Rankings after this week

Donate To GopherHole

PJ Fleck has never lost at Minnesota with a ranked team.
This is true.
 


mjfelton15 said:
Michigan hasn’t looked very Top 25-like either, but there they are at #20.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I thought Michigan was overrated at #20 last week, and still I think they would beat MN by a 7+ on a neutral field.
Minnesota is a solid team, but they are nowhere near a top 25 team.

The defense hasn't been playing at that level.
The special teams hasn't been playing at that level.
The o-line hasn't been playing at that level.

Having a good throw game makes Minnesota fun to watch.
It doesn't make them 'elite'.
 
Last edited:

hello-world said:
I thought Michigan was overrated at #20 last week, and still I think they would beat MN by a 7+ on a neutral field.
Minnesota is a solid team, but they are nowhere near a top 25 team.

The defense hasn't been playing at that level.
The special teams hasn't been playing at that level.
The o-line hasn't been playing at that level.

Having a good throw game makes Minnesota fun to watch.
It doesn't make them 'elite'.
Click to expand...

Teams ranked 21-25 are not elite and if you analyze them they have plenty of flaws. Look at the teams ranked 21-25 this week:

21. USC - lost handily to a good Washington team.
22. UCF - looked good this week but lost to a mediocre Pitt team last week.
23. Texas A&M - has 2 losses and barely squeaked by a bad Arkansas team this week.
24. Kansas St - has looked good but lost to Oklahoma St this week.
25. Michigan St - has been inconsistent this year with an unimpressive offense.

Would you consider any of these teams elite? All of these teams have flaws. The teams firing on all cylinders that are at least good or better in every aspect of the game are in the top 10-15.
 


matt said:
Teams ranked 21-25 are not elite and if you analyze them they have plenty of flaws. Look at the teams ranked 21-25 this week:

21. USC - lost handily to a good Washington team.
22. UCF - looked good this week but lost to a mediocre Pitt team last week.
23. Texas A&M - has 2 losses and barely squeaked by a bad Arkansas team this week.
24. Kansas St - has looked good but lost to Oklahoma St this week.
25. Michigan St - has been inconsistent this year with an unimpressive offense.

Would you consider any of these teams elite? All of these teams have flaws. The teams firing on all cylinders that are at least good or better in every aspect of the game are in the top 10-15.
Click to expand...

Very smart post!

In considering whether Minnesota could/should be ranked, the comparisons to make are between the Gophers vs. other teams ranked in the lower quadrant of the Top 25. It's not about whether or not the maroon and gold have flaws; obviously they do have flaws. It's about whether or not they are better than other ranked teams.
 

Gophers will be stuck on 5-10 votes again this week, even though most of the shaky undefeateds like Wake Forest have made the polls by now. If the Gophers continue to win by small margins against the teams on the coming schedule, it's possible this team could go 6-0 or 7-0 and not even be ranked.
 

Dean S said:
So, you're saying that this victory has an asterisk next to it because we didn't see the Purdue team as you would have liked to see. Okay. Bite me. The team kicked butt in passing and you blame it on injuries and the lack of the opposing starting qb.
Click to expand...

I agree with you, of course, but I think that is exactly the way the overwhelming majority of college football pundits and followers who didn't see the game will characterize the win.

Purdue's offense didn't stink in this game; 414 yards is not bad in a Big Ten game so they were reasonably effective. Those freshmen subs, particularly the RB and primary WR, played quite well. Purdue lost because they allowed 396 yards on 22 passing attempts (an 18 yard average per attempt). That clearly was the story of this game but few pundits/reporters watched this game and they will fall back on a superficial and most recognizable fact as the major point: Purdue played the game (mostly) without its top two offensive stars.
 

Win a couple more games and the votes will come. It's tough to get respect when the voters speculate that the Gophers are a "lucky" team. A beat down of Illinois would get some attention.
 



I'm fine with not being ranked until we beat a team like Penn St. With that said, you can only ignore an unbeaten Power 5 team so long.

I think we will be 25-30 this week.
 

fmlizard said:
Gophers will be stuck on 5-10 votes again this week, even though most of the shaky undefeateds like Wake Forest have made the polls by now. If the Gophers continue to win by small margins against the teams on the coming schedule, it's possible this team could go 6-0 or 7-0 and not even be ranked.
Click to expand...

I agree with your theme, but 6-0 would include a victory against Nebraska who may not be so great but still has some national cred because they are Nebraska. I'm guessing we would sneak in under those circumstances at 6-0. Now, if we lose to Nebraska or, God forbid, Illinois, we have hardly any chance of being ranked until we're 8-1 with a victory against PSU or 8-2 with a victory against Iowa.
 


#2Gopher said:
Not worthy yet for votes. If we keep rolling for Penn State we may crack it. Penn State is going to be a huge test for us. Did I say HUGE?
Click to expand...

IF the team 7-0 it will be top 15 maybe top 10
Usually about week 6 or 7 unbeaten power 5s start sliding up. That’s how USF was ranked number 2 once in the old big east days
 



Face The Facts said:
I'm fine with not being ranked until we beat a team like Penn St. With that said, you can only ignore an unbeaten Power 5 team so long.

I think we will be 25-30 this week.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If the final was 38-17 I think the gophers would’ve cracked the top 25
 


bleedsmaroonandgold said:
If Ohio State were 4-0 against our opponents with the same scores in those games, they would be top 10.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And if the gophers were preseason 10th they’d probably be like 12th right now even with playing the exact same games.
So much confirmation bias makes polls basically ridiculous
 







ESPN FPI predictor has us only losing 3 games now. Penn State, Iowa, and Wisconsin. We get two of those three games at home. I think we win one of the three for sure, and have a good shot at upsetting Penn State and Wisconsin here at home. But if we can even get the one win of 3 predicted losses, that’s a 10-2 record. I would be more than okay with that record


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Some guy said:
Agreed. If the final was 38-17 I think the gophers would’ve cracked the top 25
Click to expand...

Sure, but we can't just ignore their two touchdown drives at the end of the game that made the Minnesota defense look pretty bad.
If Minnesota beats Illinois by 7ish then they will crack the top 25 next week... because then ESPN can talk about Nebraska "getting back on track" all week long.
 
Last edited:



hello-world said:
Sure, but we can't just ignore their two touchdown drives at the end of the game that made the Minnesota defense look pretty bad.
If Minnesota wins by double digits against Illinois then they will crack the top 25 next week... because then ESPN can talk about Nebraska "getting back on track" all week long.
Click to expand...

When did I say you could ignore them?

Honestly rankings before mid October are dumb and purely for speculation purposes.

Going into the year I thought Minnesota was probably between 16-40 in the country. I still think that. Still too early to tell. If we win our next two, it’s closer to 16. If we lose one of the next two it is probably closer to 40. Still don’t know.
 


If this were College Basketball, The Gophers would probably be #1 due to our efficiency.

But significantly handicaped for our 3 and 4 quadrant games.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom