STrib: Gophers fans must cheer an enemy in team's quest for a better bowl game

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Per Randy:

The Bard of Avon, as the story goes, once wrote that politics makes strange bedfellows, or words to that effect. Putting it in college football terms, Billy Shakespeare basically was saying that sooner or later, you'll be rooting for a team you usually would despise.

For Gophers football fans who like to travel to bowl games, the strange bedfellow this week is Penn State. You'll want the Nittany Lions to beat Michigan State on Saturday.

Just why in the name of the Governor's Victory Bell would a Gophers fan want Penn State to win? That answer is simple.

Detroit. As in avoiding spending the day after Christmas there for the Quick Lane Bowl, the last game in the Big Ten's bowl pecking order.

Here's where Penn State comes in. The Nittany Lions are No. 11 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, one spot behind Tennessee, which finishes against Vanderbilt. With Saturday's Ohio State vs. Michigan winner a lock to be in the playoff and the loser in the Rose Bowl, if not the playoff, the Big Ten will have at least two teams in the New Year's Six bowls — the Fiesta and Peach being playoff semifinals, joined by the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton.

Minnesota's bowl destination likely will be one of these four: the Music City in Nashville, the Pinstripe in New York, Duke's Mayo in Charlotte and the Quick Lane in Detroit. The Gophers went to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix last year, so a repeat is unlikely. Here's a look at each:

  • Music City (Dec. 31, Nashville): New Year's Eve in NashVegas would be attractive for Gophers fans, and the team likely will need some help to get here. First, the Gophers must beat Wisconsin and then have the Big Ten land three teams in the College Football Playoff. Minnesota's competition for Nashville to face an SEC foe appears to be Illinois.
  • Pinstripe (Dec. 29, New York): This game, played in Yankee Stadium, has been host to seven different Big Ten teams since 2014, so one of these years might be the Gophers' turn. A win over Wisconsin would help. Illinois and Purdue also are in the mix to face an ACC opponent.
  • Duke's Mayo (Dec. 30, Charlotte): This bowl has a split arrangement with the Big Ten and SEC to face an ACC opponent, and it's the Big Ten's turn this year. Because of proximity, Maryland might be the Gophers' competition to land here. Wisconsin played in Charlotte in 2020, so the Badgers likely won't return.
  • Quick Lane (Dec. 26, Detroit): If the Gophers lose to Wisconsin, they might be in line for a third trip to Ford Field since 2015 to face a Mid-American Conference foe. If Minnesota wins, the Badgers might make their first appearance here.
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Go Gophers!!
 


I thought and thought and thought. Couldn’t figure out who the rival was. Opened the article and laughed. Penn St was not high on my list.

But..if you remove Iowa, wisconsin, Nebraska, Purdue, northwestern, Illinois…they are top 7
 




I see others had the same thought as me. Do any Gopher fans hate PSU?
 


Spoofin said:
I see others had the same thought as me. Do any Gopher fans hate PSU?
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As someone else mentioned there is some leftover resentment of PSU for the whole Sandusky thing but that really has nothing to do with the current program and people in it.

Overall I think most Gopher fans view Penn State as a friendly rival. Only schools I could see making any sense at all in this story would have been Wisconsin, Iowa, or maybe Michigan.

Can't really see any Gopher fan struggling to root for Penn State to beat Michigan State. Especially if it helps our bowl positioning if they win.
 

PSU is not the game that matters. They're going to win, at home, against a MSU team that lost to Indiana. You don't need to tune in.


There are many other games that can potentially affect how the bowl lineup shakes out.
 



Oh I see .... because of the Victory Bell??

Good grief. No real Gopher fan considers that to be a genuine trophy.

It was concocted and forced upon the U by the Big Ten.
 

Spoofin said:
I see others had the same thought as me. Do any Gopher fans hate PSU?
Click to expand...
Maybe a rival in the sense we've roughly split the last 10 meetings? Sandusky stuff was awful and the way some of their fans defended Paterno was disgusting. Other than that I don't know why we would hate PSU or view them as a rival.
 

