This is a better team - but still flawed. What do people want?

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akgo4

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I'm sorry, but I read some of the posted comments and I just don't get the complaints. The defense is better than last year - period. Even in switching MG out to WR, the speed of that team is at WR ONLY. There's not a RB on this team that can get outside by himself. Nelson can on occasion through deception. There are times where some people posting here sound like they drank too much of the tainted Brewster Kool Aid. If I remember correctly, it took Mason 3 years. This is year 2 and we might be able to get to a Minor Bowl this year. Time for some people to accept that this will be a flawed team until they can get somebody in the running game that can seriously challenge somebody. It isn't there - YET. Give it a little time. I'm sure some of those looking for more are Cubs fans too.....
 

I just want to hear how young we are again.

We are better than last year. Can't argue there. We are much better on defense, although still have half the mountain to climb. Offense is still way further behind (bottom third of the nation). We better keep playing freshmen on offense, because we need them to get experience and somehow turn into Big Ten caliber players. As frustrating as the loss was, we at least competed for most of the game. We still have a long way to go before we will by an average Big Tem team...
 

Sparlimb said:
I just want to hear how young we are again.

We are better than last year. Can't argue there. We are much better on defense, although still have half the mountain to climb. Offense is still way further behind (bottom third of the nation). We better keep playing freshmen on offense, because we need them to get experience and somehow turn into Big Ten caliber players. As frustrating as the loss was, we at least competed for most of the game. We still have a long way to go before we will by an average Big Tem team...
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Of course we do. What did any reasonable person expect?
 

Minnesota is developing. Not just young, but developing. They have made some strides, especially on defense, but they have a ways to go and teams like Michigan show where they are truly at. Take the bloody nose and learn from it.
 

There is no arguing that we are better than last year, but when your head coach takes 6 points off the board, you not only lose the points, but the momentum to go along with it. If that 4th and 17 would have worked, I would have been happy but still would have thought Jerry was crazy.
 


I feel good about the fact that we will be returning everyone on offense next year because we need the experience and growth on that side of the ball more than defense. At NIU Kill/Limegrover ran at about a 2:1 ratio to every pass. If we aren't getting a good push up front or have the next Ray Rice in our backfield we are going to have problems getting the offense going with this forumla. Thankfully I think the offense will make big strides next year and will be able to establish a running game. Its going to be tough to dominate B1G teams with a ton of underclassmen walkons as your front five.

We are getting better though, win next week at Illinois and we would be guaranteed a bowl game and would have gotten to where I expected record wise before the season started.
 



Exactly. We have beaten Michigan like 3 times in the past 40 years, right? Why expect a win now, with a true frosh WR, QB, and RB mixing it up? Not to mention a patchwork Oline? Did we forget we are on our 3rd QB?

Look, this sucked. I hated that I got to hear Meatchicken fans yelling from the end of the 2nd quarter all game "GO BLUEEEEEEEE!!" My blood curdles when I hear that. And not because I hate Meatchicken, but because it's so Goddamned annoying. Lets face it, we are a below average B1G team on the upswing. A few fluky plays helped beat us, on top of some poor red zone playcalls/execution and poor DB play.

Pick our heads up, folks. We aren't Time Brewster bad anymore.
 




Sparlimb said:
I expected 4-8. So I've already been pleasantly surprised.
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And we have another poster demonstrating why the Gophers have not won a Big 10 Championship since 1967. The more fans and alumni allow the coaches to underachieve the more they will live up to those expectations. It has been happening here for over 40 years.
 

They are about where I thought they'd be in the W/L sense, but I've been disappointed with the lack of consistency. Yes, we are young (and better than last year), but we still have trouble executing on both offense and defense at key times. As per today, I'll give Michigan some credit. They've got more talent at the skilled positions than we do and that showed up.
 




Kill has been forced to burn 27 red-shirts in 1.5 years, which is ludicrous. His QB, RB's WR, TE are true Freshman. His best 2-3 OL are hurt. I can't fathom how any rationale person can't see that immense progress is being made.

That being said, I was very bothered today. I thought it was a game that was there for the taking. I refrain from getting bogged down by the ticky tack fake FG, etc., although I hear the argument. I'm more frustrated with an overall lack of execution. I really felt that we could have won that game.

I won't see the trees for the forest, however, we are on the move. These FR will soon be SO and JR's etc.
 

afurry91 said:
There is no arguing that we are better than last year, but when your head coach takes 6 points off the board, you not only lose the points, but the momentum to go along with it. If that 4th and 17 would have worked, I would have been happy but still would have thought Jerry was crazy.
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???
 

My preseason prediction was 5 wins with the thought that that would be progress. OOC 3 wins +/- 1, conf 2 wins +/- 1. If they beat IL and have a shot at 7 I'd say that's pretty damn good.
 


westcoastgopher11 said:
I feel good about the fact that we will be returning everyone on offense next year because we need the experience and growth on that side of the ball more than defense. At NIU Kill/Limegrover ran at about a 2:1 ratio to every pass. If we aren't getting a good push up front or have the next Ray Rice in our backfield we are going to have problems getting the offense going with this forumla. Thankfully I think the offense will make big strides next year and will be able to establish a running game. Its going to be tough to dominate B1G teams with a ton of underclassmen walkons as your front five.

