This post is unbelievable. Minnesota's story is not a good one, not yet. The Gophers went from being a 7-6 team, turned it into a 1-11 team, and have the potential of turning it back into another 7-6 team if they lose the bowl game. There's nothing amazing about that, period.
Now, it COULD be amazing, but only if the Gophers take this season as a stepping stone and compete for the Big Ten title next season. If they have another season between five and eight wins next year, this will be nothing more than running in place from the last season. To prove my point, let's look at the season in recap:
NORTHERN ILLINOIS (WIN, 31-27): Finished season 6-6, including 5-3 in the MAC. Average season from a MAC school, which any Big Ten school should be expected to win.
@ Bowling Green (WIN, 42-17): Expected to compete for the MAC title, they beat then #25 Pitt, then lose at home to the Gophers to start a rough season. Finish 6-6, 4-4 in the MAC. Further, they didn't play Ball State, who won the MAC. Fired their head coach following the season. Again, another game that your typical Big Ten team should beat.
MONTANA STATE (WIN, 35-23): Finished 7-5 overall, 5-3 in the Big Sky. Got beat by Kansas State the week before, 69-10, and got blown out by cross-state rival Montana, 35-3. Oh, by the way, this is a 1-AA team (oh, sorry...FCS). A .500 1-AA team should never even be in the same building as a Big Ten team.
FLORIDA ATLANTIC (WIN, 37-3): Finished season 6-6, 4-3 in the Sun Belt. This appears to be a pretty solid win; however, the Owls lost to the likes of Middle Tennessee State and Arkansas State. Probably as close to the expected outcome as it came all year long.
@ Ohio State (Lost, 34-21): Finished Season 10-2, 7-1 in Big Ten. We all watched the game, and unfortunately, though the score looks nice (we covered, I know that), we weren't really in this game. Ohio State allowed two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to make the score look good, but this game was never in doubt. Having said that, Ohio State's only two losses were to two of the top three teams in the country at the time, #1 USC and #3 Penn State. This is an acceptable loss, to be sure.
INDIANA (WIN, 16-7): Finished 3-9, 1-7 Big Ten: This game should have been a real red flag, but for most of us hardcore Gopher fans, we kept our blinders on. In the end, this was a pretty bad Indiana team that got beat by the likes of Purdue by a 62-10 score (in a game that wasn't that close) and to Central Michigan, as well as a Wisconsin team by 35 points and an Illinois team by 36. Not a quality win, not close.
@ Illinois (WIN, 27-20): Finished 5-7, 3-5 in Big Ten: A win that looked great at the time, and was a decent win considering it was on the road, but not nearly the win it would have been had Illinois come close to repeating their Rose Bowl year of 2007. Ended up finishing below .500 both overall and in conference play.
@ Purdue (WIN, 17-6): Finished 4-8, 2-6 Big Ten: Another win that really is diminished by the fact that Purdue was dreadful. Outside of a shootout victory over a terrible Michigan team at home, and a beatdown over the only team in the conference worse than them in Indiana, this team was pretty bad, and a team that gave up 48 points to Nortwestern the week before the Gophers, and 42 the week after.
NORTHWESTERN (Loss, 24-17): Finished 9-3, 5-3 Big Ten. It's losses like these that just tear your hair out. Minnesota should have won this game, and everyone at the stadium should testify to that, regardless of whether Decker gets hurt in the game. Northwestern had a good season, but got beat by 35 by Ohio State and gave Indiana their only Big Ten win of the season. We'll see what Missouri does to them before passing total judgment on NU, but this clearly should have been a Gopher victory, and wasn't.
MICHIGAN (Loss, 29-6): Finished 3-9, 2-6 in Big Ten. I'm sorry, but this team lost five in a row before playing the Gophers, and then lost their last two games following that game, and they absolutely manhandled the Gophers. Simply put, this was the worst Michigan team in 40 years, and they totally outplayed Minnesota. This might have been the worst loss of the season.
@ Wisconsin (Loss, 35-32): Finished 7-5, 3-5 Big Ten. Another game in which the Gophers snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The Gophers let a team that they had under their thumb roar back in the second half, courtesy of a terrible third quarter, for the victory. I'll give to you the fact that this game was on the road, but Wisconsin was an underachieving team this season, and the Gophers simply couldn't take advantage.
IOWA (Loss, 55-0): Finished 8-4, 5-3 in Big Ten. Seven yards rushing. Worst loss in 102 meetings between the two schools. Maybe not the worst loss on the season, considering Iowa was hitting their stride at the end of the year, but it was most definitely the most miserable. Not the way to close out the season.
This is not to rain on anybody's parade, or diminish the fact that the Gophers did win six more games than the year before. But to say it's the best story in college football this season? Puh-leeze. I'll take Rutgers any day, along with Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Texas Tech, Penn State, Michigan State, East Carolina, Tulsa, Buffalo, Ball State, Oregon State, Mississippi, and probably Northwestern.
We were a .500 team. We didn't do anything more than raise ourselves back to where we once were. It is by no means one of the great stories in college football history, and please don't patronize this team, which did do some great things, by over-hyping it to be something that it was clearly not.
