Washington Post: There are two parts to climbing out of the hole Jerry Kill inherited

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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"80. MINNESOTA

There are two parts to climbing out of the hole Jerry Kill inherited at Minnesota.

One is actually making the Golden Gophers a somewhat respectable outfit again --- the sort that won't lose to New Mexico State and North Dakota State in consecutive weeks like it did last year. And there was a hint of a decent team the second half of last season: Minnesota beat Iowa and Illinois (the latter quite convincingly) and outgained Michigan State and Northwestern in road losses.

The second part is trickier: How does Minnesota move ahead of any of Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska and Northwestern for an extended period to gain traction in the Legends Division?

That probably isn't going to happen this season, though all things considered the Gophers have a tolerable set of crossover opponents (Illinois, Purdue and Wisconsin) and the September nonconference schedule isn't a brute.

The Gophers would be wise to get while the getting is good, and that might be difficult with a team that's still reasonably young. A solid start puts Minnesota in position to appear in a low-tier bowl. September struggles, though, could lead to something similar to last year's 3-9 even though things do appear to be headed in the right direction."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/d1scourse/2012/jul/18/college-football-lookahead-nos-76-80/

Go Gophers!!
 

When Minnesota ran up that nice record against Michigan State through 2010, were there any pundits asking how would MSU ever move ahead of the Gophers?
 

Since the Mason era, we've given pundits every reason to doubt whether we will climb out of the cellar. I agree that the non-conference schedule is critical for the season. It should be 4-0, or 3-1 if we have moved forward. If we're 2-2, it could be another 3-9 season and cause for concern long term. I'm afraid that another year like that will also have residuals especially with recruiting.

I think we got the right guy in charge and I'm thinking we come out of September 3-1 or 4-0, and have a real shot at 6-6 and a minor bowl. That is a big step forward in year two of a system and a young roster. I also feel that it will be enough to produce credibility on the recruiting trail.
 


akgopher said:
Since the Mason era, we've given pundits every reason to doubt whether we will climb out of the cellar. I agree that the non-conference schedule is critical for the season. It should be 4-0, or 3-1 if we have moved forward. If we're 2-2, it could be another 3-9 season and cause for concern long term. I'm afraid that another year like that will also have residuals especially with recruiting.

I think we got the right guy in charge and I'm thinking we come out of September 3-1 or 4-0, and have a real shot at 6-6 and a minor bowl. That is a big step forward in year two of a system and a young roster. I also feel that it will be enough to produce credibility on the recruiting trail.
Click to expand...

+19
 


akgopher said:
Since the Mason era, we've given pundits every reason to doubt whether we will climb out of the cellar. I agree that the non-conference schedule is critical for the season. It should be 4-0, or 3-1 if we have moved forward. If we're 2-2, it could be another 3-9 season and cause for concern long term. I'm afraid that another year like that will also have residuals especially with recruiting.

I think we got the right guy in charge and I'm thinking we come out of September 3-1 or 4-0, and have a real shot at 6-6 and a minor bowl. That is a big step forward in year two of a system and a young roster. I also feel that it will be enough to produce credibility on the recruiting trail.
Click to expand...

Great post.

The key is what happens after those 6-6 seasons. Even Brew was 6-6 in his 2nd and 3rd seasons, but his problem was that he failed to build a foundationb of success. We lacked depth, we were hurt by attrition, and we continued to switch systems. They key for a program like the U (at least for a bit) is to sustain 6-8 win talent, and then make the little strides. That will come from improved recruiting but often times it's a matter of the small things like being able to RS most of our incoming classes and getting even continue improving our walk on program.
 

The inability to anticipate a team improving is a failure of logic based on the assumption that you have to be able to imagine the improvement for it to happen. Can coach Kill improve the team year by year? I think so. So then the roadmap for climbing out of the hole we're in is going to look like this:

* The Gophers will score more than their opponent on a given day.
* This results in a win, which improves their place in the standings.
* They win at least one more game each year. If they do this, then...
* over time their win total will be more than that of the other teams in the division, and championships ensue.

It isn't as hard to see this happening, if you remove imagination from the equasion.
 







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