What a weird column, per La Velle: Gophers victory over Michigan State does not match triumph over Iowa

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Per Neal:

Countless times during breaks on Saturday, the Gophers played highlights of players hoisting the Floyd of Rosedale trophy following their glorious victory over Iowa a week ago. Welcome back, Floyd. It's been too long.

The Gophers eventually handled a scandal-ridden Michigan State team during their 27-12 victory at Huntington Bank Stadium. They have won consecutive games since being trounced at home by Michigan and can still win the Big Ten West title, and you can argue that their season would be viewed much differently if not for a fourth-quarter disaster at Northwestern on Sept. 23.


These two victories, however, should be looked at differently.

The victory in Iowa City ended a streak of losses at Kinnick Stadium that went back to 1999 — when P.J. Fleck was a wide receiver at Northern Illinois and before his journey brought him to Minnesota in 2017. Fleck had lost three one-score games there before breaking through last week.

The victory over the Spartans on Saturday should not be viewed as glorious. You take wins any way you can get them; that's not to be taken lightly. But let's not forget that the Gophers had just a 10-6 lead entering the fourth quarter after making Spartans punter Ryan Eckley punt, punt and punt some more. Michigan State was there to be put away, as the Gophers defense ruled the day. But Minnesota kept letting a Spartans team that is winless in the Big Ten off the hook.

m.startribune.com

Star Tribune

Your source for Minnesota news today. Read articles, view photos or watch videos about news in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, St. Cloud, Rochester, and beyond.
m.startribune.com m.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 




His takes on the Gophers and college football were so bad, I quit reading his stuff entirely a couple years ago and I unfollowed him on Twitter.

Perhaps he gets a column or two right here and there these days. I have no idea. I’ve moved on.
 



Let's nip one big thing in the bud, and let's do it right now:

The win over Michigan State should not be viewed as "glorious" (LaVelle's word).

Am I understood on that? No one should be getting all, you know... excited.

Anyone who violates my policy will face consequences.
 

Obviously I don't know how the STrib works internally, but I don't understand why we need to have more than Randy Johnson writing columns about the Gophers???

They seem to rotate which "other" sports writers have to go to the game, sit there, watch, then come up with a story to print.

I caught LaVelle on Dan B Friday early evening, and he (LaVelle) sounded sick and sounded very glum about having to go to the game to do his job. Perfunctory. No joy.
 

Reusse probably came up to him and said something like "if you want people to click on your column, if you want a thread started about it on GopherHole .... be trolling and maybe borderline insulting. That's the ticket."
 



If I wrote an article titled:

"Gopher's win doesn't match a Georgia national championship or even the 2019 win against Penn State."

It would be seen as non-sense and just bad writing. A game and a victory should never reflect on other wins. A better article would have been.

"Gopher's win doesn't demonstrate Minnesota is ready to win the West."

Then you could reflect on the Iowa game and others on a demonstration as where the Gophers have given us reason for optimism, but also reasons for serious concerns.
 

Imagine it’s 2017
I tell you the gophers in 2023 are coming off:
11-2
Global pandemic
9-4
9-4
And now are 5-3 with back to back wins @iowa and against Michigan state


And then I tell you a local media outlet is complaining about only beating Michigan state by 15
 

Some guy said:
Imagine it’s 2017
I tell you the gophers in 2023 are coming off:
11-2
Global pandemic
9-4
9-4
And now are 5-3 with back to back wins @iowa and against Michigan state


And then I tell you a local media outlet is complaining about only beating Michigan state by 15
Click to expand...

Yes, this is an astute observation by Some guy. Well done!

This team is in first place and we hold Floyd and we hold the Axe.

And yet, LaVelle and people here are talking about stuff such as: how unimpressive it was to beat a B1G team by "only" two TDs. Or how "boring" the game was. Or how "mediocre" just about everything under the sun is.
 

RememberMurray said:
Yes, this is an astute observation by Some guy. Well done!

This team is in first place and we hold Floyd and we hold the Axe.

And yet, LaVelle and people here are talking about stuff such as: how unimpressive it was to beat a B1G team by "only" two TDs. Or how "boring" the game was. Or how "mediocre" just about everything under the sun is.
Click to expand...
Michigan state also isn’t what they were in 2017

But yes
 



GopherVotary said:
Good baseball writer. He should stay in his lane.
Click to expand...
Yeah....I really don't know why they have him doing anything related to college football because he is horrible at it. I don't bother to read any of his football stuff because it is worthless most of the time.

His whole premise on this story is weird from the part posted at least. Nobody is going to go overboard about beating a team like MSU, they were a team we were supposed to beat and we did.
 

Some guy said:
Michigan state also isn’t what they were in 2017

But yes
Click to expand...

Minnesota now regularly beats the lesser teams (like Michigan State). They have the occasional hiccup (Northwestern, Bowling Green) but overall the Gophers have firmly established themselves as belonging in the tier right behind Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State.
 

