Why Not Minnesota?

As a lifelong Gopher fan (since 1955), I sincerely believe Minnesota can return to the upper levels in the Big 10 Conferfence, but it will take dedication, conmmitment from not only the coaches and players but, importantly, by the administration and fans (not being fair weather), as well as time and patience. Hopefully coach kill and his staff can turn the program around in a few short years.

What gives me hope? Well, since 1995 several teams that experienced drought years have climbed to the pinnacle in the conference, and their traditions were or are not as rich as Minnesota's:

1995: Northwestern
1996: Northwestern and Ohio State
1997: Michigan
1998: Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State
1999: Wisconsin
2000: Northwestern and Purdue
2001: Illinois and Iowa
2002: Iowa and Ohio State
2003: Michigan
2004: Iowa and Michigan
2005: Ohio State and Penn State
2006: Ohio State
2007: Ohio State
2008: Ohio State and Penn State
2009: Ohio State
2010: Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin

Conference Titles since 1995:

Ohio State - 8
Michigan - 5
Northwestern - 3
Wisconsin - 3
Iowa - 2
Penn State - 2
Illinois - 1
Michigan State - 1
Purdue - 1

Conference titles since its inception:

Michigan - 42
Ohio State - 35
Minnesota - 18
Illinois - 15
Wisconsin - 12
Iowa - 11
Northwestern - 8
Purdue - 8
Michigan State - 7
Chicago - 7
Penn State - 3
Indiana - 2

Sadly, Minnesota's last conference title was in 1967 when they were tri-champs with Purdue and Indiana, which was also Indiana's last title.

One common denominator of teams that experienced lean years before turning it around was a strong AD that selected a quality coach and support by the schools presidents.

People forget Michigan was suffering in the 1950s and 1960s until Don Canaham was hired as its AD in 1968. Michigan's facilities and attendance had dwindled to 67,000 in the 100,000 seat stadium. Canaham's first hire, Bo Schembechler. He then began innovating ways to increase attendance, interest and money for the football program.

Bump Elliot hired Hayden Fry in December 1978 with a renewed commitment to the football program. (I've lived in Iowa since the fall of 1973, and I witnessed their very lean years prior to Fry's hire.)

Pat Richter and the hiring of Barry Alvarez turned in to positive results that the Badgers enjoy to this day.

Notre Dame, although not in the Big 10, has a similar history to that of Michigan before the hiring
of Bo Schembechler. Fathers Hesburgh and Joyce were concerned that Notre Dame during the Frank Leahy years was becoming a football factory. So, they decided to curtail its influence and hired a high school football coach and alumnus, Terry Brennan, and he was followed by Joe Kuharich (sp?) and Hugh Devore. Hesburgh and Joyce discovered the importance of Notre Dame football to the school's culture. They corrected their mistake by hiring Ara Parseghian. Parseghian had enjoyed success at Northwestern, but the Wildcats did not pony up to keep him in Northwestern before the Irish approached him.

There are four books, if interested, that I recommend that illustrate successful football programs and how they turned their programs in to powerful traditions: "BO" by Bo Schembechler and Mitch Albom; "Resurrection: The Miracle Season That Saved Notre Dame" by Jim Dent; "The Undefeated: The Oklahoma Sooners and the Greatest Winning Streak in College Football" by Jim Dent (A lot of background information on Bud Wilkinson and his playing days at Minnesota): and "War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America In A Time Of Unrest" by Michael Rosenberg.

It's time for the "sleeping giant" (Minnesota) to wake up.


Go Gophers!!

It's the economy, stupid.

DL65,

1. I am trying to remember, who was it that called Minnesota a sleeping giant? I seem to remember reading somehwhere that Paul "Bear" Bryant said to the effect, "something is wrong up in the land of the north" or maybe it was the land of the giants, referring to our storied football program tumbling. Maybe I got this quote wrong too.

2. One thing perhaps we should start beating our drum about. This is the fact that Minnesota appears relatively speaking to be better off economically than any of the other states in the Big Ten conference. We are consistently much better off, with much better economic opportunities than the nexus of Big Ten football power, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the states of Michigan and Ohio, all of which are not doing well economically. This is probably putting it pretty kindly. Michigan is an economic wasteland right now. Ohio is not doing much better.

3. I am not an economist, but somebody should be able to pull statistics and figures from the Federal Reserve Board "Beige Book" http://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/beigebook/2011/20110413/9.htm reports or other sources and make the case to prospective recruits and their parents that future job prospects are much brighter here in the Minnesota economy than it is in the rust belt Michigan, Pennsylavania, or Ohio economy. If I were able to assemble this economic case and present it, I would hammer away furiously at recruits and their families with this information.

4. Are we doing this? Just a thought.

6Nov1999,

I recall reading somewhere the quote attributed to Paul 'Bear' Bryant that you referenced. On a personal level, I remember coach Hayden Fry, after Iowa defeated Jim Wacker's team in Iowa City (1995), calling Minnesota a "sleeping giant" in his post game remarks. I suspect others have probably said the same thing.

Again, Minnesota does have a rich tradition, unfortunately with each passing year it recedes futher in the distance. Nevertheless, the challenge and opportunity exist to right the ship with a lot of work, a true commitment and an attitude to excell on the gridiron. Saying we should expect and accept to be a middle of the pack team is not anymore acceptable than being mediocre in any other field of endeavor.

Minnesota does have a lot of positives to sell. First and foremost, it's a member of the Big 10 Conference, which excells not only in academics but athletics as well. Additionally, the quality of life attributes and job opportuntunites in the Twin City and outlying areas abound. They need to be trumpeted.

