Reusse: This is not the golden era of Golden Gophers football, despite P.J. Fleck's claim

Had there been divisions in Mason’s day his Big Ten record would be better and we would have had a chance at the West a few times.

Mason would have challenged twice in 10 years against the current West. 2003 and 2005. The Gophs were at least 2 games worse than the West's best in every other year.
 


I like Pat, he's arguing against a straw man. He's been complaining about it since the Wisconsin game, so PJ's quotes about his extension didn't start this. No one is saying this is the best Gopher football has ever been or that its a "golden era". The Gopher Football twitter sent out a tweet about # of 8 win season or consecutive 8 win seasons and he's raging against that. A PR tweet.
Corrext.
Headline should be
“Gophers not in golden era of gopher football despite no one claiming they were”
 

11 games is a great accomplishment without a doubt, but some additional context is needed. Didn't start 11 game seasons until 1970, and there were only 8 bowl games, most connected with conference champions.
 



11 games is a great accomplishment without a doubt, but some additional context is needed. Didn't start 11 game seasons until 1970, and there were only 8 bowl games, most connected with conference champions.
Pretty sure that’s part of his point.
This program is doing things it’s never done before. Because last time the program was this good it was a completely different era and you literally couldn’t do those things
 

I think a lot of people are being overly pedantic to try and pretend this is a controversy when in reality it isn't one.
 

I think a lot of people are being overly pedantic to try and pretend this is a controversy when in reality it isn't one.

Bleed knows that every Phat article turns into pages of bitching about something. These threads won't stop getting posted.
 

Pat is just grumpy about anything Gophers and seems to hate Fleck.

There has been some disappointment in his tenure for sure, but let's be honest here. He is the best coach we have had here. Or at least has had the most success. Of course the old guys might have been better, but that was a LONG time ago and noone here was probably even born.

Basically, people are expecting what would have amounted to Mason's or Kill's best years as an average year now. That is progress. 7-8 wins is basically expected every year. And I don't think that is unfair.
What would be nice is to take that final step at least once. People around here just flat out want a Rose Bowl. I feel like until that happens at least once, we will get these kind of sentiments towards the head coach.
 



Weren't the players from the 2019 team Kills players that he recruited.
 

Had Kill not had the health issues he was nowhere close to being fired. Mason had run his course here and it was time for him to go. And Claeys was never anything more than a stop gap measure who was never going to be a long term option here. So while fans might have been proclaiming the program needed to reach some higher standard, 3 of the 5 coaches before Fleck were not fired for performance reasons.

Wacker - Was fired because the team was a laughingstock. Great guy, wrong coach for the program.
Mason - Was fired because he started phoning it in after the OSU dream died.
Brewster - Was a bad hire and fired for performance
Kill - Likes to play the victim and pretend the U did him wrong but he left, wasn't fired.
Claeys - Was a one year fill in who would have needed some kind of miracle season not to be let go at the end of the year.

Fleck has elevated things to a point where the fanbase is pissy when we don't win the division. There were not division champion expectations under the previous coaches I listed.

And finally, the Gophers won the West in 2019, they just didn't win it outright. And that 11-2 season is far superior to anything that has happened with Gopher football in a long long long long time.

There were certainly high expectations under Mason. are you forgetting the deflation after the 2003 Michigan game?
 

You are truly a glass half empty kind of guy.

I will reiterate. It's the best age of Gopher football in my memory and I'm almost 50 (Mason and Kill were decent too, but I would put PJ's Gophers ahead of them). That's why we're calling it the golden age. You probably should just quit being a Gopher fan if you're expecting us to return to the 1940's.

You do realize in this day and age that the coach can't be saying "yeah we're just ok compared to what we used to be in the 1940's". That doesn't exactly sell tickets and bring in the recruits. You have to highlight the positive (which I think might be impossible for you to do).

I doubt anyone is wanting a return to the 40's.

what's wrong with some basic expectations?
Beat Iowa
Beat Wisconsin
Win the Jug
Finish in AP top 25 more than once in 6 years
Get to B10 title game
 

I doubt anyone is wanting a return to the 40's.

what's wrong with some basic expectations?
Beat Iowa
Beat Wisconsin
Win the Jug
Finish in AP top 25 more than once in 6 years
Get to B10 title game
Who is saying they don't want those things?
 



Weren't the players from the 2019 team Kills players that he recruited.
Can totally understand you being confused about this since this topic has only been covered about 1 million times in the forum. Assume you are just trying to throw a grenade and walk away to start that stupid topic again.

The sad part is you couldn't even phrase it right since the 2016 guys had nothing to do with Kill as he was gone at that point.

How's your kid doing these days...did he find a starting role somewhere for his immense talents?
 

Weren't the players from the 2019 team Kills players that he recruited.
Yep Kill definitely recruited Bateman and Morgan...

The next time you try to be clever...don't.
 

I’m 53, this has been my Golden Era of Gopher football! Mason had some flashes, otherwise we were the bottom feeder for decades. Interest in Gopher football is up and PJ has a trending in the right direction.
 

My biggest complaint is the bad losses and the inability to beat ranked teams under fleck. Besides that I think he’s been awesome
 




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