RememberMurray said:
Yes, this is an astute observation by Some guy. Well done!

This team is in first place and we hold Floyd and we hold the Axe.

And yet, LaVelle and people here are talking about stuff such as: how unimpressive it was to beat a B1G team by "only" two TDs. Or how "boring" the game was. Or how "mediocre" just about everything under the sun is.
Click to expand...
I totally agree with your point: then, I look back at so many posts right here on Gopherhole and recall post after post where some folks can’t seem to enjoy so many wins this Gopher team has.

As for me: there is no such thing as a bad win…especially B1G win.

It’s not just the sports columnists that do it…Seems as if some people totally disagree with my type of less than “critical” assessments of B1G wins…or any kind of college football win.

And: that’s pretty much the way it has always been. so, that’s the way Gopher football is. That’s life.

;o)
 
Last edited:

BleedGopher said:
Per Neal:

Countless times during breaks on Saturday, the Gophers played highlights of players hoisting the Floyd of Rosedale trophy following their glorious victory over Iowa a week ago. Welcome back, Floyd. It's been too long.

The Gophers eventually handled a scandal-ridden Michigan State team during their 27-12 victory at Huntington Bank Stadium. They have won consecutive games since being trounced at home by Michigan and can still win the Big Ten West title, and you can argue that their season would be viewed much differently if not for a fourth-quarter disaster at Northwestern on Sept. 23.


These two victories, however, should be looked at differently.

The victory in Iowa City ended a streak of losses at Kinnick Stadium that went back to 1999 — when P.J. Fleck was a wide receiver at Northern Illinois and before his journey brought him to Minnesota in 2017. Fleck had lost three one-score games there before breaking through last week.

The victory over the Spartans on Saturday should not be viewed as glorious. You take wins any way you can get them; that's not to be taken lightly. But let's not forget that the Gophers had just a 10-6 lead entering the fourth quarter after making Spartans punter Ryan Eckley punt, punt and punt some more. Michigan State was there to be put away, as the Gophers defense ruled the day. But Minnesota kept letting a Spartans team that is winless in the Big Ten off the hook.

m.startribune.com

Star Tribune

Your source for Minnesota news today. Read articles, view photos or watch videos about news in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, St. Cloud, Rochester, and beyond.
m.startribune.com m.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...
He's not a sports writer. Nobody cares.
 

It is as enjoyable as hearing Dan B talk about Indiana. TC radio/media…how did we get here?
 

LaVelle's point - as I understand it - goes like this:

beating MSU is a conference win, but the Gophers did not dominate their opponents.
And beating MSU is not as important as winning a big rivalry game over Iowa.

and I would generally agree with that. I just don't see the point of the column.

IMHO, the column is LaVelle scolding Gopher fans who celebrated the win over MSU because there wasn't much there to celebrate - at least according to LaVelle.

It's like Dean Wormer yelling "No more fun of any kind!"
 

He’s a tool. No idea how gas a job. I’d say that for most of the Strib. Chip is about all I’ll read for the the local rag.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
LaVelle's point - as I understand it - goes like this:

beating MSU is a conference win, but the Gophers did not dominate their opponents.
And beating MSU is not as important as winning a big rivalry game over Iowa.

and I would generally agree with that. I just don't see the point of the column.

IMHO, the column is LaVelle scolding Gopher fans who celebrated the win over MSU because there wasn't much there to celebrate - at least according to LaVelle.

It's like Dean Wormer yelling "No more fun of any kind!"
Click to expand...
Except we did dominate them on defense.
 


I quit reading the Strib for a lot of reasons. The legacy media has gotten so bad at what they do and unfortunately, the sports section is not immune. LaVelle is not columnist materiel. When he's on Barerrio, his lack of talent and insight is even more apparent than in print.
 

Winning by two touchdowns when you are -3 in turnovers and fail to convert a chip shot field goal doesn't happen often. Throw in the fact that you leaned on your 5th string tailback to run for 200 yards and there was a lot to be encouraged by in a game that featured a lot of adversity. This MSU team also should have beat Iowa, so I am not sure there was a big difference in competition between this week and last week despite the records of the opponents.
 

My biggest quarrel with the lavelle column was that it was real hard to get his point. Might, mighty poor writing froma columnist.
 

RememberMurray said:
Minnesota now regularly beats the lesser teams (like Michigan State). They have the occasional hiccup (Northwestern, Bowling Green) but overall the Gophers have firmly established themselves as belonging in the tier right behind Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State
Click to expand...
You're right but the majority of the big ten is in that tier. We are definitely not a team worthy of being ranked.
 

swede2 said:
I quit reading the Strib for a lot of reasons. The legacy media has gotten so bad at what they do and unfortunately, the sports section is not immune. LaVelle is not columnist materiel. When he's on Barerrio, his lack of talent and insight is even more apparent than in print.
Click to expand...
Maybe term limits for our sports writers? Much like people are pushing for with our elected officials. I'm in! :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 

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