With 5 or 6 games left, what do you need to view this season as a success?

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Stan

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For me it's simple, this team needs two Big Ten wins and hopefully a win over a MAC or equivelant team in a bowl game. But we have to get two conference wins for me to feel like this was a successful year. I thought 6-6 was the next step and we have a shot to get that. We managed two wins with Horton and in Kill's first year in the conference and this year the conference appears weaker.

Give me two Big Ten wins in the final five games and I consider this a successful season at this point.
 

Stan said:
For me it's simple, this team needs two Big Ten wins and hopefully a win over a MAC or equivelant team in a bowl game. But we have to get two conference wins for me to feel like this was a successful year. I thought 6-6 was the next step and we have a shot to get that. We managed two wins with Horton and in Kill's first year in the conference and this year the conference appears weaker.

Give me two Big Ten wins in the final five games and I consider this a successful season at this point.
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+1. Two B1G Ten wins would definitely help me consider this season a great success. I think just getting to a Bowl Game, any Bowl Game, in general would help.

But, I will say, the team overall is improved and we have improved on last years win total. Now, just add two more wins, and I will be very happy!
 

Agree with that assessment, Stan. Two wins with what the Gophers have remaining (Purdue, Illinois, possibly MSU because of its offensive woes) is a reasonable expectation. Just getting to a bowl would be progress.

But anything less than that (1-7 or a B1G doughnut) has to be considered a significant step back, especially after winning 2 B1G games last season. If the Gophers can't beat/outcoach Purdue/Danny Hope and freefalling Illinois/Tim Beckman, I'd be concerned.
 

I'll be more specific. 2+ Big Ten wins and one of them must be Michigan State. They are sliding but still very talented and we should win this game to show we have improved over last year. I would still say 3 BT wins isn't out of the question with Purdue, Illinois, and MSU on the schedule. Regardless, we need at at least match the BT win total from last season. Our non-conference was obviously a much stronger performance than last year, so 2-6 BT plus the improvement in NC = success over last year and moving in the right direction.

If we do win 2 BT games, I would say a win in the bowl game should be a must. It would likely be against a MAC-level team (albeit a pretty good one, possibly even an NIU squad?), but we will have had a month to get healthy and practice. a 7-6 season would feel MUCH better than a 6-7 one after some of the bad losses to Wisc and Iowa we've seen so far.
 

Nothing has changed in spite of being 0-3. A bowl game.

We will get our first W Saturday.
 


SelectionSunday said:
If the Gophers can't beat/outcoach Purdue/Danny Hope and freefalling Illinois/Tim Beckman, I'd be concerned.
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For some reason, Purdue is actually the toughest game I see between MSU, Purdue, and Illinois. I know Michigan put a pounding on them, but they looked sharp in a close loss to Notre Dame and lost a total heartbreaker AT OSU last Saturday. That's a very talented OSU team with a national title winning (twice) coach. Obvioisly Dantonio is a better coach than Hope and LeVeon Bell could run all over us, but MSU cannot score on anyone right now and the cold will only make it more difficult to run and pass for them. Just my take. We'll see this Saturday how Kill does against Hope.
 

Like most above, for this season to be viewed as step in the right direction we need to equal or exceed last years BIG win total. It is doable but this weekend is key.
 

Beating the Badgers or Iowa................We are better this year, but there is a very real chance we don't win another game. The loss at Iowa really took away the positive vibe to the season.
 

Two wins would make the season a success, one win would make the season in-line with my expectations, no wins would be regression. We didn't drop any headscratchers in non-conference so that's already a vast improvement over the last couple years.
 



RailBaronYarr said:
For some reason, Purdue is actually the toughest game I see between MSU, Purdue, and Illinois. I know Michigan put a pounding on them, but they looked sharp in a close loss to Notre Dame and lost a total heartbreaker AT OSU last Saturday. That's a very talented OSU team with a national title winning (twice) coach. Obvioisly Dantonio is a better coach than Hope and LeVeon Bell could run all over us, but MSU cannot score on anyone right now and the cold will only make it more difficult to run and pass for them. Just my take. We'll see this Saturday how Kill does against Hope.
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Purdue is the best matchup for the Gophers, if you're a stats person and make the assumption that the Gophers aren't that stout against the run. Purdue hasn't been able to run the ball very well at all, particularly lately. And the game is at TCF.

