UPDATED (10/13) Gophers cancel home and home with North Carolina; add New Mexico St

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Maximus said:
The only time you should schedule a BCS opponent in the non-conference season is when the rest of the country is going to care about the game. Four winnable home games in the non conference to get to a bowl and then play your BCS opponent...that should be the goal with the program in its current state.

I would have rather seen the effort against USC last year in a season opening win against New Mexico State at home followed by a win against an Akron type before playing Miami of Ohio. Maybe Kill's team would've been 3-1 heading into the Big Ten rather than 1-3. You at least have 4-5 weeks of the team still having a goal of a bowl still alive. Not eliminated before you play the second half of the schedule.

If the Big Ten games played out the same, they would've been 4-4 after beating Iowa. We'd have viewed Kill's first season in a different light if that was the case.

While we locally have a different view of the Mason years, nationally the program was respected in part because of the running game, but also because of the bowl appearances. Today nationally, we can't get mentioned without Indiana being in the same sentence. Playing USC close or giving Cal a scare did nothing for this program (other than help Brew get fired so maybe not 'nothing').
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I don't know if the part in bold is a joke or not. Nevertheless, part of running a football program is building attendance and making money. During Mason's 10-3 season in 2003, our home non-conference schedule attracted these crowds:

Tulsa - 36,623
Troy State - 31,393
Louisiana-Lafayette - 34,929

Win or lose, the football team has to sell tickets. These teams don't do it. Whether Mason and the Gophers were respected nationally or not, one of the reasons Mason was fired was that they weren't respected locally. And a big reason for that was that Minnesotans believed Mason's record was built on an awful non-conference schedule.

Brewster wasn't fired for losing to USC or Cal. He didn't miss out on a bowl game because of those losses, either. They did draw crowds, though,
 

I would hate to see this become the norm again. North Carolina is hardly USC. Why so scared Kill?
 

I think the most incredible part of this thread is that not one post has "discussed" why. Maybe there is someone else, a BCS school, that is replacing UNC. Maybe a long-term 4 game deal. Maybe. Inhale.
 

tikited said:
I would hate to see this become the norm again. North Carolina is hardly USC. Why so scared Kill?
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Wont the Gophs be playing a pac12 team that year?? Im sure thats why.
 

highwayman said:
I think the most incredible part of this thread is that not one post has "discussed" why. Maybe there is someone else, a BCS school, that is replacing UNC. Maybe a long-term 4 game deal. Maybe. Inhale.
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I guess this is possible, it just doesn't seem likely. If you're going to scratch off a home-and-home with its first game being played in 15 months, it probably wouldn't just be so we could play another BCS opponent of equal caliber; I have to think there would have to be some significant difference between the team we're currently scheduled to play, North Carolina, and the team or teams that we would schedule in their place. I don't think we would call off this series just to schedule a home-and-home with someone like Pitt or Washington.

If this is actually happening, the most likely reasons to me would be either because A) a big name school like Oklahoma or Oregon called us up and said "Yeah, we know your non-conference schedule is full, but we want to do a home-and-home in 2013 and 2014," or B) because North Carolina is too hard an opponent, or because Kill doesn't like non-conference road games, and would rather have a couple of home games against Bowling Green and Eastern Michigan. I remember Kill didn't seem to be happy about having to begin his tenure here with a road game at USC. That could be because he doesn't want to play opponents that are supposed to be significantly better than we are, or because he doesn't like non-conference road games, or because he would have liked to play easier opponents coming off a 3-9 season and would like to work his way up to playing such strong teams out of conference once he feels the team is ready to take on such challenges.
 


Reading between the lines - I think Kill wants 4 home games - or at the very least, 4 "winnable" non-conf games.
I get the sense that, at this stage of the rebuilding process, he doesn't see any upside playing non-conf games where the Gophs are not favored to win - especially on the road.
 


Wow, call off the wolves. Our focus and concern should be competing in the B1G and not really setting up "marquee" non-conference games. If Kill wants to play four home games like many other schools, so be it. When we consistently beat Michigan, Iowa, Michigan State and whatchamacallit it to the east, then we will not really care who we play in the non-conference games and people will fight to get those "preseason" games because they won't be a le to go to any B1G games. Let's not get distracted about our goals as a program. If we do not compete in the B1G and play a few games against the North Carolina type teams what is the point? Any meager increase in attendance for those games will not be there to see the Gophers.
 

