Reusse: Dreaming of future Gophers football glory: A Citrus Bowl victory

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BleedGopher

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per Pat:

Gophers fans (those few, those proud, those defensive) can dream of being as high as sixth in Big Ten recruiting some years. They can dream of a season when the West, the B division of the Big Ten, is filled with mediocrity and the Gophers win a tie-breaker to get to the conference championship game -- to get their chance to get whupped by Michigan, Ohio State or Michigan State.

The main problem here is simple: Deep in our souls, most hardcore sports consumers in the Twin Cities don’t really care if the Gophers are good, fair or poor.

That’s why 3,000 people show up for a spring game. That’s why tickets are easy to get in a small-sized Power Five stadium ... unless people from Nebraska, Iowa or Wisconsin are buying them up.

We’ve had good coaches give it a try here. Lou Holtz was a great coach and came and went after two years. Glen Mason was a good coach (remember, he didn’t have the advantage of a West Division) and couldn’t get over the hump. Jerry Kill was a good coach and was forced by health to leave in the middle of a fifth seaspn that was going backwards.

Tracy Claeys is a smart guy with a plan. He could be the coach to get the Gophers back to their mountain top – a return to the Citrus Bowl, and maybe this time, victory.

As Gophers football dreams go, that’s about it.

One outright title. One share. Since before Pearl Harbor.

http://www.startribune.com/dreaming...otball-glory-a-citrus-bowl-victory/376075281/

Go Gophers!!
 

Yeah, but if it wasn't for angry Gopher fans and trolls, Patrick wouldn't get many clicks at all.
 

why does everyone make a correlation of spring game attendance to the greatness of a program. is there anything more boring than a spring football scrimmage. 100,000 people to watch your teams defense play against your teams offense for 40 minutes. give me a break. In MN we have more things to do than they do in NE or WI. our school is located in a large Metro area that during the spring offers more for the people to do than to go and watch our team play each other. the Masters was on TV. It wasn't a nice day, but the crappi's were biting somewhere. I am soo sick and tired of being compared to the idiots from NE because they draw so big to their spring game. I guess if I lived in Omaha or Lincoln I would probably go too because they have nothing else to do. NOTHING!! I've been to a spring game, and I've been to a fall scrimmage where the kids got to run out onto the field and I have to say I've never been more bored in my life. Its spring!! I love the gophers, and i'll be there in the fall for 2-3 games, but I wont attend a spring game.
 

alwayswanted2bagopher said:
why does everyone make a correlation of spring game attendance to the greatness of a program. is there anything more boring than a spring football scrimmage. 100,000 people to watch your teams defense play against your teams offense for 40 minutes. give me a break. In MN we have more things to do than they do in NE or WI. our school is located in a large Metro area that during the spring offers more for the people to do than to go and watch our team play each other. the Masters was on TV. It wasn't a nice day, but the crappi's were biting somewhere. I am soo sick and tired of being compared to the idiots from NE because they draw so big to their spring game. I guess if I lived in Omaha or Lincoln I would probably go too because they have nothing else to do. NOTHING!! I've been to a spring game, and I've been to a fall scrimmage where the kids got to run out onto the field and I have to say I've never been more bored in my life. Its spring!! I love the gophers, and i'll be there in the fall for 2-3 games, but I wont attend a spring game.
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is this a real question?
 

Can't the same article be written about pretty much every team except the Twins and Gophers hockey?

Vikings: Have been around since the Kennedy administration and not one title. Only meaningful tradition is of losing the big one way back when Watergate was front page news.
Wild/ North Stars. No titles since being born in the Summer of Love. So bad that the state of hockey could not even keep the original North Stars, shipping them to that hockey hotbed of Dallas.
Timberwolves. No titles since their arrival in the late 1980s and awful since before Obama was a household name.
Gophers basketball. Well, you know the schtick.


I would argue that Gopher football has been more successful than the Wolves and maybe the Wild while being in clearly the most difficult position of any of the above as they receive no high draft picks, need a lot of players to succeed and a weak local talent base.

The only reason Reusse picks on the Gophers is because he wants a reaction from Gopher fans, usually succeeds too.
 