They won't be favored, likely, in any game the rest of the year. It would be nice to win this one, even though they're 3.5 point dogs.
 

Two wins. Don't care who it is against. Zero wins means we went backwards from last season. One win won't sit well with the majority of fans.
 


We have had 2 Big Ten wins each of the past two seasons with teams that were not as good. For me the bar going into the year was 3 BT wins and we let NW off the hook. I still think we can get there. It starts this week with Purdue. If we can beat Illinois again, that is two. Then, it comes down to MSU. I am sure most of you are aware that we are undefeated in the final game of the season all-time at TCF Bank Stadium...

SDSU in 2009
Iowa in 2010
Illinois in 2011
 



A bowl game is the obvious answer, to me at least, and it sounds like many others. That was the goal coming in, and that goal is still reasonably doable. I consider 4 out of the last 5 "gettable" games. The only game I'm not looking at with hopeful eyes is @Nebraska. I consider all home games winnable now, I don't care if the matchup sucks. I fear what Denard will do to our run defense, but whatever. Realistically, 3 of those 5 are definitely winnable games. We need to find two wins out of there. Conventional wisdom says Purdue and Illinois are the ones.

Interesting with MSU though, they could possibly be playing that last game needing it just to make a bowl game themselves. They have @Sconny, Northwestern, then us. I don't think anyone would be shocked to see them lose their next two. That'd leave them at 4-6 needing to win their last two to get to a bowl game. That would be a very interesting setup, if both teams need that win to simply make a bowl game at all.

Simply put, this game Saturday is HUGE.
 

Crisp, disciplined, mistake-free football. Wins and losses take care of themselves. I'd like to see a bowl game, but I didn't think they would be in one so it's not part of my calculus.
 

0 Big Ten wins: no improvement
1 Big Ten win: not a "success," but it's another step forward
2+ Big Ten wins: success
 

I agree with Stan - 2 more wins has me classifying this season as successful. Getting to a Bowl in year 2 of the Kill regime is a big deal, even when its a minor bowl. Extra practice and exposure never hurts.

Getting to 7 wins would be huge, but not impossible. I agree that Purdue, @Illinois, and MSU are games we have a chance to win. First things first though, the Gophs have to play their hearts out and put a heartbroken Purdue team down.
 

Okie said:
0 Big Ten wins: no improvement
1 Big Ten win: not a "success," but it's another step forward
2+ Big Ten wins: success
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After winning 2 conference games each of the last 2 years and this year only winning 1 conference game would be considered a step foward. Sure it is.
 

scools12 said:
After winning 2 conference games each of the last 2 years and this year only winning 1 conference games would be considered a step foward. Sure it is.
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Looking back at how those teams played, we should all feel lucky we aren't 0-16 in the Big Ten the past two years. Imo, pulling out two shockers in the Big Ten while losing to teams like New Mexico State and NDSU is worse than going 4-0 in nonconference with one solid win (well, the Illinois win last year was pretty solid, I guess) in the Big Ten.
 

Okie said:
Looking back at how those teams played, we should all feel lucky we aren't 0-16 in the Big Ten the past two years. Imo, pulling out two shockers in the Big Ten while losing to teams like New Mexico State and NDSU is worse than going 4-0 in nonconference with one solid win (well, the Illinois win last year was pretty solid, I guess) in the Big Ten.
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My thoughts exactly.
 

Okie said:
Looking back at how those teams played, we should all feel lucky we aren't 0-16 in the Big Ten the past two years. Imo, pulling out two shockers in the Big Ten while losing to teams like New Mexico State and NDSU is worse than going 4-0 in nonconference with one solid win (well, the Illinois win last year was pretty solid, I guess) in the Big Ten.
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Totally disagree. 4-0 non conf 0-8 or 1-7 conf to me is worse (0-8 = far worse) than 1-3 nc 2-6 conf no matter how you get the wins. Unless you are beating good teams in your non-conf schedule those wins are not nearly as important as wins against conference opponents.
 

I would like to see wins over both Purdue and Illinois as they are very winnable games. However, to make this year a true success I would like to see a win over MSU, UNL, or UM. A victory over one of those three teams would be very pleasant and provide another benchmark to seeing Minnesota football become significant once again.
 

