Knowing what you know right now, how will the team fare in 2018? (Poll)

Knowing what you know right now, how will the team fare in 2018?

  • Total voters
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The Gophers are poised for the future. At least that is the hope with the aggressive recruiting.

I hope we escape the injury bug. Seeing Nick Connelly end his career is gut wrenching.

Our PWOs appear to be decent quality that will hopefully help with team depth and help insulate us with devastating injuries at the inopportune times.
 

Sparlimb said:
After this year, I see that as a positive. We've had some horrific play at QB. Had you said same QB, I'd be much more bearish on next season.
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A new QB will not stop the opposing defense from rushing through a sieve OL.
 

MennoSota said:
A new QB will not stop the opposing defense from rushing through a sieve OL.
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Well, if we still run the wildcat that leaves our QB as the lead blocker, he very well could.


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Planning on 3 and 9. The team needs to grow as men, before they can become winners as men.
 

P.J. Fleck said:
Planning on 3 and 9. The team needs to grow as men, before they can become winners as men.
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OMG it’s PJ

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Build the Gopher football team the right way, and the program success will be long lasting. Don't take any short cuts. It will get you in trouble.

All we have to do is look at what Wisconsin has done since the Barry Alvarez era in 1990.
 

hungan1 said:
Build the Gopher football team the right way, and the program success will be long lasting. Don't take any short cuts. It will get you in trouble.

All we have to do is look at what Wisconsin has done since the Barry Alvarez era in 1990.
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Except when we go unbeaten, we'll need to win our game against OSU.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I voted 7 but honestly I have no idea. A lot will come down to QB play.
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In a similar boat, I went with 6 but it really is going to come down to what kind of play we get from the QB position. Could see the total going higher or lower depending on what we get from our new QBs and WRs
 

My original estimation is 7 +/- 2 wins. I'd consider changing it to 6 wins +/- 3 wins. The team is undergoing phased transitions. They will have a revamp look and need to learn to form cohesive playing units under the new system.

I will be very satisfied with a 2018 recruiting ranking of sixth to eighth in the B1G as long as we are on par or better than Wiscy.

The PJ Fleck system is in place. It is all about recruiting the right pieces from here on.

Starting with the Michigan game, it was very obvious how much we were outmatched by Michigan, Northwestern, and Wisconsin regardless of depth issues. The Gophers simply ran out of gas towards the end of the season.

We need to close the talent gap!

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's the determination and commitment to unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek." Mario Andretti
 



Pompous Elitist said:
OMG it’s PJ

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That meme/GIF is hilarious!
 

I put down 4-8 and am in the boat, but my expectation is on 2019 where I expect to go 8-4. A couple of points.

1) We lose some talented defensive tackles who have been major contributors. I see some strong running games coming to town. If you cannot control the line of scrimmage in the Big 10, you cannot win games.
2) We struggle at QB, which coupled with younger receivers means the emphasis gets to running the ball which gets us to 3.
3) Who is going to start at guard? We started 2 JC players for 2 years and neither of them were worth a darn, which leads me to believe the reserves are much worse. It is shocking we have this poor of offensive line play over such an extended period.

Basically, we lose the battle at the line of scrimmage against all the Big 10 except Illinois and perhaps Nebraska. 2-7 Big Ten. I also think we lose a sqeaker to Fresno State. If Jeff Brohm leaves, I change my pick to 5 wins and 3-6 in the Big 10 as I think we beat Purdue.
 

Looking at the schedule, it should be 7 or 8.

It will probably end up being 5 or 6. Because culture.
 

http://www.fbschedules.com/ncaa-18/2018-minnesota-golden-gophers-football-schedule.php

NM State - should win
Fresno State - I give this a 50/50, unfortunately
Miami Ohio - should win
-BYE-
at Maryland - 50/50
Iowa - given how well we played them this year, in Iowa City, I'm going to go 50/50. Would be nice to win this one, to have something to hang 2018 hat on
at Ohio State - should lose
at Nebraska - going 50/50 on this one. We brutalized them this year at home, they will be out for blood and could be energized by the new coach
Indiana - should win (I hope!)
at Illinois - should win, but road wins are tougher
Purdue - would like to win this one, but going 50/50 like Maryland
NW - would love to pay them back, but I don't know at this point (by this late in the season, anything can happen, in either direction)
at Wisc - again would love to win, but don't think they're quite ready


Wins are: NM St, MOH, Indiana, Illinois, and hopefully at least one of Fresno/Maryland/Iowa/Purdue. So could be as high as 6 and 6, more likely 5 and 7, but 4 and 8 would also not surprise me.

