Who the Gophers have been for 15 years (expectations)

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Spoofin said:
We had this debate on here before, and I know I'm in the minority, but I think what a team is ranked at the game matters more than what they are ranked at season's end. In CFB more than any sport, IMO, there are ups and downs, injuries, etc and things change fast. Just because a team that is ranked 10th during week 6 ends up un-ranked, doesn't necessarily mean they weren't a #10 team at the time they played. If the Gophers win out and finished ranked 20th (play along here), does that mean the team Kent State beat was the 20th best team at the time we played them?
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Except Kent St didn't beat us.
 


Depressing some fans likely haven't seen more than one or two big wins in their lifetime. I thought that Nebraska win in 2013 was awesome. And was one of the only times I heard random people talking about the Gophers when I walked around town that weekend.
 

Wow, that is one of those stats that makes you think "wow, I knew it was bad...but that BAD?" I just don't draw the same conclusions from that stat the original poster seems to draw. During that time span, the Gophers kept one coach for a decade and another for 4 (basically 3) years. Just giving someone "more time" isn't the answer, you have to have the right coach. I believe by year 5, you certainly own your team and past history certainly shouldn't be a large factor in future performance. I have looked up a number of coaches who took over struggling teams (Ferentz, Barnett, Tiller, Alvarez, etc, etc) and could find only one example of a coach that really broke through past year 5 and that was Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech. That's not to say Jerry Kill won't buck that trend, but it is something to be aware of going forward.

One thing that I've found interesting is the only coach the Gophers have hired in DECADES with a winning record in major D-1 football prior to coming to Minnesota was Lou Holtz. There's a lot of talk among some doom and gloomers (mostly Minnesota fans, rarely outsiders) about how "tough" a job Minnesota yet the guys who have had the job (more than two years) have not achieved major college success either before or after their tenure at Minnesota.

Ron Zook(!) managed to go to a Rose Bowl at Illinois in 2007 after going 0-8 and 1-7 his first two years...you'd think Minnesota would run in to a 6-2 conference record by accident once a decade.
 

Ugh! I knew we sucked but instead of being the armpit of major college football it looks like we may be in the vicinity of the crotch. Please tell me that since 2000 some other P5 has zero wins against end of the season top 25 teams. Someone, anyone! Vandy? Wake? Kansas, certainly Kansas, right?!?
 


MNGoldenGophers1 said:
Ugh! I knew we sucked but instead of being the armpit of major college football it looks like we may be in the vicinity of the crotch. Please tell me that since 2000 some other P5 has zero wins against end of the season top 25 teams. Someone, anyone! Vandy? Wake? Kansas, certainly Kansas, right?!?
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Doubtful as they were in the Orange Bowl just a few years ago.
 

Just shows how important rivalry games are. Winning trophy games can cloud really ugly stats like this.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

dpodoll68 said:
I was informed here that we were a better team than Nebraska in 2013, so everyone can feel free to disregard that one as well.
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Right, let the coaches and writers who don't watch the games decide who the best teams are....disregard what actually happens on the field.
 

That is rough. Our best win over that stretch was against a team of barely cracked the top 25 in one of the two major polls? Yuck.
 



Horrific stat that makes me wonder why I have any optimism at all in games against ranked teams.

Let's go back 23 years though...we did have a win against a ranked team that finished #6 overall and quite possibly prevented them from playing for a National Championship. Take that, Bucky!
 

Mulligan said:
If you really want to get depressed, go back another 15-20 years. You're not even including Wacker, Gutekunst, and Smokey Joe--3 of the most mediocre coaches we could have hired.
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Jim Wacker at 2-16 (1996 Syracuse & 1993 Wisconsin) had a better record vs. teams that ended up ranked than Glen Mason or Jerry Kill.

Of course his record vs. unranked teams was much worse... :)

If you go back to 1990 the Gophers are 5-84 (assuming I counted right). Wins are '99 Illinois (unranked when they played ended #24), '99 PSU (#2 when played ended #11), '96 Syracuse, '93 Wisconsin and '90 Iowa.

Before you saw the stats, if I told you that the Gophers during the 1990's had a better record vs teams that ended up ranked (4-35) at the end of the year than they have had during the 2000's, would you have believed me???

I wouldn't have.
 

Biased star because voters are clearly biased against teams that lost to the gophers.
 

DougMN said:
Horrific stat that makes me wonder why I have any optimism at all in games against ranked teams.

Let's go back 23 years though...we did have a win against a ranked team that finished #6 overall and quite possibly prevented them from playing for a National Championship. Take that, Bucky!
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Not played for - no BCS back then. Florida, Notre Dame and Becky would have still played in separate Bowls.

I still question if a 1 tie Badger team jumps over FSU ever. They would have been undefeated when they tied tOSU at home on 11/6 with FSU and ND still 1&2. Notre Dame beat FSU on 11/13 (UW Bye week - doesn't help them not being active) and ND lost to BC on 11/20 (UW beat unranked Ill, FSU beat NC St. - doesn't help either). UW had another bye week the following week when FSU beat #7 Florida (major help to FSU even if they had been leap frogged). The next week UW beat #25 MI St in Tokyo (probably doesn't help much). Point being, the Badgers didn't probably do enough to get and stay above FSU the rest of the season regardless.

The loss to #2 ND on the road probably would have been a wash with a tie against #3 tOSU at home. FSU played a much tougher schedule, plus gets the coastal bias benefit.

That said, I certainly like to believe we cost them a Natty! :)
 



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