BleedGopher
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per the Washington Post:
If you are less demented than some of us and follow college football only cursorily, you might have gone decades without noticing, let alone pondering, Minnesota. You might perceive Minnesota as only for Vikings, Twins, Karl-Anthony Towns or the bizarre collective noun “Wild.” It’s possible that the last time some force of personality drew your attention to the footballing Minnesota Golden Gophers, it was a 47-year-old Lou Holtz in 1984-85, a two-season run that also has gone largely, yes, forgotten.
Yet as the Big Ten celebrates a fourth straight season of mattering again nationally, and as Penn State has regained big relevance while Ohio State and Michigan have regained big bigness, and as Madison remains a place to be on any fall Saturday, and you wonder if Ohio State might avenge visiting Penn State on Oct. 28, and you wonder if Michigan might avenge visiting Ohio State on Nov. 25, do reserve a fraction of an eyeball for the goings-on at Minnesota, which opens its season Thursday against Buffalo. It should become a case study in the effects of one impossibly energetic, unusually charismatic human.
In a Big Ten West division era one might call establishmentarian and semi-sleepy, P.J. Fleck is the seventh non-interim Minnesota coach since Holtz went a commendable 10-12 before a Golden Dome sucked him to northern Indiana. Fleck is the third coach in three years for reasons unrelated to football at a program that has won frequently enough (14 bowl games in 18 seasons, a 37-28 record in the last five), even if it hasn’t snared your attention. He will not be 37 until late November. Even if you meet him at 7:30 on a May morning, as some dare do, your own blood flow might soon hasten.
He even instructs players on how they should walk around campus.
(Eyes open, heads up, communicative.)
His penchant for zest and slogans rings dauntingly familiar to some Minnesotans. Walk downtown to pay homage to the Mary Tyler Moore statue, strike up a conversation, state your reason for visiting town, and the first thing you might hear is doubt owing to Fleck’s alleged similarity to Tim Brewster. Minnesota hired Brewster in 2007. It fired him in 2010.
Such Golden Gophers fans have earned their wariness (no outright Big Ten title since 1941), but they also haven’t spotted at least two crucial differences. One is that Brewster, who went 15-30 and lost two Insight Bowls, arrived from the murky position of tight ends coach, Denver Broncos. Fleck arrives from having hauled Western Michigan from 1-11 in 2013 to 13-1 in 2016 and the New Year’s cream of 2017, with a non-embarrassing 24-16 loss to Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...b4e4bb76a3a_story.html?utm_term=.30fe9c6c4b3d
Go Gophers!!
If you are less demented than some of us and follow college football only cursorily, you might have gone decades without noticing, let alone pondering, Minnesota. You might perceive Minnesota as only for Vikings, Twins, Karl-Anthony Towns or the bizarre collective noun “Wild.” It’s possible that the last time some force of personality drew your attention to the footballing Minnesota Golden Gophers, it was a 47-year-old Lou Holtz in 1984-85, a two-season run that also has gone largely, yes, forgotten.
Yet as the Big Ten celebrates a fourth straight season of mattering again nationally, and as Penn State has regained big relevance while Ohio State and Michigan have regained big bigness, and as Madison remains a place to be on any fall Saturday, and you wonder if Ohio State might avenge visiting Penn State on Oct. 28, and you wonder if Michigan might avenge visiting Ohio State on Nov. 25, do reserve a fraction of an eyeball for the goings-on at Minnesota, which opens its season Thursday against Buffalo. It should become a case study in the effects of one impossibly energetic, unusually charismatic human.
In a Big Ten West division era one might call establishmentarian and semi-sleepy, P.J. Fleck is the seventh non-interim Minnesota coach since Holtz went a commendable 10-12 before a Golden Dome sucked him to northern Indiana. Fleck is the third coach in three years for reasons unrelated to football at a program that has won frequently enough (14 bowl games in 18 seasons, a 37-28 record in the last five), even if it hasn’t snared your attention. He will not be 37 until late November. Even if you meet him at 7:30 on a May morning, as some dare do, your own blood flow might soon hasten.
He even instructs players on how they should walk around campus.
(Eyes open, heads up, communicative.)
His penchant for zest and slogans rings dauntingly familiar to some Minnesotans. Walk downtown to pay homage to the Mary Tyler Moore statue, strike up a conversation, state your reason for visiting town, and the first thing you might hear is doubt owing to Fleck’s alleged similarity to Tim Brewster. Minnesota hired Brewster in 2007. It fired him in 2010.
Such Golden Gophers fans have earned their wariness (no outright Big Ten title since 1941), but they also haven’t spotted at least two crucial differences. One is that Brewster, who went 15-30 and lost two Insight Bowls, arrived from the murky position of tight ends coach, Denver Broncos. Fleck arrives from having hauled Western Michigan from 1-11 in 2013 to 13-1 in 2016 and the New Year’s cream of 2017, with a non-embarrassing 24-16 loss to Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...b4e4bb76a3a_story.html?utm_term=.30fe9c6c4b3d
Go Gophers!!
