Cleveland Plain Dealer: A way-too-early BT football power ranking for 2018 (#13. MN)

BleedGopher

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
60,577
Reaction score
15,656
Points
113
per the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

13. Minnesota (5-7, 2-7)
P.J. Fleck has his work cut out for him after one of his two quarterbacks who played in 2017 graduated and the other transferred. The Gophers lost four of their final five games and scored just 20 points in those games. The good news for Minnesota is that top running back Rodney Smith (229 carries, 977 yards, three TDs) is set to return.

http://www.cleveland.com/osu/2018/01/a_way-too-early_big_ten_footba.html

Go Gophers!!
 

The fact that there will be a new quartback is a large reason for optimism for just about every Gopher fan.
 

The fact that there will be a new quartback is a large reason for optimism for just about every Gopher fan.
Just like last year?

My chili would be room temperature if 13th place happens. I'm not predicting a championship, but a bowl, any bowl should be a goal.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk
 

Below Rutgers??

Ouch, if the Gophers are 13th in the B1G next year that would be a huge disappointment and kill any momentum PJ has the program moving with right now

I don't think they will be great, but 6 wins has to be the floor. Can't miss Bowl season 2 years in a row. I don't expect any significant improvements until 2019 or even 2020
 

The fact that there will be a new quartback is a large reason for optimism for just about every Gopher fan.

Croft probably would have been ok with a better line and better receivers. It may take a bit for the O line to get going, but my reason for optimism is solely from the Oline. Lots of young talent and a couple transfers. And of course, our WR group might be our best in a decade or longer.
 


That seems fair.

We have all of one full season of PJ croots that are coming in just now and really all the question marks from last year are still question marks this year.
 

Right where every coach wants to be.
 


Right where every coach wants to be.

I truly believe it was PJ's goal and Jerry Kill's too. Prove to everybody how horrible the program is the first season so you can celebrate me when I win.
 



Below Rutgers??

Ouch, if the Gophers are 13th in the B1G next year that would be a huge disappointment and kill any momentum PJ has the program moving with right now

I don't think they will be great, but 6 wins has to be the floor. Can't miss Bowl season 2 years in a row. I don't expect any significant improvements until 2019 or even 2020

We were pretty much even with Rutgers this year. They won three conference games to our two, including wins over teams that beat us -- Purdue and that incredibly talented Maryland squad. They won at Illinois and we beat them at home. They did lose by 10 at Nebraska.
 

I truly believe it was PJ's goal and Jerry Kill's too. Prove to everybody how horrible the program is the first season so you can celebrate me when I win.

Alternately, they really did pick up programs that were no longer in great shape.
 

I'd be disappointed if we finished 13th.
 

per the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

13. Minnesota (5-7, 2-7)
P.J. Fleck has his work cut out for him after one of his two quarterbacks who played in 2017 graduated and the other transferred. The Gophers lost four of their final five games and scored just 20 points in those games. The good news for Minnesota is that top running back Rodney Smith (229 carries, 977 yards, three TDs) is set to return.

http://www.cleveland.com/osu/2018/01/a_way-too-early_big_ten_footba.html

Go Gophers!!

Well, you can't get much worse than that: 13th of 14 teams. But you can't blame them - 2017 was a dud. Gophers will do better next year.
 



That seems fair based on the 2017 season, however, we all know things change. You have your upper echelon teams such as Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan but there are a lot of teams bunched up in the middle such as Michigan State, Maryland, Northwestern, and Iowa. Purdue is on the upswing so that leaves Minnesota, Nebraska, Rutgers, Indiana and Illinois at the bottom of the league.

If they win their home games, they will have no problem going to a bowl. You gotta win those home games against Purdue, Indiana, Northwestern and Iowa.

With road games at Wisconsin, Nebraska and Ohio State, they need to find a way to beat Iowa at home.

With that said, you can't blame people for ranking Minnesota 13th based on what we saw in 2017. That's why they play the games and there are always surprise teams and disappointing teams.
 

Might have missed it but any word on Shannon Brooks? There was some speculation at season's end he might not be coming back.

Reacting to the last sentence in the piece about having Rodney Smith back.
 

Might have missed it but any word on Shannon Brooks? There was some speculation at season's end he might not be coming back.

