SB Nation Article - Wonderfully Chaotic Season



Read this article and get pumped as HE!! for the future, people!!! The lows were VERY low this year, but the highs were VERY high. Let's ignore the bad (like true fans) and focus on some fun quotes:

In a six-game sample in the regular season — games against New Mexico State, Miami (Ohio), and Indiana, plus games against good to excellent Fresno State, Purdue, and Wisconsin teams — Minnesota enjoyed an average percentile performance of 85 percent, or 4 percentage points ahead of what Oklahoma produced in 2018, 6 points ahead of Notre Dame. For a full season, an 85-percent rating would rank fourth in the country behind just Alabama, Clemson, and Georgia. The Gophers went 6-0 in those games.

The dominance was comprehensive. Minnesota averaged 7 yards per play to Tech’s 5.1 and outgained the Jackets by 109 yards despite taking just 56 snaps. With fans tuned in to watch the final go-round for Johnson’s vaunted spread option offense, they instead got a sustained glimpse at the Georgia side of Minnesota’s split personality — both Georgia and Minnesota beat the Jackets by exactly 24 points, in fact.

Just as Fleck did at WMU, he handed the depth chart to his own recruits as quickly as possible.
The payoff was inconsistent but undeniable. While the bad version of his squad was horrid, the good version was the best team in the Big Ten West.
 

Gophers Were One of Highest Upside, Lowest Downside Teams in College Football in 2018

Interesting quantitative analysis here on the Jekyll/Hyde-ness of the Gophers, which looks to be traced to two key factors: the overall youth of the team, and PJ's decision to replace Smith with Rossi after week 9. I really like the high upside for next year and beyond, especially as the young guys become veterans of B1G football.

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Interesting quantitative analysis here on the Jekyll/Hyde-ness of the Gophers, which looks to be traced to two key factors: the overall youth of the team, and PJ's decision to replace Smith with Rossi after week 9. I really like the high upside for next year and beyond, especially as the young guys become veterans of B1G football.

Coach Mase had a not so subtle dig on the BTN postgame show when they were looking ahead towards next year, pointing out that 50whatever percent were freshman which was something to the effect that "Next year PJ can't say they are the youngest team in the nation anymore".
 


We'll still be young next year.

On offense, we'll likely start 1 - 2 SRs and that assumes Brooks/Smith start (who knows?) and TJ comes back.

We will likely start two FR (Spann-Ford and Dunlap), 6 SO (Faalele, Andries, Bateman, Autman-Bell, Morgan, Ibrahim).

On defense we have some upperclassmen.
 


Am I understanding this right? This person found a percentile of some metric for each week for each team, and then found the mean of those percentiles for the gophers and calculated a SD? If so, that is not an appropriate way to aggregate data.
 

Thanks to the OP for this link. I liked this quote from the article:

"Just as Fleck did at WMU, he handed the depth chart to his own recruits as quickly as possible. The payoff was inconsistent but undeniable. While the bad version of his squad was horrid, the good version was the best team in the Big Ten West.".
 



Thanks to the OP for this link. I liked this quote from the article:

"Just as Fleck did at WMU, he handed the depth chart to his own recruits as quickly as possible. The payoff was inconsistent but undeniable. While the bad version of his squad was horrid, the good version was the best team in the Big Ten West.".

It's almost as if there was a race against time to get these young kids mature.
 

Coach Mase had a not so subtle dig on the BTN postgame show when they were looking ahead towards next year, pointing out that 50whatever percent were freshman which was something to the effect that "Next year PJ can't say they are the youngest team in the nation anymore".

What Fleck was saying was the truth. He had a team of youth who were going to make mistakes and not very strong in the beginning. I think he needed to remind people as everyone wanted them to be 2-4 year starters in a month or so. Mase should know better.
 

What Fleck was saying was the truth. He had a team of youth who were going to make mistakes and not very strong in the beginning. I think he needed to remind people as everyone wanted them to be 2-4 year starters in a month or so. Mase should know better.

Gophs will still be the youngest team in the Nation next year?
 

