What a difference 12 games make...

csom_1991

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I am not a huge Fleck fan still - however, he is winning me over. I think it is still too early to make a judgment call on this team - I could see us running the table and I could see us dropping a game to Rutger where we are favored by nearly 30 and imploding. Mainly, this is due to the early season struggles - W's, but in less than impressive fashion. Maybe it is too many seasons of "Mason scheduling" where we win early and lose out the rest of the year.

So, I am less being won over by the record and more by the week to week improvement. That is such a refreshing change from prior years were we limped to the finish line dreading the games vs. WI. WI will be a huge challenge if they keep rolling, but the way Fleck has the guys playing now is impressive. I watched the Frost post-game presser - he was clearly disappointed by the way his team was pushed around on the line. Fleck is winning by lining up and over powering the other side, not be gimmicks. I never thought we would have the talent to do that. Frost basically said we ran the same plays over and over and those were the same plays that they schemed against - but they couldn't stop them. I love to hear that.

Nothing would make me happier than to see a Rose Bowl in my lifetime and to be able to admit I was 100% wrong on Fleck. He is getting us much closer to that goal - and much faster than I ever thought he would be able to turn it around. Literally midway through last season I was ready to throw the towel on him him as a coach - now, he looks like a genius. But, I think he ability as a coach will really be tested this week - how the team comes out and performs will say a lot.
 

To me the big difference is that we are consistently beating our peers in conference games.
 

I am not a huge Fleck fan still - however, he is winning me over. I think it is still too early to make a judgment call on this team - I could see us running the table and I could see us dropping a game to Rutger where we are favored by nearly 30 and imploding. Mainly, this is due to the early season struggles - W's, but in less than impressive fashion. Maybe it is too many seasons of "Mason scheduling" where we win early and lose out the rest of the year.

So, I am less being won over by the record and more by the week to week improvement. That is such a refreshing change from prior years were we limped to the finish line dreading the games vs. WI. WI will be a huge challenge if they keep rolling, but the way Fleck has the guys playing now is impressive. I watched the Frost post-game presser - he was clearly disappointed by the way his team was pushed around on the line. Fleck is winning by lining up and over powering the other side, not be gimmicks. I never thought we would have the talent to do that. Frost basically said we ran the same plays over and over and those were the same plays that they schemed against - but they couldn't stop them. I love to hear that.

Nothing would make me happier than to see a Rose Bowl in my lifetime and to be able to admit I was 100% wrong on Fleck. He is getting us much closer to that goal - and much faster than I ever thought he would be able to turn it around. Literally midway through last season I was ready to throw the towel on him him as a coach - now, he looks like a genius. But, I think he ability as a coach will really be tested this week - how the team comes out and performs will say a lot.

I cannot see us losing to Rutgers.
 


due to the early season struggles

If you really look into it, the early season struggles are explainable and not nearly as bad as everyone is making it.

SDSU - first game of year, jitters, a few issues, SDSU is pretty good and if they play well would beat half of Big Ten teams on a given day

Fresno State - road game, pick 'em game to begin with vs. a quality team, Gophers dominating game early 14-3 about to get ball back until terrible penalty and then in a dog fight, made plays to win a tough road game in a tough environment, over half of Big Ten teams could lose at Fresno State

Georgia Southern - total fluke to nearly lose this game, Gophers controlled the game, held the ball for 15 min more than Eagles, Gophers ran 72 plays to Eagles 42 plays, Gophers held GA Southern to under 200 yards, GA Southern's four touchdowns were - blocked FG return, sack/fumble return, 21 yard drive after a lost fumble, 34 yard drive after a terrible coaching decision to go for is on 4th and short leading 14-3 late in 2nd quarter. GA Southern had 12 first downs in the entire game. Its one thing to get a FG blocked and lose a fumble on a sack, but to have them BOTH returned for TDs is a rarity that would have made this a bad, fluky, horrible loss. Gophers deserved to win and luckily did. But, if you analyze the game, Gophers were clearly the better team and when determining how good this team is, look at the analytics, not the fluky score

Purdue - I don't care what anyone says, this was for all intents and purposes a blowout, weird late game finish made it closer than it should have been, anyone who says this could easily have been a loss doesn't understand how unlikely it would have been to lose that game leading by 21 points to start the 4th quarter

Illinois - complete domination, defense allowed no TDs

Nebraska - complete domination
 


I cannot see us losing to Rutgers.

