Why is everybody so pessimistic?

Wow, why am I not surprised by how negative "realistic" Gopher fans are. Everyone just seems to find something to bag on them about, it's like why even call yourself a gopher fan when you are just going to find something to complain about. We aren't a top Big 10 football program, get that through your heads. Right now it's much better than having to deal with a 1-11 season. Their is still alot of games left so why not be excited that we still have gopher football to watch then complaining about the next thing that you find is wrong. Gophers played a hell of a lot better than I expected. I thought that they would look like what they did last year when they got blown out. Our OL looked much better than I expected, which was evident by being able to make some holes for our RB's. Leidner looked like our future QB. We were in the game till about midway through the 3rd. Even through we lost I feel much better heading into our bye week then I thought I would last week.
 

Can you show me a source that shows us as having the weakest schedule in the league? I could only find the link below which has Mich St, Nebraska, OSU and Becky as worse schedules than us....just curious if I am missing something or if you are just making stuff up. Thanks!

http://www.fbschedules.com/2013/07/phil-steele-2013-college-football-strength-of-schedule-rankings/

The 3399 source, pal.

Consider this: New Mexico State has lost 20 in a row to FBS teams. They have not defeated a FBS team since November 12, 2011. Since they lost 3 before that, it makes it 23 out of the last 24.

Western Illinois was out scored 148-10 in their last 4 games last year.

Going into this season, UNLV was 2-11 in 2010, 2-10 in 2011, 2-11 in 2012. That is 6-32. Through some sort of miracle they have pulled off three wins so far and might get a 3rd against a terrible Hawaii team.

Speaking of Hawaii, they handed San Jose State a win last night. SJSU did have a good year last year. However, their coach left, they hired a guy who was coaching at a non scholarship school, and they are nowhere near as good as they were last year. I watched them play a couple of times, they are not the same. They were out scored 117-49 in their three previous games before Hawaii.

Three of the teams are in transition with new head coaches.


Michigan State's one game over Notre Dame is worth more than all 4 of Mn's. I believe they also played South Florida, a respectable opponent. Wisconsin played at Arizona State, which is no cupcake. They will play BYU later. Ohio State played at Cal.

They should have been higher up statistically after playing the schedule they did. It is not likely to get better in conference play against more difficult teams. That is the point.
 

I think it's fair to say being a Gopher Football fan has been a pretty thankless task far too often over the past 45 to 50 years. The highs have been too few and not to the standard most so badly want (going bowling, if at all, in El Paso or Tucson instead of Pasadena). The lows have been too numerous and feel crushing when they happen repeatedly. So it tends to make people pessimistic. It'll be a long time before many fans feel differently.
 

Twinsfan007 and ^ are pretty good summaries. I don't buy the moral victories thinking but I don't think all is lost or at least not yet. I remember back in 1984 listening to Sid interviewing Holtz on the Sunday morning after losing to Nebraska 38-7. Holtz was getting really pissed off because Sid & Co. were congratulating Holtz on a great game. Many people thought it was a moral victory given what happened the previous year. Holtz said it is never O.K. to lose. So while I'm glad folks want/expect wins and are upset with losing, going totally negative and pointing fingers or worse yet throwing in the towel probably is not the thing we need at the moment. Hopefully, we can rally with the off week and pull off an upset against NW. Yeah, highly unlikely but why not give naive support at this point rather than harsh criticism. When we have seven loses, then go ahead and fire up we're screwed for life comments.
 

Pointing out where this team is failing to meet basic expectations is not being a negative or pessimistic fan. The support doesn't waver. The money still gets spent on tickets, apparel, food, and fun. That doesn't mean we can't have expectations, and raise concerns when we not only fall short, but do so consistently.

A fan that doesn't embrace the plucky and lovable loser role is not less of a fan. The U is a fantastic university in a major conference and they should be able to occasionally field a competitive squad. The choppiness by which the team has progressed is not good enough, and shouldn't be accepted. Kill doesn't accept it.

Be a Gopher fan. Have optimism. But also have expectations - expectations for more noticeable progress. And wins. Good god please just get that big win.
 


Twinsfan007 and ^ are pretty good summaries. I don't buy the moral victories thinking but I don't think all is lost or at least not yet. I remember back in 1984 listening to Sid interviewing Holtz on the Sunday morning after losing to Nebraska 38-7. Holtz was getting really pissed off because Sid & Co. were congratulating Holtz on a great game. Many people thought it was a moral victory given what happened the previous year. Holtz said it is never O.K. to lose. So while I'm glad folks want/expect wins and are upset with losing, going totally negative and pointing fingers or worse yet throwing in the towel probably is not the thing we need at the moment. Hopefully, we can rally with the off week and pull off an upset against NW. Yeah, highly unlikely but why not give naive support at this point rather than harsh criticism. When we have seven loses, then go ahead and fire up we're screwed for life comments.