What Fleck was saying was the truth. He had a team of youth who were going to make mistakes and not very strong in the beginning. I think he needed to remind people as everyone wanted them to be 2-4 year starters in a month or so. Mase should know better.

Yes it was the truth, but Fleck did not need to repeat it at every pregame press conference, postgame press conference, sideline halftime interview, on field postgame interview, radio appearance, Gopher weekly TV appearance, BTN appearance, Axe Victory celebration...
 



Gophs will still be the youngest team in the Nation next year?

Probably not but I wouldn't call them a veteran team either. Still young. I'm sure someone will do the calculations to see where they fit.

https://247sports.com/college/minnesota/Season/2019-Football/ScholarshipDistribution/

Team looks to be pretty young, especially on the offensive side. I see 11 upperclassmen on offense with a lot being TE's.

QB (0)
RB (2) - Smith, Brooks
WR (1) - Johnson
TE (4) - Beebe, Witham, Kieft, Green
OL (4) - Schleuter, Dickson, Davis, Olson
 

Probably not but I wouldn't call them a veteran team either. Still young. I'm sure someone will do the calculations to see where they fit.

https://247sports.com/college/minnesota/Season/2019-Football/ScholarshipDistribution/

Team looks to be pretty young, especially on the offensive side. I see 11 upperclassmen on offense with a lot being TE's.

QB (0)
RB (2) - Smith, Brooks
WR (1) - Johnson
TE (4) - Beebe, Witham, Kieft, Green
OL (4) - Schleuter, Dickson, Davis, Olson

It is a hard argument to make returning 17 starters and having north of 60 players with two or more years in the program.
 

Coach Mase had a not so subtle dig on the BTN postgame show when they were looking ahead towards next year, pointing out that 50whatever percent were freshman which was something to the effect that "Next year PJ can't say they are the youngest team in the nation anymore".

He also said on KFAN today that the Gopher’s could win the West Division next year, especially with their cross over games being Rutgers, Maryland and PSU. With Maryland and PSU at home. And I don’t think that was dig by Mase, he was stating fact.
 

It is a hard argument to make returning 17 starters and having north of 60 players with two or more years in the program.

I'm not sure exactly what the argument is. You asked if the Gophers would be the youngest team in the nation next year. Not sure if this was tongue in cheek or sarcasm but I said likely no the Gophers would not be. However with the info I provided, I'd say they're still young especially on the offensive side. You countered with returning starters. I don't find those mutually exclusive. You can be a returning starter and still young. If you can't see the difference between a 4th/5th year player and a 2nd/3rd year then we're just not going to come to any agreement.

Again looking at your initial question if we'll still be young. I say yes, especially on offense. Let's look at potential starters.

QB - will be a Soph or potentially a true freshman (unlikely)
RB - could be a Senior but given the injury history of Brooks and now Smith could be a Soph (Ibrahim)
WR - Johnson may go pro but based on his twitter post sounds like he'll be back. So in a 3 WR set it will be 1 SR and 2 SO/FR
TE - no idea. I don't really pay attention to TE in this offense. Let's just say it's all SR
OL - Olson (JR), Faalale (SO), Dunlap (FR), Andries (SO) are pretty close to locks. Depending how things shake out could be Dickson (JR) or potentially Schmitz (SO?).

I count 6-9 starters on offense that will be either a freshmen or sophomores. Seems fairly young to me. If someone wants to do the analysis on other programs to see if that is average/normal I would appreciate it. At 1st glance, defense does seem to be more seasoned. Will take a look later.

I don't really see 2 years in the program to be 'old'. Ideally that player would be heading into their RS Soph season. If you count that as experienced, that's where we're going to agree to disagree.
 
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The B1G West will be interesting next year. Most teams return their core players and no coaching changes. Nebraska and Purdue are on the upswing. WI and Iowa will remain favored leaders of the West, and even Illinois is looking better. Something has to give somewhere. Should be an exciting 2019 and the Gophers are very much a part of it (sorry Indiana - you seem to be odd man out).
 

solid read.
Consistency is key and boy if we can achieve that, sky is the limit. I am bullish on this team for next year baby!
 




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