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Be honest with yourself, what did you really expect? I expected to beat Wisconsin and play competitively with Cal and Penn State. We are still not in the same class as those two teams. I expect to have a signature win still this season. I expect to beat our remaining home schedule. I expect to see this team come out and play hard against OSU and IOWA. Given that, I expect to be at least 7 and 5 at the end with a bowl game. Last winter and summer, all I read on this board was how difficult the schedule was going to be. That has been the case so far. The only should have game was Wisconsin.
I expect to be better next year and will pass judgment on this coach and his staff a year from this January.
I expect that the Halloween night game should be a game where we rally behind these kids and be the twelfth man.
I expect to be better next year because the excuses start to diminish rapidly starting next years opener.
 

I really don't know where this should have beaten Wisconsin thing comes from. I dislike them as much as the next guy but seriously it would have been a good win. But a coulda win is not the same thing as a shoulda win.

I like your optimism for next year, but I really think it won't be until 2011 when enough cogs are in place to have more shoulda's than coulda's. If fact while I'm not in the camp that thinks we're worse next year, I don't see much improvement either.
 

whether or not we are worse or better next year depends if Weber is still our QB
 

Schnoodler said:
I really don't know where this should have beaten Wisconsin thing comes from. I dislike them as much as the next guy but seriously it would have been a good win. But a coulda win is not the same thing as a shoulda win.
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Weren't we favored to beat Wisconsin?
 



I like the positivity. Sorely lacking here these days. I agree with Schoodler that 2011 is THE year when the worm should really start to turn. A win over either Iowa or OSU would do a lot to carry my confidence in Brewster into 2010. Unfortunately both of those games are on the road, so that makes it that much tougher. Beating MSU and Illinois at home are of supreme importance, as they are both games that we can win, and the hometown doubters need to see another win before they walk away entirely for this season.
 

Gophers09 said:
yes -2.5 - most likely only on the basis of playing at home. That's a pretty narrow line.
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The game was lost with bone-headed penalties. The fact is, Wisconsin needed a lot of help to get out with a W, and we gave them plenty of it. That was the only loss, so far, that was really upsetting to me.
 

Before the season began, I expected to be better than what we were last year on both
offense and defense. This was reasonable because the coaching staff has been intact for
three years (for the most part!) so you have some continuity, plus the addition of Carufel and Royston gave us two extra starters. We returned more starters than anyone else in the Big Ten, so the expectations should be that with the added experience we should be a little better,
even if it did not show up in the wins and losses due to a brutal schedule.

I did NOT expect Weber to be worse than last year. I did NOT expect stupid penalties to
continue to be just as bad as last year and I thought with the addition of Bennett and Whaley
we would have a better rushing attack. I did not expect to give up all the third and longs or
be completely dominated in time of possession. Is that unreasonable??

The only thing I can figure is someone really is messing up Weber right now. Instead of
building on what he did right last year and getting better, he is regressing. This offense
looks absolutely lost right now. I have been following Gopher football for almost 40 years
and I have never seen the offense as bad as it has been for three consecutive years as
I have these last three.

Although scheduling USC seemed like a great thing at the time for Tim Brewster, we simply
are not ready for this caliber of opponent yet. I think it is absolute folly to put a guaranteed
loss on the schedule when his job will most likely be on the line after year 4 or 5 and he is
going to have to show some positive results. If he gets fired, he will not see a head coaching job for quite some time, if at all. He will either be an assistant or recruiting coordinator if he gets any job offers at all.

So my long winded conclusion is to say my expectations are that we show some type of
improvement this year and a step back is a major red flag for Tim Brewster's future here. His
job isn't on the line yet, but Maturi will probably be forced to fire him after year 4 or 5 if he
doesn't start showing some improvement very soon. Keep in mind that Glen Mason finished
his third year here with an 8-4 record, 5-3 in the Big Ten and ranked #18 (AP) in the country.

With all that said, I hope Brewster is successful here and stays on for a long time. We really
need some continuity - that is how you build programs.
 

Goldmember said:
The game was lost with bone-headed penalties. The fact is, Wisconsin needed a lot of help to get out with a W, and we gave them plenty of it. That was the only loss, so far, that was really upsetting to me.
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Co-sign
 



This summer I did not expect Minnesota to be ranked dead last in total offense and total defense (league games).

4-3, 2-2 was not as unexpected....but the way UW, MSU and ILL look, the schedule overall isn't as difficult as once thought so it's disappointing. Oh well, will bide my time until 2011 when things should be rolling.
 

Maximus said:
4-3, 2-2 was not as unexpected....but the way UW, MSU and ILL look, the schedule overall isn't as difficult as once thought so it's disappointing. Oh well, will bide my time until 2011 when things should be rolling.
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Really? UW means Wisconsin, right? Because they're a MUCH better team than anyone expected coming in to the season. And while MSU has underperformed in W-L, they pretty much always do that. They've still shown they have a lot of talent and can play with most teams when they're clicking.
 

I expected this to be Weber's best year as the Gopher's QB. And I took Brewster at his word and expected that he would take advantage of Gray's athletic ability to get him involved and making plays for the offense. To date, neither expectation has happened.
 

