Minneapolis Miracle Effect

Gold Rush

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Like all Gopher fans, I wasn't too happy with the result yesterday but the best thing to do is put it behind you and move on to Northwestern.
You can't dwell on it and then lose to Northwestern too -- then Iowa beats you TWICE! It is important to learn from your mistakes and get better though and there are a lot of things you can improve on for next week.

One word of advice -- do NOT take Northwestern for granted and think this will be an easy game. Every time we think Northwestern will be easy we end up losing and they can beat us if we are not playing hard. Play hard and get the boat headed in the right direction.

The biggest point I would like to make is teams historically have a tough time bouncing back from a huge emotional victory. Look at the Vikings after they beat New Orleans a couple years ago in the playoffs aka "The Minneapolis Miracle." We win -- everyone was jubilant and celebrating -- then the next week they came out flat and get pasted by Philadelphia. Our game with Penn St. was similar. It was a huge, emotional win and the fans stormed the field. Then they had to come down and play a tough Iowa team on the road. Like it or not, the team came out flat, especially the defense. We got down but keep in mind Iowa only scored 3 points in the second half. We played much better and almost STILL won it.

I am not sure how to combat the letdown after the big win. It's hard to just take it one game at a time and not get too high or too low. I think we will be just fine, especially if Tanner Morgan is ok to go. Let's just regroup and bounce back against Northwestern. Even though we lost to Iowa, I still like the direction this team and program are heading. We will be just fine!
 
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It's tough to climb a new mountain after seemingly scaling Mount Everest. I never bought claims the Gophers had let the win go to their heads. It seemed more like they had a hard time getting back to normal. Playing Northwestern in a normal game that lacks hype is just what the team needs after the last two weeks and before playing Wisconsin. If nothing else, the loss was a learning experience and wake up call.
 

It's tough to climb a new mountain after seemingly scaling Mount Everest. I never bought claims the Gophers had let the win go to their heads. It seemed more like they had a hard time getting back to normal. Playing Northwestern in a normal game that lacks hype is just what the team needs after the last two weeks and before playing Wisconsin. If nothing else, the loss was a learning experience and wake up call.

I will buy that. It was a tough spot for the Gophers. We did not play our best, we did things we haven't done all year and the kicking game left 4 points out there we should have had and needed. They made some big plays and they have a dangerous team - we needed our very best to beat them down there. I do not think we are that far off talent-wise and we may even be a better team from top to bottom. Gopher fans can take heart that this program is on the rise.
 

I read somewhere that NW beat us 66-0 in the last two meetings we played there.

Another week of anticipation and wonder how we’ll do coming up!
 

If Morgan is out for his game with a concussion, win NW having got some confidence, I fully expect this game to be reasonably close. Winning by “only” a TD would not surprise me.
 





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