Who should be the third Gopher dedicated rivalry game?

Who is the third rivalry?

  • Michigan

    Votes: 58 47.5%

  • Nebraska

    Votes: 57 46.7%

  • Penn State

    Votes: 1 0.8%

  • Purdue

    Votes: 3 2.5%

  • Field

    Votes: 3 2.5%
  • Total voters
    122
Donate To GopherHole

Crosby said:
No matter who is on your regular season schedule, you still have to beat the best to win a "nattie." Even "the best" don't play the best every week.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the tough talk of winning natties by beating everyone in the Big Ten and all other comers on a murder schedule sounds nice, but folks are whistling past the graveyard on this one.

Minnesota honestly needs continued incremental positive successes before any talk of a national title is realistic. A Big Ten title has only been realistic through the division system and the idea of a hot game against Ohio State. We've been mostly building for 20 years now on a slow, steady, upwards stock chart. A few bad records from hard schedules could cause a downturn with all kinds of vicious cycle effects.

I would rather have a rotation of wisconsin, iowa, and someone competitively balanced for a 3rd that takes into account that our rivals are mostly good in football. As of today Nebraska would fit that but historically it's probably IL, Purdue, or Northwestern. And Michigan with the 2 others would put the Gophers at a big disadvantage most every season.
 

Changing my vote to Nebraska. The Gopher football program is in front of the Huskers now and if they improve we can maintain our lead vs trying to overtake Michigan which to me seems like a greater challenge., The Wolverines are probably just a romantic, old idea of a yearly rivalry anyway. I can see Nebraska returning to a competitive level and that would be a good rivalry.
 

It needs to be a team we have a chance to at least be 50/50 with.

Being 2-8 against Wisky and Iowa is a tough pill to swallow.

Recruits notice an empty trophy case.

That's why I chose Nebby.
 
Last edited:

I like a one protected rival concept a lot better in a no-divisions world, even though my vote is to keep divisions as I think Minnesota benefits from them as much as any program.

It works out pretty well competitive balance-wise based on recent years:

OSU - Michigan
Minnesota - wisconsin
Iowa - Nebraska
MSU - Penn State
Indiana - Purdue
Rutgers - Maryland
Illinois - Northwestern

There's a couple pseudo-rivalries in here like Michigan State - Penn State and Maryland - Rutgers but this keeps most of the big ones alive and isn't a pain in the neck to schedule around, or introduce a lot of long-lasting schedule difficulty imbalances.

I would miss playing for Floyd every year but I think it also would be better for the Gopher program.
 


NE humiliated MN in the distant past so it is sweet revenge any time MN beats them.
In addition their fan base suffers the torments of the damned when they lose to MN.
 


fmlizard said:
I like a one protected rival concept a lot better in a no-divisions world, even though my vote is to keep divisions as I think Minnesota benefits from them as much as any program.

It works out pretty well competitive balance-wise based on recent years:

OSU - Michigan
Minnesota - wisconsin
Iowa - Nebraska
MSU - Penn State
Indiana - Purdue
Rutgers - Maryland
Illinois - Northwestern

There's a couple pseudo-rivalries in here like Michigan State - Penn State and Maryland - Rutgers but this keeps most of the big ones alive and isn't a pain in the neck to schedule around, or introduce a lot of long-lasting schedule difficulty imbalances.

I would miss playing for Floyd every year but I think it also would be better for the Gopher program.
Click to expand...
Sacrilege!!
Iowa must stay on the schedule!
It’s just hard to pick a third game since we would have the hardest three games every year if it is Michigan. Maybe OSU AND Michigan could have harder rivalry games but the have all the advantages.

OSU - Michigan, Penn State
Michigan - OSU, MSU
PSU - OSU, MSU
MSU - Michigan, PSU
Maryland - Rutgers,
Rutgers - Maryland,
Indiana . Illinois, Purdue
Illinois - Indiana, NW
NW - Illinois, Wisconsin
Whisky - Minnesota, NW
Iowa - Minnesota, Nebby
Purdue - Indiana, Nebraska
Nebraska - Iowa, Purdue
Minnesota - Iowa, Wisconsin

It’s really hard to find rivalries for Rutgers and Maryland. Maybe they could play each other twice!
 






fmlizard said:
Yeah, the tough talk of winning natties by beating everyone in the Big Ten and all other comers on a murder schedule sounds nice, but folks are whistling past the graveyard on this one.

Minnesota honestly needs continued incremental positive successes before any talk of a national title is realistic. A Big Ten title has only been realistic through the division system and the idea of a hot game against Ohio State. We've been mostly building for 20 years now on a slow, steady, upwards stock chart. A few bad records from hard schedules could cause a downturn with all kinds of vicious cycle effects.

I would rather have a rotation of wisconsin, iowa, and someone competitively balanced for a 3rd that takes into account that our rivals are mostly good in football. As of today Nebraska would fit that but historically it's probably IL, Purdue, or Northwestern. And Michigan with the 2 others would put the Gophers at a big disadvantage most every season.
Click to expand...
The easiest path to a big ten title is an 8 game schedule and no conference championship game (split championships)

Divisions are easier to win than top 2 potentially…but really for Michigan to win the conference title last year they had the same task MN had but in reverse order.

Beat Ohio state
Then beat Iowa

For Minnesota
Beat Iowa
Then beat Michigan/Ohio state
 




Ope3 said:
I would vote NONE if that was an option. 2 is plenty. If they get a 3rd dedicated rival, I hope it rotates every 4-6 yrs.
Click to expand...
That wouldn’t be a dedicated rival. That would be a football tryst.
 

Plato said:
NE humiliated MN in the distant past so it is sweet revenge any time MN beats them.
In addition their fan base suffers the torments of the damned when they lose to MN.
Click to expand...
The1983 84-13 loss to NE still stinks. Every time the Gophers beat NE, it brings some solace from that humiliation.
 

Getting to play for the Jug every year would be kinda cool, but getting permanently matched against 3 teams that are almost always in the top half of the conference would make winning the conference, or just finishing with a winning record, harder than it might be for some of our peers who get protected games against Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana etc. Nebraska would likely be easier than Michigan, and there's probably just more spice to matchups with Nebraska right now since they seem to hate PJ Fleck, and hate losing to us. There's certainly more talk about Nebraska here now, and more investment in their downfall, than there was 10 years ago when we just sort of accepted that a Bo Pelini coached, borderline top 25 Husker squad was an 800 pound gorilla that we couldn't hope to compete with.

Also, as silly as anyone might think the Governor's Victory Bell is, the actual games against Penn State have been pretty consistently good. But, like Michigan, that's likely a third a game against a routinely strong opponent, and just makes life tougher for the Gophers in the Big Ten.
 


Boomtime said:
PSU has won 5 of the last 7 games, and the all time series is 9-6 PSU.

Not much history to base anything on.
Click to expand...
Even though the trophy is a little generic and some of the old timers still don’t consider Penn State a real Big Ten team…there’s no other program the Gophers have had more memorable games against over the past 25 years.

Penn State thinks we suck too much for a whiteout. We think we have at least 4 bigger rivals. But it’s created a lot of BTN Classic footage whether we like it or not.
 


There will be east and west divisions in 2023 if there are additions to the conference in 2024
 

What about Rutgers? Never did like those Scarlet Knights. Plus, they need another rival. Why not us? No idea what the trophy would be.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom