Our 5 remaining games are all very winnable

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MNVCGUY

MNVCGUY

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There is no getting around the fact that the last 3 games have been rough. Injuries, poor play, and many other factors.....have wiped away the first 4 games and put everyone in a foul mood about the season. And that is totally understandable. After 4 weeks we looked like a team that could run away with the West, now we look like a team that is hanging on for dear life. The silver lining in all this is that our remaining 5 opponents all have some massive flaws as well.

Rutgers - Has looked very mediocre all year
@Nebraska - Very up and down team, very beatable team
Northwestern - Has just been flat out bad all year
Iowa - Defense is very good/great.....offense is a complete dumpster fire
@Wisconsin - Looked good today in beating Purdue but has been a mess for most of this season.

3-2 feels like a minimum record over this stretch with 4-1 or even 5-0 not out of the realm of possibility. Tough to feel confident about anything right now but in spite of the poor play recently, we have the talent to compete with all the teams left on the schedule.
 

MNVCGUY said:
There is no getting around the fact that the last 3 games have been rough. Injuries, poor play, and many other factors.....have wiped away the first 4 games and put everyone in a foul mood about the season. And that is totally understandable. After 4 weeks we looked like a team that could run away with the West, now we look like a team that is hanging on for dear life. The silver lining in all this is that our remaining 5 opponents all have some massive flaws as well.

Rutgers - Has looked very mediocre all year
@Nebraska - Very up and down team, very beatable team
Northwestern - Has just been flat out bad all year
Iowa - Defense is very good/great.....offense is a complete dumpster fire
@Wisconsin - Looked good today in beating Purdue but has been a mess for most of this season.

3-2 feels like a minimum record over this stretch with 4-1 or even 5-0 not out of the realm of possibility. Tough to feel confident about anything right now but in spite of the poor play recently, we have the talent to compete with all the teams left on the schedule.
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I'm thinking 3-2; Nebraska is improving and can make the big play in their passing game and have two good runners (notwithstanding that IL may stop them cold Saturday). At Lincoln they will be tough. The Badgers will be out to win one for the coaching staff and it's at Madison. Iowa has the kind of run defense that forces MN to pass, which hasn't worked out too well. Rutgers is scrappy, but unless morale has collapsed we should win that one and the Northwestern game, though the Cats will redeem their season by rising up against somebody. So put in one upset, and we are 3-2, with a 7-5 season, plus a bowl somewhere.
 



MNVCGUY said:
There is no getting around the fact that the last 3 games have been rough. Injuries, poor play, and many other factors.....have wiped away the first 4 games and put everyone in a foul mood about the season. And that is totally understandable. After 4 weeks we looked like a team that could run away with the West, now we look like a team that is hanging on for dear life. The silver lining in all this is that our remaining 5 opponents all have some massive flaws as well.

Rutgers - Has looked very mediocre all year
@Nebraska - Very up and down team, very beatable team
Northwestern - Has just been flat out bad all year
Iowa - Defense is very good/great.....offense is a complete dumpster fire
@Wisconsin - Looked good today in beating Purdue but has been a mess for most of this season.

3-2 feels like a minimum record over this stretch with 4-1 or even 5-0 not out of the realm of possibility. Tough to feel confident about anything right now but in spite of the poor play recently, we have the talent to compete with all the teams left on the schedule.
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If the Gophers play like they have the last 3 weeks and the receivers can't get open I do not have near the optimism that you do. You are right -- they are all winnable but if teams stack the box to stuff the run and the receivers look like the last few weeks this team is in big trouble. Let's look at the rest of the season THIS way:

Rutgers -- is playing hard, getting better under a good coach, and just beat Indiana. Watch out!
@Nebraska -- is playing better and harder under their interim coach - Frost influence gone.
Northwestern -- I will give you this one - if the Gophers lose this one the wheels have come off
Iowa -- Defense IS good -- and watch as they find out a way to score in the 20's here as they always seem to do against us.
Wisconsin -- also an improving team getting better since the new coach came in.