We are getting better though, win next week at Illinois and we would be guaranteed a bowl game and would have gotten to where I expected record wise before the season started.
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+1 In addition we should be returning most of the experts here at the GopherHole. That alone should be worth at least a couple of more victories.
 


4th and 17 in the 3rd quarter.

4th and 1 in the first quarter.
 


My expectations were five wins. We've matched that. If this was year four or five in JK's tenure, I'd expect more. It's not, so my expectations are lower. He needs players that will play well in his system. I think it's fair to say that we have some young talent on the team that will help them in the years ahead. If we support the coach and his decisions, I think we will be rewarded for it in a few years. Kill isn't lying. The team is young and there are going to be growing pains. Lets relax, give him time, and enjoy it when he starts winning. He has proven himself at other stops and I really think he will do it here as well. So far, he is on track with his previous stops. The four wins to start the season got people excited and raised expectations to levels that weren't very realistic. I'm excited about where the program is going and thank God that I was blessed with patience.
 

balds said:
Kill has been forced to burn 27 red-shirts in 1.5 years, which is ludicrous. His QB, RB's WR, TE are true Freshman. His best 2-3 OL are hurt. I can't fathom how any rationale person can't see that immense progress is being made.

That being said, I was very bothered today. I thought it was a game that was there for the taking. I refrain from getting bogged down by the ticky tack fake FG, etc., although I hear the argument. I'm more frustrated with an overall lack of execution. I really felt that we could have won that game.

I won't see the trees for the forest, however, we are on the move. These FR will soon be SO and JR's etc.
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We are really young
 

I thought 5 wins would be progress, six would be great, more than 6 would be amazing.

Next week is the first time since the non conference games where I have real expectations. It did not bother me when the Gophers sucked against Iowa and Wisconsin. I was OK with the underwhelming performance against NW. Today against Michgan, I saw a much better Gophers team than last year who just made too many mistakes against a superior team.

The Purdue win was awesome, but if the Gophers had lost a close one, it would not have bothered me too much.

But next week is a game the Gophers have a great chance to win, and a good chance to dominate. If they come out flat or self destruct, it will really shake my confidence for the first time this year.
 

I expected improvement on our conference record. I expect that upon getting 1st and goal from the 3 and 1st and goal from the 2 that we find a way to put one of them in the endzone. I expect us to commit less false starts than the road team. I expect full effort from whatever 11 players we have on the field. I expect our receivers to attack the football instead of waiting on it letting the defense make a play (Gray and Maye). I expect Gray to play til the end of the damn play and try to catch the ball instead of giving up and crying for a flag halfway through it. I expect Stoudermire to break up a 48 yard pass when the ball goes right through his hands. I expect when we have a team backed up to 3rd and 17, we don't give up a big touchdown and have Stoudermire stop hustling halfway through the play when the quarterback starts scrambling around.
 

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he is never disappointed.
 

Killjoy said:
+1 In addition we should be returning most of the experts here at the GopherHole. That alone should be worth at least a couple of more victories.
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Well stated, Killjoy. The armchair experts are certainly out in full force today.
 

Killjoy said:
+1 In addition we should be returning most of the experts here at the GopherHole. That alone should be worth at least a couple of more victories.
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ha! well said. some of the absolutely clueless butt nuggets that post here, and only seem to post here following a loss (hmmm coincidence????) can make this board so unreadable at times.

that said, agree today's loss was a bummer. was feeling like it just might go our way as we were getting really close to half-time. sure there was some mis-execution on certain plays, but the bounces just didn't seem to want to go our way in the second half. and i don't believe it is unfair or homerish at all to correctly state that some of the terrible calls made by the officials really did have an impact on the momentum of the game from the gophers point of view.

let's go get illinois next week. go gophers!
 

How many more days / hours of practice is awarded to a bowl eligible team?

afurry91 said:
There is no arguing that we are better than last year, but when your head coach takes 6 points off the board, you not only lose the points, but the momentum to go along with it. If that 4th and 17 would have worked, I would have been happy but still would have thought Jerry was crazy.
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If we squeeze out a 6th victory, this makes us bowl eligible as I understand it. My question is, "How many more practices (days of practice / hours of practice) does the NCAA (or Big Ten) award to a team that is invited to a bowl game? This metric must be a huge deal, otherwise Jerry would not have traded $800,000 to maximize probability for bowl eligibility in 2013.
 

Go4Broke said:
And we have another poster demonstrating why the Gophers have not won a Big 10 Championship since 1967. The more fans and alumni allow the coaches to underachieve the more they will live up to those expectations. It has been happening here for over 40 years.
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Its all about having dominating players. Despite some of the times when Kill has rolled the dice and lost, this team is improved and I believe he has gotten more out of less overall. Keep recruiting, keep building - its going to be a year by year thing. Some are really tired of the excuse but we really do have a very young team. Despite the final score, I think we played Michigan tough, if only through the first 3 quarters. I am proud of the Gophers and am optimistic that we will still win at least one more Big 10 game this year. I said 6 - 6 at the beginning of the season and I stand by it.
 

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