Hope springs eternal, and nothing lasts forever are a couple axioms. For this 64 year-old, I want to see another championship season, and I believe I will. When? It remains to be seen.

Go Gophers!!

Why not Minnesota? We have to be realistic and here are some reasons:

1. Not a fertile in-state recruiting ground.
2. Fair weather fan base
3. Weak and aging alumni support
4. Spreading the athletic dollar amongst too many non-rev sports (which I have no problem with, but does impact football potential)
5. Decades with no big time success to build on
6. Competition in the local sports market
7. In a conference that has too many teams that have the above factors
8. Maturi
9. Commercialization of the athletic department and conference

This isn't to say that we can't somehow overcome these barriers, but there are significant issues that have been holding back the U, some for decades and some more recently. Hopefully Kill has what it takes to get us some decent bowl games and a sniff or two of the conference championship game during his time here.

DL65 said:

6Nov1999,

I recall reading somewhere the quote attributed to Paul 'Bear' Bryant that you referenced. On a personal level, I remember coach Hayden Fry, after Iowa defeated Jim Wacker's team in Iowa City (1995), calling Minnesota a "sleeping giant" in his post game remarks. I suspect others have probably said the same thing.

Again, Minnesota does have a rich tradition, unfortunately with each passing year it recedes futher in the distance. Nevertheless, the challenge and opportunity exist to right the ship with a lot of work, a true commitment and an attitude to excell on the gridiron. Saying we should expect and accept to be a middle of the pack team is not anymore acceptable than being mediocre in any other field of endeavor.

Minnesota does have a lot of positives to sell. First and foremost, it's a member of the Big 10 Conference, which excells not only in academics but athletics as well. Additionally, the quality of
life attributes and job opportuntunites in the Twin City and outlying areas abound. They need to be trumpeted.

Hope springs eternal, and nothing lasts forever are a couple axioms. For this 64 year-old, I want to see another championship season, and I believe I will. When? It remains to be seen.

Go Gophers!!

Click to expand...

Why the quality of life and economic/job opportunities are somewhat true, I don't know how well this sells with recruits for a couple of reasons.

1. Many of these recruits truly do believe they will end up in the NFL and are not worried about real career opportunities.

2. Those recruits that are realistic and are planning for a career after college that doesn't include the NFL may not necessarily want to stay in Minnesota, especially if from another state. Many of these recruits are likely to want to move back closer to home, tougher economy or not.

DL65 said:

fans (not being fair weather)

Click to expand...

i always find fair weather fans to be the most over used term on these forum boards. When you put out crappy product and it happens to take place in the fall with winter right around the corner pretty hard to expect fans to show up and support a team.

I always laugh when die hard fans think just because people criticize or choose not to spend their money or talk about the team they are fair weather. There hasn't been much to be excited about with this team since they blew the 4th qtr lead to Michigan years ago in the Mason era.

Ski U Master said:

Why not Minnesota? We have to be realistic and here are some reasons:

1. Not a fertile in-state recruiting ground.
2. Fair weather fan base
3. Weak and aging alumni support
4. Spreading the athletic dollar amongst too many non-rev sports (which I have no problem with, but does impact football potential)
5. Decades with no big time success to build on
6. Competition in the local sports market
7. In a conference that has too many teams that have the above factors
8. Maturi
9. Commercialization of the athletic department and conference

This isn't to say that we can't somehow overcome these barriers, but there are significant issues that have been holding back the U, some for decades and some more recently. Hopefully Kill has what it takes to get us some decent bowl games and a sniff or two of the conference championship game during his time here.

Click to expand...

This post is a great example of why not Minnesota. The original poster just pointed out that IOWA,WISCONSIN, NORTHWESTERN, and PURDUE have all won Big Ten titles in the last 15 years. In fact, the Gophers are one of only 2 programs in the entire conference to fail to win/share the title (to make it worse, the Gophers have not finished any higher than 4th). Yet, we still have posters willing to make excuses for this under the guise of being "realistic".

As for your "realistic" points

1. Better in state talent than Iowa, talent on par with Wisconsin
2. "Fair Weather" are you F'ing kidding me? The weather has not been "fair" in the vast majority of posters lifetimes. Look at Iowa a few years ago, there were articles at the end of the seaon on the dwindling attendance at Kinnick after a down year...and they are in the midst of the best run in their programs history.
3. Cannot speak to the "weak" part, but the "aging" part is that those who have actually seen the team win are the mostly like to continue to support the program. I don't think a lot of alumni who saw the Gophers go .500 or worse every year they were on campus have fond memories of Gopher football and want to donate to the cause. The program has to win before people come back and donate see: Northwestern after Barnett took them to the Rose Bowl
4. This is accurate and I do have a problem with it.
5. This is true, but it's also been true for Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, and Iowa. Their is no excuse for Minnesota not to break through when all of these teams broke long draughts. Was it realistic for these schools to win?
6. Don't buy this at all. Being in a major market is an advantage, city kids like the city. The Vikings don't cause the Gophers to lose nor do the Wild, Timberwolves, or Twins.
7. As the original poster already pointed out, these "above factors" were not present at 9 of the 11 Big Ten schools.
8. Maturi sucks, that is a fact
9. Commericalization of the conference somehow hurts the Gophers in one of the largest media markets in the conference?

If the bar keeps being set so low at Minnesota, then the results will continue to be terrible.

Fry said Wisconsin was a "sleeping giant":

"Barry called me to get my opinion, and we'd played Wisconsin every year and handled them pretty well," said former Iowa coach Hayden Fry, who employed Alvarez as an assistant from 1979-86. "I told him I always thought it was a sleeping giant. He took the job and turned it around."

Source: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2004-09-04/sports/0409040289_1_barry-alvarez-badgers-big-ten/2