Um ... that's exactly how football works. Every close loss players and coaches look back at one or two plays and go, "If only." Otherwise, I agree with everything else you had. I do think something clicked for P.J. this season.
Every betting website had them at or around 5 wins.
So at 6 wins how are they underperforming? Because you think so? Not that talented of a team.
Did they underperform vs Rutgers? Start there.
Something has for about 60 years.
That thought process is what the “going 1-0” narrative tries to combat. Previous results are things to learn from and I don’t know if the same lessons would have been learned if they had “gotten away” with certain wins. Butterfly effect and all that.
Yup, but teams also go out of their way to peak with good classes. It’s the reason that Wisconsin is so bad this year. They are finding their guys for 3 years from now.
If you had asked a well informed CFB fan after the 2003 Sun Bowl who between Minnesota and Oregon was more like to win a championship in the next decade, people would have said Minnesota.
Yes. Pretty much ends there too. We were underdogs in every other loss. We were dogs vs USC and got a win.
So the betting line is your only criteria. Got it.
Coming into this season, I 100% would have agreed with you. However, what Indiana did this year so far is nothing short of remarkable. Now, this is not because Indiana is reinventing football so they can compete with inferior talent. What Indiana has done is get a lucky schedule and win the 50/50 games. There is absolutely no reason that Minnesota cannot accomplish the same thing. Don’t tell me Indiana Football has better recruiting grounds, better legacy, or better administration support.
They did recruit some good o-lineman last year. Roy was very highly rated and Carroll wasn’t too far behind as both were 4 stars on 247. Plus you have a few guys in the program for a while who have appeared a bit like Beers and Nelson. I think there is some talent there, plus you have the portal.
Brosmer is here because of the free transfer rule, not NIL. (Sure you can retort that he got NIL money, but it was transferring without having to sit that led him to move to the P4 for his last year.)
Generally speaking I would agree with you. I do think PJ has turned a corner the second half of the year. To me, it is clear that he trusts Brosmer and the play calling has opened up.
I think there was some sort of learning curve for Brosmer, but clearly the offense was the same conservative approach until some point in the Mich game.
They looked weak last year. They look weak this year. If Locke is their qb they’ll look weak next year. They dump 10 seniors on offense and 14 on defense with 10 in the back 7.
Possibly. Did they overperform against Illinois?
What is your criteria?
Possibly.
Not a betting line.
Strongly disagree. I was just thinking while walking the pup before the Penn State game that there was a stretch of maybe five years (well into the Jerry Kill era) where the Gophers never scored a td on their first possession of the game. When you have a new DC and a new quarterback, it's going to take a little while to get both sides of the ball playing well. This team improved throughout the year, the coaching staff improved, and the program has a healthy and positive culture.
He sounds like an @ss. So glad my college football experience isn't based on enjoying the season if the team is in the top ten. Minnesota will never be like Michigan and OSU again. But they can have good to really good teams and we can enjoy watching/communing with our fellow fans. Maybe I'm the exception though as I would rather not have a college football playoff and just regular bowl games like before.
Umm they have John Mellencamp.
Ok. Well what makes you say the team is underperforming this year?
think it's kind of an interesting thought experiment given you brought up the preseason. How would you expect the gophers to perform had you known you'd be playing these teams (Gopher result removed):