2024 Gopher Football is a watershed moment.

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This is why if we get to a premier league something like 54-58 teams that Minnesota can be placed in Tier 2. Relegation and promotion between tiers, say every four years.

We can realistically compete for the T2 championship against the Oregon State, K-State, Kansas, Vandy, Miss State, Rutgers, Syracuses of the world.
 

MplsGopher said:
This is why if we get to a premier league something like 54-58 teams that Minnesota can be placed in Tier 2. Relegation and promotion between tiers, say every four years.

We can realistically compete for the T2 championship against the Oregon State, K-State, Kansas, Vandy, Miss State, Rutgers, Syracuses of the world.
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I mean, I don't think we would want to be a bubble team with relegation... constantly swapping between winning tier 2 championships and being promoted to then lose our and get relegated?
 

disco said:
Exactly. A lot of schools are in the same position. Not just in the B1G. We have USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington coming in. But the SEC has Texas and Oklahoma coming in too. If I'm a fan of Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi State, I'm probably going to feel the same as a fan of Minnesota, Purdue, Indiana, Rutgers, Maryland and even Iowa, MSU and Wisconsin.

The one thing that keeps popping into my mind is the implosion of the old WAC in 1999 when the conference got too large, and the MWC was formed.
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The old WAC’s implosion? Howmuch income did the ol’ WAC generate for conference member schools? The B1G and SEC pay their members pretty well. $$$ is more cohesive than most bonds that hold conferences together.
 
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TwistingMyMelon said:
Another great example of that: 247 still lists our highest ever prep recruit as running back Jeff Jones, class of 2014 from Washburn HS. He's best known for his inability to stay academically eligible here, then getting kicked off his junior college team, and his eventual arrest on felony drug charges.
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From that recruiting page, he was a program-transforming kind of player, and had we lost him to a decommittment or transfer portal, the usual suspects would be on here lamenting the total shittiness and demise of our football program.

Flunked out of here. Basically screwed up JUCO and ended up in jail. Guy has Michigan State written all over him - those are the kinds of players they want!!
 

swelna said:
I mean, I don't think we would want to be a bubble team with relegation... constantly swapping between winning tier 2 championships and being promoted to then lose our and get relegated?
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I’d take it over being stuck at the bottom of T1
 


walrus said:
Re: michigan, tOSU, Bama, FSU, et al are so fun when they lose. Don’t you just love it!!!
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We get it. You're a typical happy go lucky Minnesota sports fan.

"Oh shucks, the guys played their hearts out. Moral victory. Get em next time boys."

I stress again. This is big business and big time entertainment. The name of the game is winning, and is increasingly how much a team can pay to do so. I could not care less about the old timey attitudes of the threadbare sweater wearing Washburn-McReavy crowd.
 

DarthGopher said:
From that recruiting page, he was a program-transforming kind of player, and had we lost him to a decommittment or transfer portal, the usual suspects would be on here lamenting the total shittiness and demise of our football program.

Flunked out of here. Basically screwed up JUCO and ended up in jail. Guy has Michigan State written all over him - those are the kinds of players they want!!
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A lot of schools would have found a way to keep him eligible. He ain't there to play school.
 

I believe you are exactly who you say you are, how you say you are and what you value in life. That we share in common. I am also who I say I am, how I say I am and what I value in my life.

You talk like big money is the only thing that will be able to hold a fan's interest in Gopher football. I don't know what your age is disco, or how long you have been a Gopher football fan and I don't know how much money you have to give the Gopher football program

What I fear for you is that your inability to tolerate we old, long time average fans with laid back attitudes about Gopher football will explode in your critical, hard-driving, demanding mind and you will either give up Gopher game day fun or just give up and become a die-hard Michigan or tOSU or Alabama or Georgia fan.

disco: Show Gopher football the money and get it done so Gopher football can become a REAL contender for what ever it is you want it to contend for. Or, are you like every other hard driving person demanding a winner who always seems to expect someone else to come up with the money to make the Gopher football program a power and contender for that your big time entertainment value only a really big winner will provide you The poor ol' Minnesota fans who never demanded enough and stayed on as fans for decade after decade stick around just because they realize things don't happen just because a few fans think things should happen...

disco said:
"Oh shucks, the guys played their hearts out. Moral victory. Get em next time boys."

I stress again. This is big business and big time entertainment. The name of the game is winning, and is increasingly how much a team can pay to do so. I could not care less about the old timey attitudes of the threadbare sweater wearing Washburn-McReavy crowd.
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walrus said:
I believe you are exactly who you say you are, how you say you are and what you value in life. That we share in common. I am also who I say I am, how I say I am and what I value in my life.

You talk like big money is the only thing that will be able to hold a fan's interest in Gopher football. I don't know what your age is disco, or how long you have been a Gopher football fan and I don't know how much money you have to give the Gopher football program

What I fear for you is that your inability to tolerate we old, long time average fans with laid back attitudes about Gopher football will explode in your critical, hard-driving, demanding mind and you will either give up Gopher game day fun or just give up and become a die-hard Michigan or tOSU or Alabama or Georgia fan.

disco: Show Gopher football the money and get it done so Gopher football can become a REAL contender for what ever it is you want it to contend for. Or, are you like every other hard driving person demanding a winner who always seems to expect someone else to come up with the money to make the Gopher football program a power and contender for that your big time entertainment value only a really big winner will provide you The poor ol' Minnesota fans who never demanded enough and stayed on as fans for decade after decade stick around just because they realize things don't happen just because a few fans think things should happen...
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Typical word salad from Wren. Try using some punctuation.

