MBAGuy
Needs something to cheer about
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We've been going around and around on here with regard to how success will be defined next season. Is it W/L? Is it about improvement in offensive and defensive rankings both in the Big Ten and NCAA? Or is it about seeing significant contributions from RFr and Sophomores as a sign that 2011 will be a special season?
Next year's schedule is ridiculously tough. Most of our traditionally "winnable" conference games are on the road (Purdue, Illinois, and MSU), while we've got this year's top three, OSU, PSU, and Iowa at home. Five to seven wins (2-4 conference wins) is what I would consider to be the probable outcome of that schedule and that is probably insufficient to be deemed a success in the minds of most Gopher fans in Brew's 4th year.
One can get more nuanced in the judging of wins and losses by looking at the quality of wins. Brewster is justifiably criticized for his lack of trophy and/or signature wins. In my opinion, 5-7 wins in 2010 can be deemed a success if we are able to 1) beat Iowa or Wisconsin AND 2) give OSU and PSU a legitimate run for their money. That, to me, means being within 10 points (while actually scoring some points) going into the 4th quarter. We've done a reasonably good job this year of winning the games we should win (Illinois and ISU are the obvious exceptions), but we've failed to pull an upset of any kind (MSU is arguably an upset, though at I recall, the line was +2.5, which is a minor upset, at best). We need some movement in this area.
With respect to improvement in offensive and defensive ranking irrespective of W/Ls, this is a tricky measurement of success. I'm not sure about the extent to which rankings are correlated with wins, but I suspect there is a pretty strong relationship between the two. To look at rankings independently of W/Ls (which would be necessary to use it as a separate measure of success) we can use improvement in the respective rankings. On offense, the Gophers rank last in both yards per game (306.5 v. Iowa at 330, who were 10th)) and points per game (20.9 v. Iowa at 23.1, who again were 10th) in the Big Ten. On defense, the Gophers were tied for 5th in passing defense (217.5 yards per game) and 7th in rushing defense (151.7 yards per game). (Scoring stats were unavailable when I was looking this up, but I'd suspect we're in the middle to lower third of the conference).
This suggests we have a lot of room for improvement on offense, with literally nowhere to go but up and are at reasonable parity with the rest of the conference on the defensive side of the ball. In my opinion, we should be aiming to be ranked 4, 5, or 6 on both offense and defense. We seem to have the horses on offense to improve. With even average QB play, we have a solid stable of WRs to hurt opponents; our OL has improved over the year with all starters returning in 2010 and supplemented with Olson, Michel, and Gjere; and we should have some options at RB next year to see if something finally works. Defensively, we lose nine of our starters from this year, but athletically, we should be in good shape. In short, if we can move from last in the conference on offense to a ranking of 5-7 and integrate new players but keep our current defensive ranking, I would have to deem the season a success. This would be independent of W/Ls, but it stands to reason that if our offense improved to that extent while the defense stayed consistent with 2009's performance, we would see an improvement in W/Ls.
The final measure of success would be the contribution from young players to give us hope for 2011. This is almost too nebulous to use as a true measure, but the hope for the future is really all we've had as Gopher fans for the last 40 years, so it's worth mentioning. We've seen quite a bit of the young talent on the squad this year, but not to the extent where it gives us a ton of confidence that next year is a breakthrough. Mcknight, Cooper, Carter, Singleton, Gray, et al. were all solid contributors, but were largely relegated to playing second fiddle to the upperclass incumbents. To deem next year a success by some "hope for the future" metric, we'd need to see significant contributions from the young bucks that may not necessarily translate into on-the-field success. I really don't even know how to measure this, other than to say I'll know it when I see it.
Thoughts? I'd really like to have a constructive dialogue on how the Brew lovers and haters will be gauging success next year.
Next year's schedule is ridiculously tough. Most of our traditionally "winnable" conference games are on the road (Purdue, Illinois, and MSU), while we've got this year's top three, OSU, PSU, and Iowa at home. Five to seven wins (2-4 conference wins) is what I would consider to be the probable outcome of that schedule and that is probably insufficient to be deemed a success in the minds of most Gopher fans in Brew's 4th year.
One can get more nuanced in the judging of wins and losses by looking at the quality of wins. Brewster is justifiably criticized for his lack of trophy and/or signature wins. In my opinion, 5-7 wins in 2010 can be deemed a success if we are able to 1) beat Iowa or Wisconsin AND 2) give OSU and PSU a legitimate run for their money. That, to me, means being within 10 points (while actually scoring some points) going into the 4th quarter. We've done a reasonably good job this year of winning the games we should win (Illinois and ISU are the obvious exceptions), but we've failed to pull an upset of any kind (MSU is arguably an upset, though at I recall, the line was +2.5, which is a minor upset, at best). We need some movement in this area.
With respect to improvement in offensive and defensive ranking irrespective of W/Ls, this is a tricky measurement of success. I'm not sure about the extent to which rankings are correlated with wins, but I suspect there is a pretty strong relationship between the two. To look at rankings independently of W/Ls (which would be necessary to use it as a separate measure of success) we can use improvement in the respective rankings. On offense, the Gophers rank last in both yards per game (306.5 v. Iowa at 330, who were 10th)) and points per game (20.9 v. Iowa at 23.1, who again were 10th) in the Big Ten. On defense, the Gophers were tied for 5th in passing defense (217.5 yards per game) and 7th in rushing defense (151.7 yards per game). (Scoring stats were unavailable when I was looking this up, but I'd suspect we're in the middle to lower third of the conference).
This suggests we have a lot of room for improvement on offense, with literally nowhere to go but up and are at reasonable parity with the rest of the conference on the defensive side of the ball. In my opinion, we should be aiming to be ranked 4, 5, or 6 on both offense and defense. We seem to have the horses on offense to improve. With even average QB play, we have a solid stable of WRs to hurt opponents; our OL has improved over the year with all starters returning in 2010 and supplemented with Olson, Michel, and Gjere; and we should have some options at RB next year to see if something finally works. Defensively, we lose nine of our starters from this year, but athletically, we should be in good shape. In short, if we can move from last in the conference on offense to a ranking of 5-7 and integrate new players but keep our current defensive ranking, I would have to deem the season a success. This would be independent of W/Ls, but it stands to reason that if our offense improved to that extent while the defense stayed consistent with 2009's performance, we would see an improvement in W/Ls.
The final measure of success would be the contribution from young players to give us hope for 2011. This is almost too nebulous to use as a true measure, but the hope for the future is really all we've had as Gopher fans for the last 40 years, so it's worth mentioning. We've seen quite a bit of the young talent on the squad this year, but not to the extent where it gives us a ton of confidence that next year is a breakthrough. Mcknight, Cooper, Carter, Singleton, Gray, et al. were all solid contributors, but were largely relegated to playing second fiddle to the upperclass incumbents. To deem next year a success by some "hope for the future" metric, we'd need to see significant contributions from the young bucks that may not necessarily translate into on-the-field success. I really don't even know how to measure this, other than to say I'll know it when I see it.
Thoughts? I'd really like to have a constructive dialogue on how the Brew lovers and haters will be gauging success next year.
