On a more general note, I'm happy we're not playing TT again. Repeating locations and/or matchups over and over is kind of a drag. Or, as Mase said after the third Music City Bowl, "You give me a guitar every year and I can't even play the thing. How many can one guy use?"

I was telling my wife a couple of days ago (before things shook out over the weekend) that I thought we might possibly draw an ACC team and I would just laugh my a-- off if Minnesota had to pay for a bunch of unused tickets to play North Carolina. That would be the kind of irony that's just too delicious to ignore.
 

TruDomGopher said:
I'm generally not much of a conspiracy thinker, but me thinks there is more to this match up than meets the eye. With both teams quite distant and neither team noted for traveling particularly well, I think the eyes of TPTB in college football will be taking note of attendance numbers. Also, given the TV slot, I think they're going to be eyeing the New England/Boston-NYC-DC corridor television numbers closely. While we're not exactly Michigan, Minnesota has always drawn surprisingly (to me, anyway) strong TV numbers. I think it will be interesting to see if Syracuse can draw eyeballs. For both teams, this year's match up may prove significant for future selections, but particularly for Minnesota.

On a more general note, I'm happy we're not playing TT again. Repeating locations and/or matchups over and over is kind of a drag. Or, as Mase said after the third Music City Bowl, "You give me a guitar every year and I can't even play the thing. How many can one guy use?"

I was telling my wife a couple of days ago (before things shook out over the weekend) that I thought we might possibly draw an ACC team and I would just laugh my a-- off if Minnesota had to pay for a bunch of unused tickets to play North Carolina. That would be the kind of irony that's just too delicious to ignore.
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Whatever you're drinking, put it away and go to bed...
 






Positives:

- Only game on ESPN on a Friday night (I feel like people on here are underestimating how big a deal that is)
- Wonderful stadium
- Should reach 9 wins and win a bowl game for the first time in a decade
- Warm weather city
- Chance to actually win this bowl game before we (hopefully) move up the bowl pecking order in the coming years
- BCS opponent (plus not from the American)

I understand we were hoping for a different and better bowl, but we need to stop acting like this is the Little Caesar's Bowl. This is the Texas Bowl, one of the best lower-tier bowl games and one of the most watched bowl games, period. If we win it, we did something that we did not do last year.

We all know that the bowl system is a business system. Football wise, we deserve better, but because this is a business system more than it is a football one, in reality we deserve the Texas Bowl because our fan base is simply not a good one right now.
 



Studwell55 said:
Anybody spent time in Corpus Christi or South Padre Island at the end of December?

Is it warm enough to vacation for a few days?

Average reported temperatures can be misleading.
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Your wife isn't going to be busting out her bikini on the beach, but it should be short sleeve weather, with perhaps a light windbreaker handy if needed.
 

Gopherocious said:
The Gopher team hotel is out by the Galleria. We stayed near there last year for the game and it is a pretty nice part of town...hoping we can get there this year as well!

http://www.thetexasbowl.com/game-hotels/
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This area of town is called Uptown or the Galleria, interchangeably. Keep that in mind when looking for accommodations and entertainment:

http://www.visithoustontexas.com/travel-tools/houston-neighborhoods/galleria-uptown/

http://www.uptown-houston.com/
 

Aggie Guy, Thank you again for the positive contributions to this board. We should find the excellent post you shared last year regarding what to do in Houston.
 

AEmerson40 said:
Positives:

- Only game on ESPN on a Friday night (I feel like people on here are underestimating how big a deal that is)
- Wonderful stadium
- Should reach 9 wins and win a bowl game for the first time in a decade
- Warm weather city
- Chance to actually win this bowl game before we (hopefully) move up the bowl pecking order in the coming years
- BCS opponent (plus not from the American)

I understand we were hoping for a different and better bowl, but we need to stop acting like this is the Little Caesar's Bowl. This is the Texas Bowl, one of the best lower-tier bowl games and one of the most watched bowl games, period. If we win it, we did something that we did not do last year.

We all know that the bowl system is a business system. Football wise, we deserve better, but because this is a business system more than it is a football one, in reality we deserve the Texas Bowl because our fan base is simply not a good one right now.
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disagree with this. team went 4-4 in conference and didn't deserved a bid to the Gator Bowl maybe the BWW Bowl but not the Gator. if the team would have won 1 of the last 2 games I could see the deserved better angle.
 

scools12 said:
disagree with this. team went 4-4 in conference and didn't deserved a bid to the Gator Bowl maybe the BWW Bowl but not the Gator. if the team would have won 1 of the last 2 games I could see the deserved better angle.
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BWW picked before Gator this year. A team with fewer conference wins and fewer wins overall (and with three of those wins being fourth quarter comebacks against teams with losing records) was picked two spots ahead of us.
 

scools12 said:
disagree with this. team went 4-4 in conference and didn't deserved a bid to the Gator Bowl maybe the BWW Bowl but not the Gator. if the team would have won 1 of the last 2 games I could see the deserved better angle.
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Are you saying we maybe deserved the 4th slot, but not the 5th?
 