Have no clue about what is going on, or if what Sid stated is true. If it is true, I wonder if something else is going on. It seems the ACC is going through things right now, especially academically and if that has anything to do with it...
 



Big Play said:
Wont the Gophs be playing a pac12 team that year?? Im sure thats why.
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No that don't start until 2017 season.

The Big Ten Pac 12 football deal doesn't start until 2017.
 

I think one challenging non-conf. game helps get the team ready competition wise for the B1G, along with build enthusiam for the non-conf game itself, so from that standpoint it is beneficial to have at least one BCS team on the schedule.
 

calminnfan said:
I think one challenging non-conf. game helps get the team ready competition wise for the B1G, along with build enthusiam for the non-conf game itself, so from that standpoint it is beneficial to have at least one BCS team on the schedule.
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If we could only figure out which one was going to be crappy in 3-5 years...
 

Nooooooo...please tell me this is not true. I live in ATL and was planning on making the trip to Chapel Hill for this game. We Southern Alums don't get to see our Rodents play in person very often. Please do NOT cancel!!!
 



I'm pretty sure it's nothing more than a player safety issue. If you look at a map, Murfreesboro is basically situated at the same latitude as Chapel Hill. Factor in the fact that Chapel Hill is much closer to the ocean. How exactly are the Gophers supposed to cope with that kind of humidity?
 


Magic said:
Someone needs to tell Jerry Kill this is not Southern/Northern Illinois. The typical MN sports fan will not be interested in watching New Hampshire, Western Mich, etc. Let alone actually buying a ticket. Most my friends are huge MN sports fans. They've been to two Gopher football games (USC and Nebraska) since TCF opened. Playing the cupcakes has very little upside. WIN=Yawn your suppose to win LOSE= Tells all your remaining fans were still terrible. Listen I don't think all four non conference games should be against BCS teams, but one or two a year is not asking for too much. Most MN sports fans are pretty knowledgeable. 4-0 against the cupcakes and 2-6 in the Big Ten will not get most fans excited about the Motor City Bowl.
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I don't think it is as simple as W's & L's. It may be an that the team does not have lot of depth and needs to have healthy players ready for B1G play. But as Highwayman pointed out, we have no idea why they want to make this change.
 

MNGoldenGophers1 said:
I don't think it is as simple as W's & L's. It may be an that the team does not have lot of depth and needs to have healthy players ready for B1G play. But as Highwayman pointed out, we have no idea why they want to make this change.
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+19
 


Hates Monikers said:
During Mason's 10-3 season in 2003, our home non-conference schedule attracted these crowds:

Tulsa - 36,623
Troy State - 31,393
Louisiana-Lafayette - 34,929
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Why did so many people show up for the Michigan game? Undefeated and ranked 17th in the country. Lose to a USC or Cal in the preseason and they would've drawn 50,000 plus for the Michigan game instead of 62,000 plus.
 

Maximus said:
Why did so many people show up for the Michigan game? Undefeated and ranked 17th in the country. Lose to a USC or Cal in the preseason and they would've drawn 50,000 plus for the Michigan game instead of 62,000 plus.
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Well, that's true. One one 60,000-plus crowd in the past 25 years (not counting visiting fans) did follow four blowouts vs. patsies. But that's cherry-picking. Our three blowouts to start the 2005 season resulted in a crowd of 48,000 in our first Big Ten game vs. Purdue -- which happened to be Homecoming. In 2004 we trounced three cupcakes, then Northwestern, and attracted 50,000 fans against Penn State. In 2002, a 4-0 non-conference start, followed by a road lost to Purdue. That 4-1 team played at home against Illinois the next week in front of 32,000.

The point is that fans here have seen the run of blowout wins vs. cupcakes in the past, and have decided that it's meaningless. Sure, go 4-0 in the non-conference and follow that with 6-2 in the Big Ten, and people will start to notice. But attendance and interest will not increase by beating one extra cupcake to go 7-5 and head to another Insight Bowl. We need to find a way to get fans to the game and have fun. A lot of them will come back once in a while. A casual fan might buy a ticket to see North Carolina on a beautiful September day in 2014. But only season ticket holders will see Eastern Illinois in the opener that season.
 

