Shama: Bret Bielema has a history with University of Minnesota football and it’s an unhappy one for Golden Gophers fans.

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Shama:

Bret Bielema has a history with University of Minnesota football and it’s an unhappy one for Golden Gophers fans. Let’s put it this way: Bielema doesn’t receive many greeting cards with Minnesota postmarks on the envelopes.

As a head coach Bielema is 8-0 against the Gophers and he hopes to make it 9-0 Saturday in Champaign where his Big Ten West Division leading Fighting Illini are a 3.5 point underdog. While leading Wisconsin from 2006-2012, the Badgers were 7-0 against Minnesota. Then last season, Bielema’s first as Illinois head coach, he surprised a heavily favored Gopher team with a 14-6 upset in Minneapolis.

Gopher fans who harbor hard feelings can tell you the circumstances and score of the 2010 game in Madison. Deep in the fourth quarter the Badgers scored a touchdown to go ahead 41-16. With a 25-point lead, Bielema opted for an unsuccessful two-point conversion try that raised the eyebrows of the college football world. Gophers head coach Tim Brewster was angered by the strategy not to kick the extra point, and Minnesota fans found another reason to resent the Badgers, piling on the hurt of losing every year to their border rival to the east.

Bielema left the Badgers after the 2012 season to take the head coaching job at Arkansas. For whatever reasons, things didn’t work out in Fayetteville and Bielema was fired with a 29-34 record in five seasons. After a stint in the NFL, Illinois jumped on the opportunity to hire him after firing Lovie Smith who recruited successfully but didn’t see his teams live up to expectations.

Last year the Illini finished 5-7 but now are 5-1 and ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press poll of top 25 teams. The success doesn’t surprise Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck.

“Obviously, he’s one of the best college coaches—maybe of all time. You can start to see that blueprint starting to take shape over there at Illinois. I’ve got a lot of respect for what they do and who they are, especially him as a person and as a coach.”


Go Gophers!!
 



None of Bielema's time at wisconsin has jack squat to do with any future games against Illinois.

He doesn't have Minnesota's number or anything like that. He mostly beat up on some bad Tim Brewster squads he was supposed to beat. He has none of the same players, none of the same coaches, and nor does Minnesota.

I do think he's going to copy what worked last year and also what Purdue did which is to sell out to stop the run, so I hope the O is ready for that.
 






We may be 0-8 against Bret Beilema coached teams but we're a combined 102-93-11 (Wisc, Ill and Ark) against teams Bret Beilema has coached for! So there.
 



IceBoxGopher said:
We may be 0-8 against Bret Beilema coached teams but we're a combined 102-93-11 (Wisc, Ill and Ark) against teams Bret Beilema has coached for! So there.
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His 7-0 record against Minnesota while at Wisconsin was not exactly built by facing a lot of quality Gopher teams. He got the very tail end of Mason, all of Brewster, and the first few years of Kill. Those weren't really high water mark years for the Gopher football program.
 

Hoping we can pay back the favor (caution - subject matter may be painful :) )

 

Can we also have Fleck say that we consider Illinois to be instate recruiting.
 

MNVCGUY said:
His 7-0 record against Minnesota while at Wisconsin was not exactly built by facing a lot of quality Gopher teams. He got the very tail end of Mason, all of Brewster, and the first few years of Kill. Those weren't really high water mark years for the Gopher football program.
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Oh yeah. B.B. was the Head Coach at Wisconsin from '06 through '12. The Gopher Big Ten Conference records for those years?

3-5
0-8
3-5
3-5
2-6
2-6
2-6

A lot of teams beat the Gophers during that stretch.
 



My problem with that game wasnt that Bielema went for two, it's that we had let our rivals get up to 41-16 lead at that point. Was way more frustrated with Brewster than Bielema.

Whenever I hear a perceived slight about how the other team acts with a big lead (going for 2, keeping starters in, calling timeouts, continuing to throw the ball, etc.), my thought is always "if we don't let then get a big lead, we don't have to worry about it, and if we are the ones with a big lead, then we can model whatever behavior we want for teams that are up big."
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
My problem with that game wasnt that Bielema went for two, it's that we had let our rivals get up to 41-16 lead at that point. Was way more frustrated with Brewster than Bielema.

Whenever I hear a perceived slight about how the other team acts with a big lead (going for 2, keeping starters in, calling timeouts, continuing to throw the ball, etc.), my thought is always "if we don't let then get a big lead, we don't have to worry about it, and if we are the ones with a big lead, then we can model whatever behavior we want for teams that are up big."
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My only real issue with Bielema going for 2 in that game and in that situation was the way he tried to justify it afterward. He tried to act like it was some sound decision based on some stupid chart or whatever.

Would have respected him way more if he just said we were trying to hang 50 on the Gophers and felt going for 2 there gave us the best shot of getting there.
 

MNVCGUY said:
My only real issue with Bielema going for 2 in that game and in that situation was the way he tried to justify it afterward. He tried to act like it was some sound decision based on some stupid chart or whatever.

Would have respected him way more if he just said we were trying to hang 50 on the Gophers and felt going for 2 there gave us the best shot of getting there.
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Wasn't it Woody Hayes who did something similar against Michigan, and then when asked why he went for two responded with "because I couldn't go for three"?
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Wasn't it Woody Hayes who did something similar against Michigan, and then when asked why he went for two responded with "because I couldn't go for three"?
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Was that before or after he punched the Clemson player in the throat?
 

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