If we get to seven losses in the regular season, I think we will see what a really pissed off fan base looks like. As critical as I have been after the last two games, I refuse to believe we are that bad. If we are, I am going to be pretty livid.
 

I think we're saying the same thing.

fryguy22's link was to a "season preview" 2013 (full season) strength of schedule article based largely on what teams did in 2012.

Sagarin's ratings are for the first six weeks of this season.

It incorporates the results for the first six weeks but it is still based on a full year projection. Read the methodology in the description and it speaks to how they forecast future games
 

What's the point of having a place on the web like GopherHole if we're not allowed to have a difference of opinions? You want to be optimistic? Go right ahead...I'm not going to stop you, nor am I going to deride you for being so...BUT I would expect the same acceptance of my opinions that will differ from yours. If you're looking for a big Gopher fan sing-along of Kumbaya, I'm sorry but this ain't the place for it. The beauty of GopherHole is that it's a convergence of Gopher fans and an exchange of opinions and ideas. You don't like it, go start your own site! It can be like the old SNL skit, "The Chris Farley Show"...where everyone can sit around with posts like, "Hey, remember that time we were up three touchdowns on Michigan and almost beat them? That was awesome!" and everyone can fondly reminisce about those great moments when we almost got over the hump.

Okay, that was a little mean...I'm sorry for that. But seriously though...you've got opinions, I've got opinions...can't we all just get along???
 

What's the point of having a place on the web like GopherHole if we're not allowed to have a difference of opinions? You want to be optimistic? Go right ahead...I'm not going to stop you, nor am I going to deride you for being so...BUT I would expect the same acceptance of my opinions that will differ from yours. If you're looking for a big Gopher fan sing-along of Kumbaya, I'm sorry but this ain't the place for it. The beauty of GopherHole is that it's a convergence of Gopher fans and an exchange of opinions and ideas. You don't like it, go start your own site! It can be like the old SNL skit, "The Chris Farley Show"...where everyone can sit around with posts like, "Hey, remember that time we were up three touchdowns on Michigan and almost beat them? That was awesome!" and everyone can fondly reminisce about those great moments when we almost got over the hump.

Okay, that was a little mean...I'm sorry for that. But seriously though...you've got opinions, I've got opinions...can't we all just get along???

I see you just joined this year...

I'll tell you something... any criticism towards the team makes you a pessimist & you will be called a troll & a fairweather fan by the koolaid drinkers...

They don't see that the only team we might be better then in the Big Ten is Purdue... & that's pretty pathetic...
 



I, for one, am far more optimistic after the Michigan loss than I was the week before. After the Iowa loss I thought it would difficult to win another game this season. Without suggesting that the Michigan game was a moral victory, which it certainly was not, I did see significant improvement over the prior week. I was particularly pleased with Mitch Leidner's play, despite his two turnovers. I was similarly pleased with the improvement of the offensive line's play. Contrary to what I thought after the Iowa loss, I think a couple of wins or more is possible over the remaining course of the season. I do believe that Coach Kill and staff - given enough time - can build this program back to competitive levels. The question is how quickly. At age 73, I may not be able to wait 5 to 10 years for this to come to fruition. I am not particularly impressed with Coach Kill's first two recruiting classes and his third seems unlikely to be much of an improvement. I disagree with those who believe that we have an inherent disadvantage in recruiting to Minnesota. I think we have a number of inherent recruiting advantages, such as an academically solid university and one of the more attractive metropolitan areas in the country. In my opinion, our primary disadvantage is the lack of overall program success since the 1960s. But I believe that disadvantage can be overcome by steady improvement in on field success, the ability to offer early playing time at some positions, and the planned upgrade to our facilities, but primarily success on the field.
 

People mistake truth for being attacked on what they say. I know that not everyone "drinks the kool-aid" or sings "kumbya", it just gets sick hearing everyone just trash the team. "Oh we suck", "Let's just give up on the season already", 'I hope they keep on losing so I can be right and then we can get another head coach". Really guys, I'm fine with complaining once in a while but when all people do is complain...come on now.
 