The key is to be playing better each week but I do not see this here. We are playing WORSE!!! Good coaches will make adjustments to right the ship. Let's see what Fleck does, here.....
 



kg21 said:
I thought for the first time in Fleck's tenure he sort of had that dazed and deer in headlights look. I don't feel good about any of these games.
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Me either, but they do have a chance to turn it around. The coaches and team needs to get as angry as us fans and do whatever it takes to right the ship. This isn't just a "one-game championship" anymore -- it's a 3 game swoon and a loss this week to Rutgers would be absolutely soul crushing. We have GOT to find a way to win or i think we are in big trouble. They have their backs to the wall and really need to come out fighting.
 

Gold Rush said:
The key is to be playing better each week but I do not see this here. We are playing WORSE!!! Good coaches will make adjustments to right the ship. Let's see what Fleck does, here.....
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This was our worst defensive game. We gave up a similar amount of yards to the Illinois game but at least our defense was able to limit them to field goals most of the time. Offensively, I thought the team was much better than they were in the Illinois game and maybe slightly better than in the Purdue game.
 

I’ve said this after Purdue’s game, Illinois’ game and I’ll said it again now after PSU’s game

ILL - L ✔️
PSU - L ✔️
Rutgers - a toss up
Neb - L
NW - a toss up
Iowa - L
Wis - L
 



There is the talent on this team. It looks like coaching from here. Fleck needs more out of his staff.
 

Yah-E said:
I’ve said this after Purdue’s game, Illinois’ game and I’ll said it again now after PSU’s game

ILL - L ✔️
PSU - L ✔️
Rutgers - a toss up
Neb - L
NW - a toss up
Iowa - L
Wis - L
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I'm feeling a lot less confident than I was after the MSU game, but Rutgers and NW are bad. My individual game predictions would be wins against those teams and losses against the other three. That said, I'd be much more surprised if we lost to NW or Rutgers than if we beat one of the other three. Accordingly, my prediction is 3-2, with wins against NW, Rutgers, and one if the others. You still hope we find a way to turn it around and beat the interim coaches who took over teams so bad that they fired their coaches midseason.
 

Rockraven said:
There is the talent on this team. It looks like coaching from here. Fleck needs more out of his staff.
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I’m not saying this to be facetious, but specifically who is the talent on this team?

Outside of Mo, we just don’t have the standout playmakers we’ve gotten used to seeing the past 4-5 years.
 




Gold Vision said:
I’m not saying this to be facetious, but specifically who is the talent on this team?

Outside of Mo, we just don’t have the standout playmakers we’ve gotten used to seeing the past 4-5 years.
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If the talent isn’t there it is the coach’s recruiting and player development. The performance of ant team is on the coaches. Team play beat individual talent 9 times out of 10.
 


Gold Vision said:
I’m not saying this to be facetious, but specifically who is the talent on this team?

Outside of Mo, we just don’t have the standout playmakers we’ve gotten used to seeing the past 4-5 years.
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Well, our QB, assuming he returns, is the same one we've had the last four seasons. I don't think he's gotten worse. I think his supporting cast has declined. I think Spann-Ford is one of the better tight ends in the league. Our defensive backs, while not at the top of the league, are at least in the top half of the league I think.
 

What games are some of you watching? Toss ups against Rutgers and Northwestern? Likely losses in the other three? Pull your heads out. We just lost to ranked teams in back to back weeks. With Mo....we probably beat Purdue.

Have you guys watched the teams remaining on our schedule? Get a grip.
 

iowa is the most difficult game.
Wisconsin a close second


The other three something will happen that hasn’t been the case since the Michigan state game….the gophers will be clearly better at the LOS
 

stocker08 said:
What games are some of you watching? Toss ups against Rutgers and Northwestern? Likely losses in the other three? Pull your heads out. We just lost to ranked teams in back to back weeks. With Mo....we probably beat Purdue.

Have you guys watched the teams remaining on our schedule? Get a grip.
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Gopherhole isn't much fun to be around after losses because some posters just assume we will never win again and all is lost. And then there are the "fans" who oddly only post when there is a reason to make fun of the team but have nothing to say when things are going well, almost like they are actually fans of other teams just here to troll. The handful talking about getting rid of Fleck are all part of that special group.

Getting back to the point of creating this thread. For as bad as these past few weeks have been and there is no sugar coating the fact that they have been bad, the rest of our schedule is not all that daunting.

We will have to play better, a lot better, but the 5 remaining teams are far more like MSU than they are like PSU or even ILL.