All three are acceptable for year 2 of a four year rebuilding job. Year 3 is where we need to expect 7,8 maybe 9 wins.
 



When you look at the Sagarin ratings from 2017, it basically had wins against NM State, MOH and Illinois with toss ups against Maryland, Purdue, Fresno, Indiana, Nebraska and losses against Iowa, Ohio State and Northwestern If we can pull out 2 of those games, we have shot. The good news is that 3 of the toss ups are at home.
 

Complete off-the-cuff and way-too-early game rankings:

Should win:
NMSU
Fresno
Miami
at Illinois

Toss-ups:
at Maryland
at Nebraska
Indiana
Purdue
Northwestern

Likely losses:
Iowa
at Ohio State
at Wisconsin

I'll hedge and say 6-6, we sweep the should wins and go 2-3 in the toss-up games.

The good news about those is we have the majority of them at home. The potential bad news is that Maryland and Purdue seem to be on upward trajectories, Nebraska is a wildcard with Frost coming in, and Northwestern beat us 39-0 this year.

Competent QB play might push us to 3-2 (7 wins) in those games. Very good/exceptional QB play we might get to 4-1 (8 wins) and have a chance at stealing one of the likely losses (most likely against Iowa). A lot riding on how Viramontes (or others) can do.
 

Fresno is a should win??

They have Cal's old HC at the helm and won 9 games this year (could be 10 with a bowl win). They beat Boise in Fresno in the last regular season game, but couldn't turn around and beat them again in Boise for the conference championship.


I don't think that one will be anything close to a should win ...
 

MnplsGopher said:
Fresno is a should win??

They have Cal's old HC at the helm and won 9 games this year (could be 10 with a bowl win). They beat Boise in Fresno in the last regular season game, but couldn't turn around and beat them again in Boise for the conference championship.


I don't think that one will be anything close to a should win ...
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Admittedly I haven't watched all their games but seems they started hot this year in conference and struggled down the stretch, outside of the Boise game @ Fresno. Wins 13-7 over Wyoming (7-5), 20-13 over BYU (4-9), 31-21 over Hawaii (3-9) and a loss to UNLV (5-7). Of course, 3-1 is 3-1, they won many of the games they should have won, but the games weren't dominating by any stretch.

I'm probably putting too much stock in the fact they have fared very poorly against P5 competition in recent years, as well as putting too much faith in our improvement curve next year and home field advantage. But right now I view it similar to how I viewed the MTSU game at the start of this year.
 

I'll say 6. It's really hard to guess without having seen our QB in action. I'm expecting that Vic is going to be at least a slight upgrade over what we had this year, though it's not fair to expect him to put the team on his back and carry us to 8+ wins.

Schedule is a little tougher. Some of the redshirts from this past year should be able to contribute. Getting Winfield back will help a ton.
 

Gopher07 said:
Admittedly I haven't watched all their games but seems they started hot this year in conference and struggled down the stretch, outside of the Boise game @ Fresno. Wins 13-7 over Wyoming (7-5), 20-13 over BYU (4-9), 31-21 over Hawaii (3-9) and a loss to UNLV (5-7). Of course, 3-1 is 3-1, they won many of the games they should have won, but the games weren't dominating by any stretch.

I'm probably putting too much stock in the fact they have fared very poorly against P5 competition in recent years, as well as putting too much faith in our improvement curve next year and home field advantage. But right now I view it similar to how I viewed the MTSU game at the start of this year.
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Fair enough, good analysis
 


8 regular season wins + a bowl win. I got 9.
 

Stop deleting your post, and then posting the exact same thing, to bump the thread ...
 

MnplsGopher said:
Stop deleting your post, and then posting the exact same thing, to bump the thread ...
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I just wanted to capture this before you figure out what is happening.


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I almost went with 5 wins, but chose 6 regular season wins, because I think Fleck will do what it takes to get to a bowl game this year.

My concerns are breaking in a new QB and I think Vic is good for what we need right now (experience, big, strong, fairly fast and a good spiral (lol)). The offensive line is still being rebuilt and hopefully we'll have more depth and time for them to gel before the B1G season. Losing Richardson on the d-line will be a huge hole to fill. Wide receivers should be better, but they need to prove it on the field.
 

6, with a reasonable range of 4-9 wins. Mostly depends on how the QB position goes, injuries, and luck in close games.
 

MnplsGopher said:
Stop deleting your post, and then posting the exact same thing, to bump the thread ...
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1dg37s.jpg
 

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