Because of Soupcan, I rarely read the STRIB and consequently did not read what Reusse wrote but for what got posted here. Although I’ve been a pretty big critic of Reusse in the past, it is hard to argue with what I see posted here from his article. Yes, he wants to get a rise out of the Gopher faithful but it has been frustrating as he!! to watch our degenerate neighbors to the east and south experience the type of success that has eluded us for decades (i.e., occasional trips to the Rose Bowl and several other New Year Day games during this same time span).

Regarding those who scoff at Nebraska fans and defend the low attendance at our spring game, it is true that there is more to life than some meaningless game. However, it is not just Nebraska with its’ endless cornfields that churns out big crowds for their spring games. I find it hard to swallow that fan attendance at several spring games exceeds the capacity of our stadium. The attendance at the Gopher spring game probably has less to do with other things going on that day and more to do with what has happened over the last 50-years on the Gopher gridiron. More troubling than spring game attendance is that we seldom reach capacity during the regular season.

I’m really hoping that Claeys is finally the answer. I do think that this year’s schedule tees up what will be at least an eight win season and a good chance for nine or more with a bowl victory. But until this happens, it will remain a few dedicated Gopher fans speaking the laurels of everything Gopher football. The reality around the water cooler at work is that most people don’t care about Gopher football and most who do talk about it ridicule the program.
 

Winnipegopher said:
Can't the same article be written about pretty much every team except the Twins and Gophers hockey?

Vikings: Have been around since the Kennedy administration and not one title. Only meaningful tradition is of losing the big one way back when Watergate was front page news.
Wild/ North Stars. No titles since being born in the Summer of Love. So bad that the state of hockey could not even keep the original North Stars, shipping them to that hockey hotbed of Dallas.
Timberwolves. No titles since their arrival in the late 1980s and awful since before Obama was a household name.
Gophers basketball. Well, you know the schtick.


I would argue that Gopher football has been more successful than the Wolves and maybe the Wild while being in clearly the most difficult position of any of the above as they receive no high draft picks, need a lot of players to succeed and a weak local talent base.

The only reason Reusse picks on the Gophers is because he wants a reaction from Gopher fans, usually succeeds too.
Click to expand...
The reason he picks on the gophers, is because he can. The Vikings are sacred... He knows picking on the Vikings will get him roasted by readers. Not to mention the trib has always subtlety (sometimes not so subtlety), had an agenda to keep the Vikings up & the Gophers down. The Timberwolves are BY FAR a way bigger laughing stock than the Gophers, but guess who owns the Star tribune AND the Timberwolves??... The Twins... Again, sacred. So who's left for the biggest, most curmudgeonly wind bag in Minnesota to pick on? Ah yes, U football! They can show all the character, determination & class in the world, but he doesn't care. He needs to show he's a "hard nosed, call it as I see it, good ol' boy from fulda" But alas, when you are the coward on the playground, the only way to seem tough is to find the one kid who can't or won't fight back & torment him mercilessly. So congratulations Pat, all you've conveyed with your article, is that you are a cowardly, click bait writer, with nothing to contribute but vitriol & negativity toward KIDS who are just playing for the love of the game, for free, for us, for YOU... So shame on you Pat, shame...

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 

MNGoldenGophers1 said:
Because of Soupcan, I rarely read the STRIB and consequently did not read what Reusse wrote but for what got posted here. Although I’ve been a pretty big critic of Reusse in the past, it is hard to argue with what I see posted here from his article. Yes, he wants to get a rise out of the Gopher faithful but it has been frustrating as he!! to watch our degenerate neighbors to the east and south experience the type of success that has eluded us for decades (i.e., occasional trips to the Rose Bowl and several other New Year Day games during this same time span).

Regarding those who scoff at Nebraska fans and defend the low attendance at our spring game, it is true that there is more to life than some meaningless game. However, it is not just Nebraska with its’ endless cornfields that churns out big crowds for their spring games. I find it hard to swallow that fan attendance at several spring games exceeds the capacity of our stadium. The attendance at the Gopher spring game probably has less to do with other things going on that day and more to do with what has happened over the last 50-years on the Gopher gridiron. More troubling than spring game attendance is that we seldom reach capacity during the regular season.

I’m really hoping that Claeys is finally the answer. I do think that this year’s schedule tees up what will be at least an eight win season and a good chance for nine or more with a bowl victory. But until this happens, it will remain a few dedicated Gopher fans speaking the laurels of everything Gopher football. The reality around the water cooler at work is that most people don’t care about Gopher football and most who do talk about it ridicule the program.
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I agree. However this has been written before, just in a different way. But he essentially says the same thing every time. The Gophers suck and no one cares.
 




A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I wouldn't mind going to the Citrus Bowl....
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No kidding, a game vs a top three SEC team,sign me up. I'd rather go to the Rose Bowl, but BWW Citrus Bowl isn't something to scoff at. What did we bring 25,000 fans to that game, gophs proved they will travel for a meaningful bowl game. Hell, we'd probably bring decent crowds to tampa, Jacksonville or san diego as well
 

bemidjigopher said:
No kidding, a game vs a top three SEC team,sign me up. I'd rather go to the Rose Bowl, but BWW Citrus Bowl isn't something to scoff at. What did we bring 25,000 fans to that game, gophs proved they will travel for a meaningful bowl game. Hell, we'd probably bring decent crowds to tampa, Jacksonville or san diego as well
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Yeah word has it there was a good crowd for the last citrus bowl. I'd like to go. San Diego is a way fun town.
 





It mostly comes down to in-state talent. There's 3 maybe 4 Big Ten caliber players in state in the class of 2017. Maybe a couple more kids have big senior years and blow up but that's where things stand right now. Until we have more classes with class of 2016 depth the program is going to be fairly middle of the pack. Think about if all the Minnesota kids that dedicate themselves to Hockey chose Football instead. Where is the level of talent in state then? A lot more goes into it than this article and the argument in general would suggest.

The talk about spring game attendance has always been silly. Go look at the USC spring game. The most storied program in CFB..you would think with the success they have had over the years and amount of people in LA they would be able to draw a bigger crowd than a Nebraska but they don't. Same is true with the Miami Hurricanes. In a lot of these college towns college sports events are THE thing to do that day and are talked about for weeks if not months. If the main campus and the stadium was in Mankato instead of the Twin Cities I don't think we are even having this discussion.
 

It really comes down to marketing. They need to build a plan and see it out around the program.
 

He writes the articles the way he does so people will discuss them in venues like this.
 


When the Gophers win more conference games than they lose.
When they win the West.
When the game day experience allows the students to drink a little and get rowdy.
When they fill the stadium no matter who is the opposition.
When they win a meaningful bowl game.
Then people can complain about the media for negative repoting.
Respect is earned not given to you.
 

Myke said:
It mostly comes down to in-state talent. There's 3 maybe 4 Big Ten caliber players in state in the class of 2017. Maybe a couple more kids have big senior years and blow up but that's where things stand right now. Until we have more classes with class of 2016 depth the program is going to be fairly middle of the pack. Think about if all the Minnesota kids that dedicate themselves to Hockey chose Football instead. Where is the level of talent in state then? A lot more goes into it than this article and the argument in general would suggest.

The talk about spring game attendance has always been silly. Go look at the USC spring game. The most storied program in CFB..you would think with the success they have had over the years and amount of people in LA they would be able to draw a bigger crowd than a Nebraska but they don't. Same is true with the Miami Hurricanes. In a lot of these college towns college sports events are THE thing to do that day and are talked about for weeks if not months. If the main campus and the stadium was in Mankato instead of the Twin Cities I don't think we are even having this discussion.
Click to expand...

Speaking as a USC alum who has a lot of Gophers in his family, any comparison between UM and USC is flawed. There really wasn't a USC spring "game," just a scrimmage. USC fans aren't going to show up for that. But we will show up -- 90,000 strong -- once the season starts. The difference this writer is talking about is based on winning. USC wins. Minnesota hasn't. Yet.
 

Trojan-enz said:
Speaking as a USC alum who has a lot of Gophers in his family, any comparison between UM and USC is flawed. There really wasn't a USC spring "game," just a scrimmage. USC fans aren't going to show up for that. But we will show up -- 90,000 strong -- once the season starts. The difference this writer is talking about is based on winning. USC wins. Minnesota hasn't. Yet.
Click to expand...

Aren't all spring games basically just scrimmages? Ours was no different. If our metro area was as big as LA I bet we would have drawn 90,000 a game last year (assuming the stadium was bigger). Not to mention we had an NFL team to compete against and LA didn't.
 

Go4 said:
pat is a hack.
Click to expand...

This is one of the weakest trolling efforts I've ever seen from Pat. He really just mailed this one in.
 

olddoc said:
When the Gophers win more conference games than they lose.
Click to expand...

So...2 seasons ago?

olddoc said:
When the game day experience allows the students to drink a little and get rowdy.
Click to expand...

So...every game?

olddoc said:
When they fill the stadium no matter who is the opposition.
Click to expand...

So...like last year against Ohio?

olddoc said:
When they win a meaningful bowl game.
Click to expand...

Unless you're playing in the playoffs, every bowl game is as "meaningful" as the next.

olddoc said:
Then people can complain about the media for negative repoting.
Click to expand...

Why do they have to repot negative things? No one's making them do it. Negative repoting isn't inherently any more objective than positive repoting.

olddoc said:
Respect is earned not given to you.
Click to expand...

Who besides you said anything about respect?
 


olddoc said:
When the game day experience allows the students to drink a little and get rowdy.
Click to expand...

Having spent the last season in the student section - they are all doing that already.
 

Myke said:
It mostly comes down to in-state talent. There's 3 maybe 4 Big Ten caliber players in state in the class of 2017. Maybe a couple more kids have big senior years and blow up but that's where things stand right now. Until we have more classes with class of 2016 depth the program is going to be fairly middle of the pack. Think about if all the Minnesota kids that dedicate themselves to Hockey chose Football instead. Where is the level of talent in state then? A lot more goes into it than this article and the argument in general would suggest.

The talk about spring game attendance has always been silly. Go look at the USC spring game. The most storied program in CFB..you would think with the success they have had over the years and amount of people in LA they would be able to draw a bigger crowd than a Nebraska but they don't. Same is true with the Miami Hurricanes. In a lot of these college towns college sports events are THE thing to do that day and are talked about for weeks if not months. If the main campus and the stadium was in Mankato instead of the Twin Cities I don't think we are even having this discussion.
Click to expand...

It takes a special reason and a bit of strategic planning to drive anywhere in greater LA. Not quite the storming of Normandy type planning, but close. Check the time, check the traffic, tune to 1070 or XM and pray no sig alerts. Plan B? check. What if that route is down a lane? Plan C? Necessary gas to make it through the shadier parts of South Central? Foodstuffs? Water? Cell phone charger?The drivers are so jaded and burned out that 55 inch looks mighty enticing. No such problems in Omaha.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
It takes a special reason and a bit of strategic planning to drive anywhere in greater LA. Not quite the storming of Normandy type planning, but close. Check the time, check the traffic, tune to 1070 or XM and pray no sig alerts. Plan B? check. What if that route is down a lane? Plan C? Necessary gas to make it through the shadier parts of South Central? Foodstuffs? Water? Cell phone charger?The drivers are so jaded and burned out that 55 inch looks mighty enticing. No such problems in Omaha.
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That's exactly my point. It wasn't meant as a personal attack on SC or it's fans just an example. No way Minneapolis traffic compares even close to LA traffic on a Saturday afternoon but poor attendance for college scrimmages or in a lot of cases games in big cities isn't uncommon for a lot of the reasons you pointed out. Same is probably true at a school like Pittsburgh or UCLA for example.
 

olddoc said:
When the Gophers win more conference games than they lose.
When they win the West.
When the game day experience allows the students to drink a little and get rowdy.
When they fill the stadium no matter who is the opposition.
When they win a meaningful bowl game.
Then people can complain about the media for negative repoting.
Respect is earned not given to you.
Click to expand...

It's April.
 

I don't sit and dream of a Gopher victory in the Citrus Bowl, but, hell yes, I'd take it in a heartbeat. So would just about everyone else. Once we get that, we'll start having bigger dreams. So what's the point? "I really should write something, but I don't want to get off my fat ass."
 

Mulligan said:
I don't sit and dream of a Gopher victory in the Citrus Bowl, but, hell yes, I'd take it in a heartbeat. So would just about everyone else. Once we get that, we'll start having bigger dreams. So what's the point? "I really should write something, but I don't want to get off my fat ass."
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure his work is scripted now.
 

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