The reasons why I am disappointed:
1.) Nelson - I was hoping that Nelson could develop into something very special and be a 4 year starter. If you remember his first couple of games last year, the board and media was really high on his potential to finally bring a real B1G QB to the Gophers. Now, I will admit that I am an Adam Weber fan so I would have been ecstatic if Nelson had just turn in similar numbers over his career here (I know for a lot of people here, that is not close to enough). Now, not even 5 games into his second season and he is an after thought. I hope Mitch performs well and becomes that QB we are all waiting for - I just have had my hope dashed with highly touted QB after highly touted QB for so long that I no longer believe is a player talent issue - it is a system / development issue. That is much harder to fix when the staff has been together a long time and they aren't going to change personnel.
2.) To be honest, I have given up any hope of the U ever going to the Rose Bowl in my lifetime. With the addition of Nebraska and a conference championship games, our chances of winning it all are basically zero. So, what can I look forward to? I hope that the Gophers can crack the top 25 and I can go into every game believing that we have a chance to win. Sorry, but I just don't have that feeling anymore.

I am not a huge Mason supporter, but everyone on this board knows that when he was actually trying to coach/recruit/develop, we had a chance to win every game that we played. I think that is what hurt the most about Mason is that he could have done so much more if only he had been committed to the U (no, not tOSU). I felt that way about Mason because we had a unique offense that gave us national prominence for turning our RB's and routinely had amazing stats in the rushing department. With Kill - we are back to doing exactly what everyone else is doing, just with less talented players. Now, coaching can do wonders for player development but I have just about zero faith in Kill being able to take 2 star recruits and developing them into a team that is going to beat UW, MU, OSU, Iowa, or Nebraska in smash mouth football.

What I hated about Brewster is that he took the one part of our team that actually worked - ZBS, and change it to something that would not work with the players we had on the team. I would have much more faith in Kill if he had a system like the ZBS where we are able to compete with bigger/stronger DL from the better teams and truly make it simply about execution. If ZBS is executed correctly, you can win with smaller, less talented players. With Kill's system, we need both superior player development versus other teams and execution because we are going strength on strength....we aren't going to win that way. At least with ZBS, we can put up some gaudy states and start to attract better RB recruits. If I was a highly rated back at this point - would I seriously consider my career chances better at Minnesota or UW, of Michigan, or even NW or Illinois? At this point, the only thing unique about the team (and grabbing headlines) is Kill's illness. That is a big, big fall from where we were even 6-7 years ago. Remember when people were saying that they were sick of going to low end bowls like the Music City Bowl? Well, Kill certainty looks to solved that problem.
 



At the risk of "riding in here on my high horse" let me just say to those of you trying to scrape together a bit of pleasure from the football season: Nothing in that regard can be accomplished here, or for that matter, on any other fan board I've seen. Some of these people sound so desperate one wonders if they would sell out their family and friends for a few conference wins. Why not? After all, wins are the only means by which we can accurately assess our coaches. As an example of unreasonable fans blowing about in the wind, check out the Iowa board which this season has gone from despair to unbridled joy and then back to whining rage. Sound familiar? I have young grandchildren who have learned to deal with adversity in a more mature way than the "it's all about wins and I demand we get our share" bunch. I appreciate the few attempts at positive outlook, but it's probably a lost cause here.
 

It incorporates the results for the first six weeks but it is still based on a full year projection. Read the methodology in the description and it speaks to how they forecast future games

Got it. Thanks.

See, that was positive!
 

I am more optimistic after the Michigan loss than I was after the Iowa loss. I just think our offense showed glimmers of hope.

The thing I am pessimistic about is the upward trajectory of some of the "easier" teams on our schedule. Northwestern is officially for real. Indiana in Bloomington has never been as easy for the Gophers as it should be and this year they are actually good. Michigan State beat up on Iowa pretty good. I'm just not sure where I see two more wins. But I guess thats why they're called upsets.

In the end, I think we could be as good, or better, of a team in 2013 that does not make a bowl game simply because we lack Purdue and Illinois on our schedule.

I like to take a long-term view. Regardless of whether we win another game this season or not, I think a fourth year for Jerry Kill (assuming his health allows him to remain) would be in the best long-term interests of the program.
 

I, for one, am far more optimistic after the Michigan loss than I was the week before. After the Iowa loss I thought it would difficult to win another game this season. Without suggesting that the Michigan game was a moral victory, which it certainly was not, I did see significant improvement over the prior week. I was particularly pleased with Mitch Leidner's play, despite his two turnovers. I was similarly pleased with the improvement of the offensive line's play. Contrary to what I thought after the Iowa loss, I think a couple of wins or more is possible over the remaining course of the season. I do believe that Coach Kill and staff - given enough time - can build this program back to competitive levels. The question is how quickly. At age 73, I may not be able to wait 5 to 10 years for this to come to fruition. I am not particularly impressed with Coach Kill's first two recruiting classes and his third seems unlikely to be much of an improvement. I disagree with those who believe that we have an inherent disadvantage in recruiting to Minnesota. I think we have a number of inherent recruiting advantages, such as an academically solid university and one of the more attractive metropolitan areas in the country. In my opinion, our primary disadvantage is the lack of overall program success since the 1960s. But I believe that disadvantage can be overcome by steady improvement in on field success, the ability to offer early playing time at some positions, and the planned upgrade to our facilities, but primarily success on the field.

