Don't even get me started on this one. I've written letters to Brewster, the Cheer Squad coaches and others. While I agree this is one of the cheers that is very successful, and actually kinda cool, and original??? The timing of it couldn't be worse. Instead of Goldy doing this thing during the timeout right after we make the extra point, when there is nothing else going on. Goldy, the cheer squad or somebody has decided to do this cheer after we have kicked off, during the first plays of our opponents drive. When our crowd, namely the students, should be at our most frenzied and loud, (see Penn State, Ohio State, or any big time program's home games) instead our student section is distracted by counting as goldy is doing pushups. So instead of the gophers being able to keep the momentum with a crazy, frenzied, "going bananas" crowd on the other teams first play after we have just scored, we allow our fans to be distracted by goldy, and therefore seem to give up big plays.
In my past letters and emails to Brewster and Co., I included the research that I did on the subject. I dont have it front of me, but in homegames against quality big ten opponents, I believe my study included 3 years from '04, '05 and '06. On average, the gophers D gave up 7 to 8 yards per play on first down after scoring a TD. I realize our defenses weren't our strong point, but these plays just always stuck out in my mind, as being especially damaging. Instead of keeping momentum, we gave it right back.
Ok, thats enough for now. I'll find my past research and maybe update it, and repost this closer to the season.