Reacting to the last sentence in the piece about having Rodney Smith back.

This slob doesn’t have any inside information. He’s making an uneducated prediction based off stats and other public information.

I wouldn’t read into anything he include or didn’t include.
 

We will be very young next year and still installing a new culture. Rome wasn't built in a day.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Just like last year?

My chili would be room temperature if 13th place happens. I'm not predicting a championship, but a bowl, any bowl should be a goal.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

I don't remember a ton of optimism about the qb situation going into the year last year. I'll admit I thought the qb situation might be okay after the first couple games.
 

I don't remember a ton of optimism about the qb situation going into the year last year. I'll admit I thought the qb situation might be okay after the first couple games.

We were done with Leidner and going to a new QB.
There was much excitement on this board about moving on to something "better".
 


We were pretty much even with Rutgers this year. They won three conference games to our two, including wins over teams that beat us -- Purdue and that incredibly talented Maryland squad. They won at Illinois and we beat them at home. They did lose by 10 at Nebraska.

I'll tell you now, Maryland will be very good next year.

They still might lose all three against OSU, Mich, and PSU, but that team will be talented again probably with less QB injuries.
 

Yeah, that nine win season in 2016 sucked

It was embarrassing as a fan to see it on the news weekly.
If that had happened during 2017 during the #metoo movement, it would have drawn even more criticism.
 

Do we expect more from the Cleveland Plain Dealer? They are almost as negative about Gopher football and the TC media. The success of next year rides on QB performance and the ability of the coaching staff to identify talent and coach it up into their system. They need to get better at that.
 

I want to see them better at the end of the season than the beginning. This was the really only big disappointment for me regarding 2017. Even in Brew's '07 & for sure in Kill's '11 seasons, it seemed like you could see improvement. Don't know if injuries or other factors contributed to this past year, but it didn't that way in '17.

I'd like a bowl game like everyone else, but I'll take 5-7 if the team is on the upswing at the end of the season.
 

That seems fair based on the 2017 season, however, we all know things change. You have your upper echelon teams such as Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan but there are a lot of teams bunched up in the middle such as Michigan State, Maryland, Northwestern, and Iowa. Purdue is on the upswing so that leaves Minnesota, Nebraska, Rutgers, Indiana and Illinois at the bottom of the league.

If they win their home games, they will have no problem going to a bowl. You gotta win those home games against Purdue, Indiana, Northwestern and Iowa.

With road games at Wisconsin, Nebraska and Ohio State, they need to find a way to beat Iowa at home.

With that said, you can't blame people for ranking Minnesota 13th based on what we saw in 2017. That's why they play the games and there are always surprise teams and disappointing teams.

Qué? Maryland was one of the worst Power 5 teams in the nation last year. And the year before that, and the...

Their on field product will likely improve but they still have to actually prove it. Nebraska outrecruits WI handily but they haven’t looked it recently.
 

Yeah, that nine win season in 2016 sucked

I don't know if you noticed but we lost a QB and kinda sucked there....

Even in the Jerry years they had ups and downs.... I don't know why somehow the PJ years are supposed to only be better all the time.
 

#13.... Nice to be given consideration... Right in the "meaty" part of the top 25. Room to move up, or easily down and out.

--- edit... I now note that this is a B1G prediction only... so screw him.
 

Even in the Jerry years they had ups and downs

Not really. Yes, we did have the 6-7 anomaly in 2015, but that was against an absurdly difficult schedule. In the four years leading up to that, the overall record and conference record either maintained or improved every single year.
 

Not really. Yes, we did have the 6-7 anomaly in 2015, but that was against an absurdly difficult schedule. In the four years leading up to that, the overall record and conference record either maintained or improved every single year.

Like the struggles vs Kent St....?

Everyone has ups and downs... that year was one.
 

Like the struggles vs Kent St....?

Everyone has ups and downs... that year was one.

A. We beat Kent St.

B. We played 5 teams that were ranked at the time we played them, which doesn't include wisconsin, who finished the year at 21 after beating us and then USC in the Holiday Bowl.

C. We played 9 bowl teams.

D. By advanced statistics (F+, etc.), 2015 (I believe) was the best team of the Kill era, even better than 2014.
 




Top Bottom