VaGopher, I share your sentiments. I came away from the game disappointed with the conservative "not lose big" approach. I half wondered if Kill wanted to Text Limgrover and Co. to open it up a bit.
I was encouraged by the Oline getting a pretty consistent push against Michigan's front. Mitch and Maxx also showed some promise.
Defensively, the linebackers and the defensive tackles had a good game. We are still lacking on the DE (too small). I was most frustrated though with the recurring theme of the secondary not turning their heads to find the ball. There were easily two balls that could have been picked off. We were -14 points directly off of turnovers. Those 14 points plus the 7 points before half due to Marcus Jones not executing a fair catch and the score would have been much closer.
Look, this is not going to be as fast of a process as any of us want. If Kill's health was not a question mark, I would say it would be an absolute mistake to make a change if the team only wins 1 or 0 B1G games. The team is trending positive, even though it is taking longer than we want it to.
 

The reasons why I am disappointed:
2.) To be honest, I have given up any hope of the U ever going to the Rose Bowl in my lifetime. With the addition of Nebraska and a conference championship games, our chances of winning it all are basically zero. So, what can I look forward to? I hope that the Gophers can crack the top 25 and I can go into every game believing that we have a chance to win. Sorry, but I just don't have that feeling anymore.

UCLA went to the 2011 Pac 12 Championship Game with a 6-6 record. In 2012, Georgia Tech went to the ACC Championship Game with a 6-6 record. If there's one thing we all know the Gophers can do it is go 6-6. We just need a few teams to get on probation and then pull an upset and whammo bammo, Pasadena.
 

We're pessimistic because we see a team that does not have talent that exceeds that of any of our B1G opponents, at least not by any significant margin; however we have a coaching staff that employs an extremely conservative gameplan that would only be useful if we did.

Furthermore, the coaching staff refuses to take any risks to score, no matter the situation, no sense of urgency, no sense that victory in THIS week's game is important. They employ few changes to the original gameplan even when it's obvious the original gameplan is failing miserably.

See, it's somewhat understandable to have lesser talent than a U of Michigan, an Ohio State U, a U of Nebraska. It's not understandable to not try at the end of a first half; it's not understandable to give up and not use your final chance to win the game with 7 minutes left on the clock.

Let's put it this way - our favorite team is so predictable that I told my non-Gopher friend, who was over watching the game, that the following would happen; tied 7-7 at that point and the ball downed inside the 1:
1. The Gophers would be conservative and run the ball 3 straight times. It would be predictable enough that there was almost zero chance to get a first down. They'd do this while wasting clock, not realizing that their strategy of run, run, run, punt was almost guaranteeing a Michigan score which would leave too little time on the clock to wander their way back downfield to rebound and get a score of their own to end the half.
2. The Gophers would get the ball back and run out the clock to end the half without so much as an attempt to move the ball downfield, and regardless of the fact that they'd be kicking to begin the second half.
3. Because Michigan had retaken full momentum to end the half, the game was basically over. Michigan would score to open the second half and the game would be as good as over.

When each happened, my buddy just chuckled and said "obviously you know your team."

I know opposing football coaches are generally not geniuses, but our gameplan and lack of risk-taking is not going to fool anyone. THIS gameplan is designed for superior athletes to dominate the line of scrimmage and own an opponent as if they were the bigger badass playing a game of rugby. It's simply not the case and Kill and Co. cannot recruit well enough to make it such. Thus, pessimism abounds.

Why do so many people think that football is about "fooling or tricking" their opponent. The game has been around for over 100 years. There are few who actually go out to fool their opponent anymore. The point now is to out execute or out talent the other team. Since out talenting is not available right now, they have to out execute. And that has been the problem so far. But I see it getting better each season under Kill. Just don't know how far he'll be able to go with that.
 

Why do so many people think that football is about "fooling or tricking" their opponent. The game has been around for over 100 years. There are few who actually go out to fool their opponent anymore. The point now is to out execute or out talent the other team. Since out talenting is not available right now, they have to out execute. And that has been the problem so far. But I see it getting better each season under Kill. Just don't know how far he'll be able to go with that.