Looking at the current 3 game funk. The Purdue game is the really frustrating one because we were the better team but no Mo and self inflicted wounds were too much to overcome. Illinois beat us at our own game, did to us exactly what we try to do to other teams. And I do think some have lost sight of the fact that we just lost to a top 20 team on the road with our backup QB making his first start in front of 107,000 fans. This is not the game to throw in the towel and say it's over.

Rutgers game will be key, have to win that one and get some confidence back heading into the final 4 games. There are no great teams left on our schedule.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Rutgers game will be key, have to win that one and get some confidence back heading into the final 4 games. There are no great teams left on our schedule.
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As long as we don't have any momentum we'll be fine...:p
 

The only game that is a lock for us to win is against Northwestern. The way we have been playing the last 3 games, we could lose the other 4 easily.
 

They will lose one against Rutgers, Nebraska and NW. I think they squeak by Iowa. Wisc. is going to crush them.
 

Wisc beating Purdue is concerning. Iowa looked like crap against Ohio State, but that's probably true for most teams in the conference.

I don't we can realistically expect programs like Iowa and Wisc to just sit around all season saying "well crap, we're just going to suck for all 12 games, and not try to change anything or do anything different to get better".


I think our home games are winnable. I don't know about the road games. Neb is going to be easier than Wisc, but we'll see.


Really hope 2-3 is not how it ends up, would be really disappointing.


That said ... the first three games were meaningless and MSU ended up being a complete mirage.
 

Some guy said:
iowa is the most difficult game.
Wisconsin a close second


The other three something will happen that hasn’t been the case since the Michigan state game….the gophers will be clearly better at the LOS
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I would flip it to Wisconsin being the most difficult. Iowa game will almost certainly be ugly but as long as we take care of the football they are a team we should beat because their offense is a complete and total mess. I could see that one being a really low scoring game along the lines of the 9-6 game they lost to Illinois.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I would flip it to Wisconsin being the most difficult. Iowa game will almost certainly be ugly but as long as we take care of the football they are a team we should beat because their offense is a complete and total mess. I could see that one being a really low scoring game along the lines of the 9-6 game they lost to Illinois.
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Between iowas offense, iowas defense, wisconsin offense, wisconsin defense…I would rank them:
1) Iowa defense
2) wisconsin defense
3) wisconsin offense
4) Iowa offense

But I think the gap between 1 and 2 on that list is bigger than the gap between 3 and 4 so that’s why I say Iowa is tougher
 

MNVCGUY said:
I would flip it to Wisconsin being the most difficult. Iowa game will almost certainly be ugly but as long as we take care of the football they are a team we should beat because their offense is a complete and total mess. I could see that one being a really low scoring game along the lines of the 9-6 game they lost to Illinois.
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Our defense is a mess and Iowa will move the ball on us and have some big plays.

I have no confidence in that game at all. Plus, they are in our heads.
 

Let's not go crazy about Nebraska, Northwestern Iowa or Wisconsin forecasts. Rutgers is next up and a well-executed game will do wonders for the team, particularly if there is a changing of the guard at QB and the Illinois Rifleman shows his stuff in front of a home crowd and not 108,000 plus PSU fans going nuts during their annual Whiteout.
 

In the past when things were stagnating it was a change in a coordinator that seemed to turn things around. What will it take this year??? Not feeling good about any of the remaining games. Hopefully they surprise me.
 

46Gophers said:
In the past when things were stagnating it was a change in a coordinator that seemed to turn things around. What will it take this year??? Not feeling good about any of the remaining games. Hopefully they surprise me.
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You aren’t feeling good about northwestern?
You should watch northwestern and feel better
 

kg21 said:
Our defense is a mess and Iowa will move the ball on us and have some big plays.

I have no confidence in that game at all. Plus, they are in our heads.
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Do yourself a favor and go watch some Iowa games......our defense has been good/great in 5 games this year and struggled in 2. The offense that Iowa will put out there looks way more like the one we faced in the non conf and dominated than it does the ones we have struggled against the past two weeks.

Same can be said for Rutgers and Northwestern. 3 of the 5 teams left on our schedule are just flat out bad offensive football teams.

Nebraska's offense worries me a little with their big play ability but I am not willing to just give up on Rossi as a DC based on 2 subpar games. I think he will have a plan on how to stop them from bombing it downfield to Palmer.
 

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