Hates Monikers said:
Our three blowouts to start the 2005 season resulted in a crowd of 48,000 in our first Big Ten game vs. Purdue -- which happened to be Homecoming.
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Plus Purdue was ranked #11 at the time (undeserved, but too early in the season to know that for sure).

Hates Monikers said:
In 2004 we trounced three cupcakes, then Northwestern, and attracted 50,000 fans against Penn State.
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And were coming off the first 10 win season in program history with pretty high expectations (this is the year Mandel picked us to win the B1G).

Hates Monikers said:
The point is that fans here have seen the run of blowout wins vs. cupcakes in the past, and have decided that it's meaningless. Sure, go 4-0 in the non-conference and follow that with 6-2 in the Big Ten, and people will start to notice. But attendance and interest will not increase by beating one extra cupcake to go 7-5 and head to another Insight Bowl. We need to find a way to get fans to the game and have fun. A lot of them will come back once in a while. A casual fan might buy a ticket to see North Carolina on a beautiful September day in 2014. But only season ticket holders will see Eastern Illinois in the opener that season.
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Yup.
 

I'm hoping if this series gets dropped it's replaced with a similar level of opponent. I always thought having at least one opponent that Vegas would rate as less than a touchdown underdog is a good thing to get the team moving in the right direction. I'd hate to see us replace UNC with St. Mary's School for the Blind. Not only because I'm not thrilled about season ticket prices going up solely for a garbage game (I can't imagine an 8 game home schedule would be the same price as a 7 game schedule), but also because I think it doesn't help the team any.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
Not only because I'm not thrilled about season ticket prices going up solely for a garbage game (I can't imagine an 8 game home schedule would be the same price as a 7 game schedule)
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I've been pondering that. I'm not sure what they'd do. Season ticket demand is still so low that I don't think they can afford to PO anyone by increasing ticket costs for STH.
 

GoAUpher said:
I've been pondering that. I'm not sure what they'd do. Season ticket demand is still so low that I don't think they can afford to PO anyone by increasing ticket costs for STH.
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I'm confused on this one--so you would rather have one less home game to save $35?

Also, what is low? We had 90% renewals, and I'll bet $1 that the new marketing group gets us near sell-outs. They only need to sell around 28,000 tickets to sell out the entire season. That's 1-1/2 Wild or Timberwoof games. And the U tickets are cheaper. I'd see how this all pans out before I declare anything on ticket sales...
 

MNGoldenGophers1 said:
It would be a shame if he does anything the same way Brewster did. Hopefully, he trends away from everything and anything that reeks of Brewster! Our motto should be "In Kill We Trust."

Go Gophers!
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Completely disagree. But then again, I'm one of the apparently few that doesn't think Brewster had sex with my wife and kicked my dog.
 


Formo said:
Completely disagree. But then again, I'm one of the apparently few that doesn't think Brewster had sex with my wife and kicked my dog.
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Apparently you weren't watching the same Brewster coached team as everyone else which is too bad for your wife or she may have been getting some. I see you sit in the row... You should get your eyes checked!
 

Formo said:
Completely disagree. But then again, I'm one of the apparently few that doesn't think Brewster had sex with my wife and kicked my dog.
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+1 Some of the Brewster hate is ridiculous. His non-conference scheduling is one of the things I commend him for.
 

Here's the other thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned.
The "BCS" as we know it may likely be going away, and while the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac 12 will remain power conferences, there's some serious question about the future of the ACC, along with the Big East. UNC is an ACC school and for now a BCS school, but in a few years, as the landscape changes, they may not be particularly important at all.
 

discochris said:
Here's the other thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned.
The "BCS" as we know it may likely be going away, and while the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac 12 will remain power conferences, there's some serious question about the future of the ACC, along with the Big East. UNC is an ACC school and for now a BCS school, but in a few years, as the landscape changes, they may not be particularly important at all.
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Interesting thought.

If so, the U probably would not want to publicly say that.
 

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