Gold Rush said:
Before the season began, I expected to be better than what we were last year on both
offense and defense. This was reasonable because the coaching staff has been intact for
three years (for the most part!) so you have some continuity, plus the addition of Carufel and Royston gave us two extra starters. We returned more starters than anyone else in the Big Ten, so the expectations should be that with the added experience we should be a little better,
even if it did not show up in the wins and losses due to a brutal schedule.

Agree with the play better part and given the Gophers more difficult schedule, I don't think 4-3 is such a bad record. They beat who they should have and basically lost to who they should have, though Becky would have been an enjoyable upset. Over the course of the game, Becky did play better though while MN got a hot stretch. As for Penn State, would have been nice to see a better offense on the field and they need to do a little less bend but not break on defense. The continual long drives where PS converted on 3rd and long left the defense on the field way to long.

Concerning the coaching staff, the replacing of Coordinators with a new offense pretty well plowed through any sort of continuity they may have had. They started tinkering with it following the end of last season and prior to the bowl game. It went through a major overall and they do not have the quality OL or RB to fully impliment it at this time. Kinda depends on patience and perspective. Those two say it is a work in progress and will take a year or two.

I did NOT expect Weber to be worse than last year. I did NOT expect stupid penalties to
continue to be just as bad as last year and I thought with the addition of Bennett and Whaley
we would have a better rushing attack. I did not expect to give up all the third and longs or
be completely dominated in time of possession. Is that unreasonable??

The only thing I can figure is someone really is messing up Weber right now. Instead of
building on what he did right last year and getting better, he is regressing. This offense
looks absolutely lost right now. I have been following Gopher football for almost 40 years
and I have never seen the offense as bad as it has been for three consecutive years as
I have these last three.

Concerning Weber, in pre-season everyone in the nation was expecting much better from Weber and I agree, they have probably been tinkering with his delivery. If Weber was going to go pro, his previous throwing motion seemed like a poor teams David Carr. He dropped down to much. Given the pro experience of Fisch and Brew, they would have had a hard time resisting the urge to correct that. One of the main reasons Childress wanted nothing to do with Carr when he became available.

Agree on Bennett and Whaley, though the OL and the schemes in general seem like they simply need to get more experience with.

Penalties show a definite lack of discipline on the players and they just do not seem to get that that they are hurting the team more then helping it.
Although scheduling USC seemed like a great thing at the time for Tim Brewster, we simply
are not ready for this caliber of opponent yet. I think it is absolute folly to put a guaranteed
loss on the schedule when his job will most likely be on the line after year 4 or 5 and he is
going to have to show some positive results. If he gets fired, he will not see a head coaching job for quite some time, if at all. He will either be an assistant or recruiting coordinator if he gets any job offers at all.

So my long winded conclusion is to say my expectations are that we show some type of
improvement this year and a step back is a major red flag for Tim Brewster's future here. His
job isn't on the line yet, but Maturi will probably be forced to fire him after year 4 or 5 if he
doesn't start showing some improvement very soon. Keep in mind that Glen Mason finished
his third year here with an 8-4 record, 5-3 in the Big Ten and ranked #18 (AP) in the country.

With all that said, I hope Brewster is successful here and stays on for a long time. We really
need some continuity - that is how you build programs.
Click to expand...

Mixed feelings on USC...Brew wants to take on the big boys. All I can say right now is I am glad the game is next year.

Hard to appreciate Mason's record given the non conf. schedule. I think the more competitive non-conf. schedule will in the long run be better for the team, though I confess to being glad they play South Dakota this year.
 





One thing that is encouraging is that they have a solid shot at at least 7 wins with 3 very winnable game coming up. Who knows, it seems OS may be having a few problems this year as well.
 

I'm an old timer, not really, but relatively, and I must say the following two words are dangerous together:

Gophers and expect.

Better to go with Gophers and "hope".
 

Agree with schnoodler that 2011 is the year it should all come together - but next year the Gophers ought to beat somebody who is expected to beat them - like California / OSU / PSU or Iowa this year. So long as we don't have to start over with new coordinators AGAIN. Look what Butler has done with Spec Teams with some continuity and the influx of new talented kids.
 

I'm really worried about that continuity thing. I don't know what the thought is for Cosgrove, and I'm not enamored with Fisch. If he's as bright as they say he is, he'll figure it out. Hopefully if they do need to part ways they'll at least bring in a pro style guy and keep the scheme somewhat similar.
 

That's fine to be excited about 2011, but Coach Brew better do enough the rest of this year and then again in 2010 to make sure he's around for 2011.
 

Maroon said:
That's fine to be excited about 2011, but Coach Brew better do enough the rest of this year and then again in 2010 to make sure he's around for 2011.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And hopefully the fans and media understand the process, and don't get all riled up and create unnecessary expectations before then...which is, unfortunately, already happening.
 

RE: Perspective

Good points all the way around. I agree with calminnfan that the revolving door with
the coordinators was a setback that takes a while to adjust to as well.
 

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