The Athletic 130 college football rankings (#53. Minnesota)

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per The Athletic:

51-75
RANKTEAMRECORDPREV.
51Boston College3-050
52Boise State1-245
53Minnesota2-161
54Appalachian State2-156
55Louisiana2-157
56San Jose State2-158
57UAB2-164
58UTSA3-059
59Tulane1-246
60Wake Forest3-067
61Texas Tech3-065
62Western Michigan2-197
63Pitt2-131
64Colorado1-255
65Indiana1-235

theathletic.com

The Athletic 130 college football rankings: Another shake-up has Florida rising after a loss, fresh faces emerging

It's an exciting time for The Athletic 130, as the lack of parity in recent years has been pushed aside by early-season surprises.
theathletic.com theathletic.com

Go Gophers!!
 


CFN chimes in:

34 Minnesota Golden Gophers (2-1)​

Last Week’s Ranking: 45
Week 3: Minnesota 30, Colorado 0
Week 4 Opponent: Bowling Green

collegefootballnews.com

College Football Rankings: 1 To 130: Week 3

College Football News 2021 college football rankings after Week 2 for all 130 teams with results and who’s up next week. And now this gets really fun. Week 3 had all sorts of twists and turns…
collegefootballnews.com collegefootballnews.com

Go Gophers!!
 

Tough crowd. I haven’t read one thing anywhere saying anything about the Gopher win even those 10 things from last weekend articles that cover practically the whole Big Ten. Just a couple small items about Colorado collapse.

SP+ saw the Gophers as I expected, jumping from 49th to 30th

Sagarin also has Gophers up to 30. I guess the computers get the PAC 12 network.

I guess win and wait. As we learned in 2019 if the Gophers win enough people will pay attention.
 

Beating Bowling Green won't give us a lift in the ratings, but we may move up some, as other teams drop.
 


BleedGopher said:
CFN chimes in:

34 Minnesota Golden Gophers (2-1)​

Last Week’s Ranking: 45
Week 3: Minnesota 30, Colorado 0
Week 4 Opponent: Bowling Green

collegefootballnews.com

College Football Rankings: 1 To 130: Week 3

College Football News 2021 college football rankings after Week 2 for all 130 teams with results and who’s up next week. And now this gets really fun. Week 3 had all sorts of twists and turns…
collegefootballnews.com collegefootballnews.com

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

Some funny stuff there. Indiana takes 2nd loss by two TDs and moves UP 12 spots?
 






We are ahead of App St.
App St played Miami tough.
Miami did not play Michigan St tough enough.
 


34 seems about right for the Gophers at this stage (not going to be to hurt by that) even though I think they are a top 20 team and will demonstrate this in the weeks to come. However, I have seen multiple rankings that have 3 of the top 4 teams being from the SEC. Just losing to Alabama in a close contest at home doesn't make you a top 4 team. Using the same logic Colorado losing to Texas A & M by 3, where they should have won, should have made them a top 20 team easily.
 

After the Miami University game, the Gophers were ranked #103 in defense (ranked by yards per game, 418 ypg).

After the Colorado game, the Gophers rank 37th in yards per game, 299.7 ypg.

Didn't want to start a new thread on this, and this seemed like the right place to put it. Will be interesting to monitor as the year progresses.
 



At this stage of the game, I would rather be underrated than overrated. It's a lot easier to motivate and keep the team hungry when the team looks at a #53 ranking, which I think is a little ridiculous.

"You win the games and the polls and bowls take care of themselves....." Lou Holtz
 


Michigan getting props based on history and reputation. Neither them nor Rutgers had good years last year but they're both off to similar starts this year...3-0 with blowout wins (yes, Michigan has one more blowout win) and stout defense, yet Rutgers sits way back at #47.

Why do I let this stuff bother me? These predictions are silly.
 

Feels like we are underrated, but it is also early and there isn't a lot of data. At the end of the day, we haven't beaten any really good teams and haven't lost to any bad teams. We are 2-1, with a loss to a top 10 team, a win against an awful team, and a road win against a P5 team that is itself a little bit of an unknown commodity (1-2 but coming off a solid season). If you factor in the scores of those games instead of just wins/losses, you can say "but we really hammered Colorado on the road", but if you say that, you also need to consider "but we almost lost to Miami (OH) at home."

So we are in a spot where we are (and should be ) above every team we have beaten, and below the only team we lost to, but that is a really broad range of rankings. I'll start to get up in arms when we beat some ranked teams and still don't get any love.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Feels like we are underrated, but it is also early and there isn't a lot of data. At the end of the day, we haven't beaten any really good teams and haven't lost to any bad teams. We are 2-1, with a loss to a top 10 team, a win against an awful team, and a road win against a P5 team that is itself a little bit of an unknown commodity (1-2 but coming off a solid season). If you factor in the scores of those games instead of just wins/losses, you can say "but we really hammered Colorado on the road", but if you say that, you also need to consider "but we almost lost to Miami (OH) at home."

So we are in a spot where we are (and should be ) above every team we have beaten, and below the only team we lost to, but that is a really broad range of rankings. I'll start to get up in arms when we beat some ranked teams and still don't get any love.
Click to expand...

Just watch how they play the games at this point is the best way to see how good they are.

Our offensive line has gotten great PUSH no matter who it has been against. Our RB have been good. A few receivers look as if they have some talent. Morgan is what he is a good, not great QB.

You can also see the toughness in this squad. They may or may not be world beaters this year, but by watching this first little bit you can tell they will have a chance every single time they step on the field no matter who they are playing.
 

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