I set the bar at 5-7 this year. However, that was bassed off of the assumption they'd find a way to drop one of the NC games and pull off two B1G wins. I will not call 1 B1G win a failure, but I don't know that I'd call it success, either. So to me, it's now a Bowl Game simply on the basis of needing 2 B1G wins to truly call it a success.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Totally disagree. 4-0 non conf 0-8 or 1-7 conf to me is worse (0-8 = far worse) than 1-3 nc 2-6 conf no matter how you get the wins. Unless you are beating good teams in your non-conf schedule those wins are not nearly as important as wins against conference opponents.
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I think conference wins are always more valuable then non-conference wins. Some people seem to think that my emphasis on conference games is unreasonable because "they all count". However, I believe which bowl game a B1G team goes to is dictated by conference standings (with the obvious caveat that you must win 6 total to be eligible). For example, if we go 11-1 (7-1 in conference, 4-0 out of conference), but lose to another Legends division team who goes 8-0 in conference, then we are sitting on home during conference championship weekend. If we go 8-4 (8-0 in conference, 0-4 out of conference), then we go to Indianapolis to play for the B1G championship and a spot in Pasadena. In that hypothetical, the 1 extra conference win means more than all 4 out of conference games.

So, if we match last years 2-6 conference record, that coupled with our improved out of conference play which did not include any losses to teams whose conference I cannot name, then I will absolutely call this season a success. If we go 1-7, I will recognize that it was nice to play better in September, but still not really feel like we have moved forward. Even though it is an improvement in total wins from 3-9 to 5-7, I feel like between the easier schedule with USC and just the general expectation that the team would have a better start by virtue of having spent a year with the new coach, I don't really feel like that is a confident step forward for the program (maybe a tentative step forward). If we fail to win a conference game, this is a step backwards for us.

This discussion will get less complicated next year, because since we went 4-0 out of conference this year, we won't be able to show total win improvement next year without building on our conference win total.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Totally disagree. 4-0 non conf 0-8 or 1-7 conf to me is worse (0-8 = far worse) than 1-3 nc 2-6 conf no matter how you get the wins. Unless you are beating good teams in your non-conf schedule those wins are not nearly as important as wins against conference opponents.
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So you'd rather go 3-9 (2-6 BT) than 5-7 (1-7 BT)? Interesting.
 

I look at it from a perspective of good wins and terrible losses. Ideally you don't want any terrible losses based on where the program is, and as many good wins as you can get. Right now I wouldn't rank any B1G wins anything less than a "good win" for our program.

Last year we had two terrible losses (NMSU, NDSU) and two good wins (Iowa, Illinois). This year we have no terrible losses, and no good wins. If we get one more win, we'll be on the plus side and I could live with it.
 

10-3, no game within two TDs and Nelson gets an invite to the Downtown Athletic Club. Anything less than that and Kill and his cronies should pack up their offices.
 


One B1G win wouldn't be a complete failure, nor would it be "improvement". But how they play in these last five games will say a lot, just like last year's end of year play kind of set up early this year, the same could be said going into next year.

A 1-4 finish may not be as good record-wise as last year, but what did we see in those games? For instance, the last two Iowa games, we caught some fortunate bounces (onside kicks, specifically). We can't count on that to steal us conference wins probably this year. And it's a little different when you're playing with really nothing to lose, like our last two seasons, versus this year, where a bowl is at stake, and teams aren't going to overlook us.

If we hang with Michigan, Nebraska, and MSU, and just aren't able to pull out the two wins between Illinois and Purdue, it will be very disappointing, but I wouldn't consider that a big failure. But it does put more pressure on next season to be even more successful, no doubt about it.
 

GophersInIowa said:
So you'd rather go 3-9 (2-6 BT) than 5-7 (1-7 BT)? Interesting.
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Both records stink but yeah I would take 2-6 in the Big Ten over 1-7 anyday regardless of the out of conference record because in the end the only games that really matter in the grand scheme of things are the 8 conference games. Those are the teams we should measure ourselves against. Beating up on crap non conference teams is fun but if we can't stack up against the teams in the Big Ten than those wins really don't mean anything.

Last year we were good enough to win two conference games. We lost very little to graduation and are in year two of Kill's system so to take a step back in conference wins to me does not show forward progress. I will also come back to the idea that expecting a coach to continue to be able to win 2 conference games is not unreasonable from a fan standpoint. Expecting a division title is but a .250 winning percentage in the conference seems fair especially considering how down the Big Ten has looked this year.
 

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