BleedGopher
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per Shama:
Gophers fans desperate for optimism might look south to a place about 3 hours from Minneapolis. Down in Ames, Iowa this is a strange but glorious fall for the Iowa State Cyclones—the hapless football program that hasn’t won a league championship for over 100 years.
Led by second-year head coach Matt Campbell and a walk-on quarterback, ISU has defeated two top five teams in the last three weeks. The latest bizarre development was beating previously undefeated TCU in Ames on Saturday. Back on October 7, the Cyclones may have even done more impossible work by surprising Oklahoma in Norman—the Sooners being the one team to defeat mighty Ohio State earlier this season.
The Gophers don’t have possession right now of Floyd of Rosedale, the famous bronze hog awarded annually in the Minnesota-Iowa series, but if Iowa State can do big things in college football then indeed “pigs can fly.” Despite what previous dismal decades teach us, the Gophers program may yet get airborne.
Campbell is 38 and he came to Ames from Toledo where he won nine games during three of four-plus seasons. Among his Mid-American Conference rivals was Western Michigan, where the 36-year-old Fleck coached until last January when he took over the Minnesota program. If Campbell can flip the switch in Ames, then someone—maybe Fleck—can wake up the echoes of what once was a nationally revered football program at Minnesota.
Campbell stresses culture, attitude and effort, and he is operating at a place that hardly is rich in tradition and resources including players. Within the state of Iowa he must compete for talent against Iowa and Northern Iowa—and the Hawkeyes have long been the state’s favored football son.
The population of Iowa is about 2.5 million fewer than Minnesota. That should be an edge for the Gophers in sourcing talent and so, too, should Minnesota being the only Division I program in the state. The program has historically been more successful than Iowa State, with Minnesota’s resume including two Rose Bowls and a national championship in the 1960s.
http://shamasportsheadliners.com/
Go Gophers!!
Gophers fans desperate for optimism might look south to a place about 3 hours from Minneapolis. Down in Ames, Iowa this is a strange but glorious fall for the Iowa State Cyclones—the hapless football program that hasn’t won a league championship for over 100 years.
Led by second-year head coach Matt Campbell and a walk-on quarterback, ISU has defeated two top five teams in the last three weeks. The latest bizarre development was beating previously undefeated TCU in Ames on Saturday. Back on October 7, the Cyclones may have even done more impossible work by surprising Oklahoma in Norman—the Sooners being the one team to defeat mighty Ohio State earlier this season.
The Gophers don’t have possession right now of Floyd of Rosedale, the famous bronze hog awarded annually in the Minnesota-Iowa series, but if Iowa State can do big things in college football then indeed “pigs can fly.” Despite what previous dismal decades teach us, the Gophers program may yet get airborne.
Campbell is 38 and he came to Ames from Toledo where he won nine games during three of four-plus seasons. Among his Mid-American Conference rivals was Western Michigan, where the 36-year-old Fleck coached until last January when he took over the Minnesota program. If Campbell can flip the switch in Ames, then someone—maybe Fleck—can wake up the echoes of what once was a nationally revered football program at Minnesota.
Campbell stresses culture, attitude and effort, and he is operating at a place that hardly is rich in tradition and resources including players. Within the state of Iowa he must compete for talent against Iowa and Northern Iowa—and the Hawkeyes have long been the state’s favored football son.
The population of Iowa is about 2.5 million fewer than Minnesota. That should be an edge for the Gophers in sourcing talent and so, too, should Minnesota being the only Division I program in the state. The program has historically been more successful than Iowa State, with Minnesota’s resume including two Rose Bowls and a national championship in the 1960s.
http://shamasportsheadliners.com/
Go Gophers!!