No way we should. But then again giving up 55 to Illinois last year was something no one saw coming.

I’m pretty sure Georgia was certain they’d beat South Carolina on Saturday, too.

The reason I prefer college football is that anything can happen.


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No way we should. But then again giving up 55 to Illinois last year was something no one saw coming.

I’m pretty sure Georgia was certain they’d beat South Carolina on Saturday, too.

The reason I prefer college football is that anything can happen.

I get a little of what you're saying, but the situations aren't comparable. Illinois in 2018 was not even mediocre, but they did win 4 games - and we were playing poorly in general at the time under Robb Smith. South Carolina is a decent team and is on track to make a bowl appearance for the 4th straight season. Georgia is better than us, to be sure, but South Carolina is way, way, way better than Rutgers.

As far as anyone can tell, this might be the biggest spread in our favor in a Big Ten game, ever. Make no mistake - it would be historically bad if we lost, particularly given that we're coming in hot and ranked #20 in the country.
 

I get a little of what you're saying, but the situations aren't comparable. Illinois in 2018 was not even mediocre, but they did win 4 games - and we were playing poorly in general at the time under Robb Smith. South Carolina is a decent team and is on track to make a bowl appearance for the 4th straight season. Georgia is better than us, to be sure, but South Carolina is way, way, way better than Rutgers.

As far as anyone can tell, this might be the biggest spread in our favor in a Big Ten game, ever. Make no mistake - it would be historically bad if we lost, particularly given that we're coming in hot and ranked #20 in the country.

Indeed, it would be a horrific loss.

Rutgers has been outscored 165-7 in four Big Ten games.

There's a case to be made the Scarlet Knights are the worst team in Big Ten history.

One of their beat writers in fact made that case in his postgame column on Saturday.

As an aside, South Carolina was 3-3 and a 20-pt road underdog. Rutgers is 1-5 and a 30-pt home underdog.
 




To channel Wren... "It's all about the Big 10 wins." Nothing else matters.

3-0 in Big Ten games this year
4-0 last four Big Ten games overall
5-1 in last six Big Ten games overall
6-2 in last eight Big Ten games overall
 

Think about the worst Minnesota team you can remember..........I'll wait, go ahead........Rutgers is worse than that!

Our early struggles were greatly do to sporadic offensive line play and inconsistent running back play. Having Rodney and Shannon at full strength are complete game changers as they are now running symbiotically with the offensive blocking schemes.

When called to action against GA Southern, Bryce Williams looked terrible as he missed some holes and seemed to run up the OL's back all game.

What Rodney has done the last few games is an art form. Bouncing those seemingly mundane runs to the outside or against the flow of the line resulted in big gains. I had forgotten just how goos he was!

Gophers will win the next two games to get to 8-0. Looking forward, our Gophers can play with anybody still on the schedule. They might win all four games and finish 12-0 or they may lose all four and finish 8-4, (probably end up somewhere in between) but this is a different Gopher team. They will be ready to play every week.

I am so enjoying this ride I am just giddy about the future of Minnesota football.
 

Rutgers is a dumpster fire. I would be surprised if the Gophers don’t cover the spread. I would have said blowout even before seeing the Nebraska game (which I thought we would only win by a field goal).
 




One game at a time, and every game is a championship game.

We can't take anyone for granted - Rutgers or Maryland.
 

One game at a time, and every game is a championship game.

We can't take anyone for granted - Rutgers or Maryland.

I'm taking Rutgers for granted and I am telling everyone I know to take them for granted. You can't stop me.
 

Hope they can just win one game at a time. At the end of the year no one cares how you won, just if you won.
 

To me the big difference is that we are consistently beating our peers in conference games.

Yeah, Minnesota has risen to the Best of the Rest level. Northwestern was the incumbent there. That's meaningful and will yield a bunch of 7-9 win seasons. Now it's time to get that monster win and join the big boys.
 




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