Lots of media buzz about a Detroit bowl this season after last week. But it seems like a pretty unlikely destination for the Gophera, even if MN and Penn State were to both lose tomorrow, and Maryland wins.

It’s a good possibility for Wisconsin If they lose though. But the league will probably still put them in Phoenix and make Maryland (or maybe Michigan State) play in Detroit.

if everything goes wrong, there is some chance the Gophers could end up there. This is because (surprisingly, no one ever mentions this) the Big Ten is missing one of its tie-ins. The bowl in San Francisco folded, and the B1G never bothered to replace it.

They really need a new bowl game to replace it. Not even Michigan State wants to play in Detroit. The Motor City tie-in was intended for a 6-6 or even a 5-7 B1G team, not a team that could finish the season with 8 wins. Some teams finish the season ranked in the AP poll with 8 wins.
 
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Goldmember said:
Lots of media buzz about a Detroit bowl this season after last week. But it seems like a pretty unlikely destination for the Gophera, even if MN and Penn State were to both lose tomorrow, and Maryland wins.

It’s a good possibility for Wisconsin If they lose though. But the league will probably still put them in Phoenix and make Maryland (or maybe Michigan State) play in Detroit.

if everything goes wrong, there is some chance the Gophers could end up there. This is because (surprisingly, no one ever mentions this) the Big Ten is missing one of its tie-ins. The bowl in San Francisco folded, and the B1G never bothered to replace it.
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Where do you get this odd notion that the Big Ten forces bowls to accept certain teams?

The Big Ten does not care which of its lower rated teams go to bowls, other than just not the same bowl two years in a row (as you correctly noted/considered for the Gophers not going back to Phoenix). And that's only done to avoid fanbase apathy in traveling to the same bowl/city twice in two years.


It's the opposite.
Goldmember said:
They really need a new bowl game to replace it. Not even Michigan State wants to play in Detroit. The Motor City tie-in was intended for a 6-6 or even a 5-7 B1G team, not a team that could finish the season with 8 wins. Some teams finish the season ranked in the AP poll with 8 wins.
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The Quick Lane was intended to be a Big Ten vs ACC matchup, and was that from 2014-2019.

The ACC pulled out, and now we're right back to the Motor City/Little Ceasar's Big Ten vs MAC matchup that no one wants.
 



Looks like Charlotte is a good possibility with a matchup with the winner of the Duke/Wake Forest game today.
 

Gophers_4life said:
The Quick Lane was intended to be a Big Ten vs ACC matchup, and was that from 2014-2019.

The ACC pulled out, and now we're right back to the Motor City/Little Ceasar's Big Ten vs MAC matchup that no one wants.
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By design, it wasn’t ever going to be B1G v. ACC every year; it was too low in the order to have 2 G5 bowl-eligible teams More than half the time. That’s why they had the MAC backup contract.

The point is, Detroit was never supposed to have the level of team it may end-up with this year. And that’s because the 49ers and Fox abandoned the San Francisco Bowl, and the Big Ten failed to find a replacement. So whoever goes to that bowl is stuck going to a worse bowl than they are supposed to, rather than a bowl game played in prime time on Fox.
 

Goldmember said:
By design, it wasn’t ever going to be B1G v. ACC every year; it was too low in the order to have 2 G5 bowl-eligible teams More than half the time. That’s why they had the MAC backup contract.

The point is, Detroit was never supposed to have the level of team it may end-up with this year. And that’s because the 49ers and Fox abandoned the San Francisco Bowl, and the Big Ten failed to find a replacement. So whoever goes to that bowl is stuck going to a worse bowl than they are supposed to, rather than a bowl game played in prime time on Fox.
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Would rather play the MWC in Vegas or San Diego, etc., if we have to play a G5.
 

Word said:
Maybe a rival in the sense we've roughly split the last 10 meetings? Sandusky stuff was awful and the way some of their fans defended Paterno was disgusting. Other than that I don't know why we would hate PSU or view them as a rival.
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Agree. They are pretty far down the pecking order on rivalry with MN
 

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