I can't believe this was written. Of course a coach (all coaches) tries to fool the opponent. It's just like pitching, you want the batter to think a fastball is coming and then throw the curve. Keep them off balance, same goes for football. Creativity can take less talent to not only compete but win over superior talent. It's not a perfect science but to say coaches don't try to fool the other side is ridiculous
 

I can't believe this was written. Of course a coach (all coaches) tries to fool the opponent. It's just like pitching, you want the batter to think a fastball is coming and then throw the curve. Keep them off balance, same goes for football. Creativity can take less talent to not only compete but win over superior talent. It's not a perfect science but to say coaches don't try to fool the other side is ridiculous

Cue, Manning, Payton: http://deadspin.com/peyton-manning-briskly-jogs-for-a-rushing-touchdown-1441807125
 

I can't believe this was written. Of course a coach (all coaches) tries to fool the opponent. It's just like pitching, you want the batter to think a fastball is coming and then throw the curve. Keep them off balance, same goes for football. Creativity can take less talent to not only compete but win over superior talent. It's not a perfect science but to say coaches don't try to fool the other side is ridiculous

I can't believe he wrote that...

I guess we should tell teams what play we're about to run and see if they can stop it to see who has the better athletes?
 

I am more optimistic after the Michigan loss than I was after the Iowa loss. I just think our offense showed glimmers of hope.

The thing I am pessimistic about is the upward trajectory of some of the "easier" teams on our schedule. Northwestern is officially for real. Indiana in Bloomington has never been as easy for the Gophers as it should be and this year they are actually good. Michigan State beat up on Iowa pretty good. I'm just not sure where I see two more wins. But I guess thats why they're called upsets.

In the end, I think we could be as good, or better, of a team in 2013 that does not make a bowl game simply because we lack Purdue and Illinois on our schedule.

I like to take a long-term view. Regardless of whether we win another game this season or not, I think a fourth year for Jerry Kill (assuming his health allows him to remain) would be in the best long-term interests of the program.

Yep to all of that. Though if the Offense can just get a little better than against Michigan they should have a chance against those three teams and probably Penn State also.

A chance and probably. That's about as optimistic as a Gopher Fan can get.
 

I can't believe he wrote that...

I guess we should tell teams what play we're about to run and see if they can stop it to see who has the better athletes?

Well I did. Comparing football to baseball is not even close. Not sure why one would even type that.

I didn't say one shouldn't try to be creative but most aren't. Why do so many coaches talk about " its not the x's and o's it's the jims and joes"? "We're going to run the ball down their throats"?

Is a no huddle offense about fooling people? To use the example above, Manning goes with a sugar huddle and isn't out there fooling people, he executes better. He finds the open man and completes the pass.

I'm not going with an absolute. Some coaches do try to fool people, but most of them fail and it's because it's more about execution or talent than creativity. For every "creative" coach I'll bet there are many, many more that just win by going straight up against their opponent.
 

People mistake truth for being attacked on what they say. I know that not everyone "drinks the kool-aid" or sings "kumbya", it just gets sick hearing everyone just trash the team. "Oh we suck", "Let's just give up on the season already", 'I hope they keep on losing so I can be right and then we can get another head coach". Really guys, I'm fine with complaining once in a while but when all people do is complain...come on now.

The majority of people aren't overly complaining. Go to another teams message board after a loss to see what real complaining is. Said it before-this board is as nice as you will see with a major program. The title to "the Limegrover is chicken poop" was over the top, but almost everything else is very tame.
 

Well I did. Comparing football to baseball is not even close. Not sure why one would even type that.

I didn't say one shouldn't try to be creative but most aren't. Why do so many coaches talk about " its not the x's and o's it's the jims and joes"? "We're going to run the ball down their throats"?

Is a no huddle offense about fooling people? To use the example above, Manning goes with a sugar huddle and isn't out there fooling people, he executes better. He finds the open man and completes the pass.

I'm not going with an absolute. Some coaches do try to fool people, but most of them fail and it's because it's more about execution or talent than creativity. For every "creative" coach I'll bet there are many, many more that just win by going straight up against their opponent.

why run a play action pass?
 


Is that creative? Everyone has that in the playbook.

at times it is very creative and its intended to "fool" the defense. or are you only talking about double reverses and flee flickers? because you make it sound like a team only needs 1 play and the horses to run it
 


or misdirection... or the reverse... or the hb toss...

I remember Mason's favorite trick play well. He'd have Barber throw a TD pass in a meaningless game against Ohio U. and then try it again in a huge game against Michigan, only to have it picked.
 




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