For those of you looking at flights. If you want to save money, it looks like you can fly into Dallas and make the 3ish hour drive and save some loot. Depending on your dates, I found flights for less than $300 using Kayak
 

To say MN deserved better is a joke, IMO. Teams make their own beds and bowls are businesses. Send 10,000 fans to Texas and watch what happens next year when the bowls select people. Beat Michigan and this whole argument is gone, but they beat MN easily...
 

gopherbadgerman said:
Beat Michigan and this whole argument is gone
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Doubtful. We beat Nebraska and they were chosen two slots ahead of us. If we're talking about fairness and consistency, then either use head-to-head or overall records consistently, but don't use whichever you want to serve your purpose. If you're going to use head-to-head, then we deserved to be chosen ahead of Nebraska. If you're going to use overall records, then we deserved to be chosen ahead of Michigan. The fact is that the bowl selection process isn't fair and unless they make them go to a slotting system, we'll never get a "good" bowl unless we get 10, 11, 12 wins and force someone to take us because they have no other choice. If the bowl committee has a choice and it's between us and any Big Ten school not named Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, or Indiana we'll lose every time, no matter what the records are.
 

Does anyone know which sections in the stadium will accommodate the main Gopher section?
 


dpodoll68 said:
Doubtful. We beat Nebraska and they were chosen two slots ahead of us. If we're talking about fairness and consistency, then either use head-to-head or overall records consistently, but don't use whichever you want to serve your purpose. If you're going to use head-to-head, then we deserved to be chosen ahead of Nebraska. If you're going to use overall records, then we deserved to be chosen ahead of Michigan. The fact is that the bowl selection process isn't fair and unless they make them go to a slotting system, we'll never get a "good" bowl unless we get 10, 11, 12 wins and force someone to take us because they have no other choice. If the bowl committee has a choice and it's between us and any Big Ten school not named Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, or Indiana we'll lose every time, no matter what the records are.
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Maybe and maybe not. If MN had beaten Michigan it is not only a game better for MN, but a game worse for Mich. We can agree to disagree, but beating the team head to head, and finishing 2 games better than said team is a much stronger case for MN...
 

mnsports1 said:
Are you saying we maybe deserved the 4th slot, but not the 5th?
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Didn't realize the BWW picked before the Gator. Was basing it on my feeling the Gator is the better bowl and the lobbying effort that supposedly took place by the U's athletic department to get the Gator Bowl invite.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Doubtful. We beat Nebraska and they were chosen two slots ahead of us. If we're talking about fairness and consistency, then either use head-to-head or overall records consistently, but don't use whichever you want to serve your purpose. If you're going to use head-to-head, then we deserved to be chosen ahead of Nebraska. If you're going to use overall records, then we deserved to be chosen ahead of Michigan. The fact is that the bowl selection process isn't fair and unless they make them go to a slotting system, we'll never get a "good" bowl unless we get 10, 11, 12 wins and force someone to take us because they have no other choice. If the bowl committee has a choice and it's between us and any Big Ten school not named Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, or Indiana we'll lose every time, no matter what the records are.
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The football team cannot do anything more, but the fans could pack TCF for games other than Iowa or Wisconsin, who bring plenty of their own fans. If I was a bowl rep and saw that sea of red in TCF with the stadium not even full, or I saw the Gophers playing at home against Penn State with a 3 game win streak and empty seats in a 50,000 person stadium, I'd run like the dickens from this program, too. We can moan all we want about fans not traveling because we play in lower-tier bowl games, but the fact is we can't even sell out our own (relatively small!) stadium the majority of the time with a good football team!

The fact of the matter is this horrendous fan base dragged this program down to the Texas Bowl, and many of our responses are to point fingers at the bowls and also say, "Boring. Not going."
 

Johnob2 said:
Does anyone know which sections in the stadium will accommodate the main Gopher section?
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According the mygophersports.com

<img src= https://www.mygophersports.com/ArticleMedia/Images/branding_assets_MGS/Sports/FB/BowlCentral/FBBowlCentral2013TexasBowlPricingMap.jpg>
 

gopherbadgerman said:
Maybe and maybe not. If MN had beaten Michigan it is not only a game better for MN, but a game worse for Mich. We can agree to disagree, but beating the team head to head, and finishing 2 games better than said team is a much stronger case for MN...
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You shouldn't have to "make a case" for a team that is 2 games better than another to get chosen for a bowl game. And you shouldn't have to make a case for a team that is 1 game better. The bowl games should be determined by a team's play on the field and nothing else.

The fact of the matter is that the Minnesota Gophers accomplished more on the field throughout the season than Michigan by winning 1 more conference game. And Nebraska accomplished a lot more than Michigan on the field by winning 2 more conference games, yet Michigan jumped them both in bowl selection. Going by your flawed head to head logic though, I suppose you have been busy letting the Alamo Bowl officials know that they got it wrong by taking Oregon at 10-2 (7-2) over Arizona at 7-5 (4-5) since Arizona throttled Oregon 42-16 and "deserved" the spot more.
 

Gopherocious said:
According the mygophersports.com

<img src= https://www.mygophersports.com/ArticleMedia/Images/branding_assets_MGS/Sports/FB/BowlCentral/FBBowlCentral2013TexasBowlPricingMap.jpg>
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Thanks for this. Really helpful.
 

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