If you must know, I'm 50. The first season I really remember following Gopher football was the disastrous season that got Joe Salem fired. For some reason, I've remained a Gopher football fan all these years. I suppose its because the Gophers were the first team I ever saw in person, and we had season tickets in the Holtz/Guety/Wacker era.

My NFL fandom is with Seattle - I was equally a Seahawks and Vikings fan growing up, but after 41-donut, I swore off Vikings fandom for good. I suffered two Super Bowl losses by my Seahawks, but at least I got to see my team win the big one once, and I'll always have that memory. I literally laughed joyfully at Vikings fans when Blair Walsh went wide right against the Seahawks at TCF Bank in that subzero playoff game.

I don't have any experience with the Gophers other than "what could have been." I'd like to see something different once in my life from this team. When a team like Washington - a flagship school in a very similar size urban area, in a very similar state in terms of political orientation, can win a natty in my lifetime, and this year make the CFP, why can't we?

How about instead of appeasing the geezers who have accepted mediocrity for decades, and accepted things like taking down the final four banners because "gee shucks, we shouldn't have cheated" (never mind that in most markets, this would have been swept under the rug) this school committed itself to winning at all costs like Michigan, tOSU, Bama, etc.? Sure would be a lot more fun, wouldn't it?
 
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The U of Wash comparison to the U of Minn is very misleading. It’s really not a good comparison.

Institutionally very similar.

Football situation has been significantly different.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
This was talked about on the radio yesterday.

The College football expectation is .750 or better on the season. or 9-3 to 12-0. That's 6-2 or 7-2 in a conference games.

In pro sports the expectation is over .500 and a playoff berth.

There are currently 4 of 32 NFL teams over .750 12%
2 of 30 NBA teams over .750 7%
18 of 68 P5 teams were .750 in Conference play. 26%

However, the 12 Team college football playoff will only take teams that win 75% of their games. That's down from the 92% you had to win to make the 4 team playoff.
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A little difficult to compare apples to apples because NFL teams don't get to schedule cherry picked G5 opponents to serve as easy home wins, so I usually look at B1G record. I think most on here feel that 5-4 is good but not great and 4-5 is disappointing but not awful, so that seems to track with your over .500 pro standard. This year, we were 3-7 against P5 teams, and .300 is pretty bad by NFL standards.
 

MplsGopher said:
The U of Wash comparison to the U of Minn is very misleading. It’s really not a good comparison.

Institutionally very similar.

Football situation has been significantly different.
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Thank you Captain Obvious.

Yes, institutionally they are very similar in terms of size, market, politics of the state, THAT'S THE POINT.

WHY has the football situation been significantly different, and what can be done to change that here? Why can't Minnesota be more like Washington? WHY are people here so willing to accept mediocrity?
 

Just because they’re similar institutionally doesn’t mean that Minnesota could have had more similar to U of WA type of success in football.

That’s the misleading part of the comparison.


Huge factors: geography (leading into recruiting base/potential), climate, and the makeup/strength of the conference.

They also have different economies, but that’s probably much less of a factor.
 



The simplest way to say it is: if Washington had been in the Big Ten since the U fell off in football (1970’s?), I think their records would be much more like the Gophers.

The PAC has been relatively far easier to have seasons of great success than the Big Ten.


But they’d still have a better climate, and still have a more captive recruiting base of California to draw from, all those years.


Lot of people here bang a loud drum about administrative outright sabotage, if not indirect, and I just have no way to know how true that is versus imagined.
 

disco said:
We get it. You're a typical happy go lucky Minnesota sports fan.

"Oh shucks, the guys played their hearts out. Moral victory. Get em next time boys."

I stress again. This is big business and big time entertainment. The name of the game is winning, and is increasingly how much a team can pay to do so. I could not care less about the old timey attitudes of the threadbare sweater wearing Washburn-McReavy crowd.
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Yeah, we get it. You "couldn't care less" about 'old' folks, or tradition, etc. For you, it's all just another "big business" (your words, not mine).

I wonder: do you cheer passionately for this, or any other, "big business"?

We each have to find our own way of enjoying Gopher football, I guess.
 

MplsGopher said:
Huge factors: geography (leading into recruiting base/potential), climate, and the makeup/strength of the conference.

They also have different economies, but that’s probably much less of a factor.
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Geography:
How so? Both are large metro areas that are relatively isolated in the Northern US. The notion that Seattle being on the west coast so they can recruit SoCal doesn't hold water unless you say that Minnesota being in the central US means we can recruit Texas. After all Dallas is closer to Minneapolis than LA is to Seattle.

Climate:
Both cities have nice summer and unpleasant winter climates, just in different ways.

Conference: (changing next year, but up to this point):
Somewhat true, but both conferences had the big two (OSU, Michigan, USC, Oregon) and the rest.
Utah has been very good recently as well. It's not C-USA.
 

disco said:
WHY has the football situation been significantly different, and what can be done to change that here? Why can't Minnesota be more like Washington? WHY are people here so willing to accept mediocrity?
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Not going to dive into this argument too much but one big difference between Washington and Minnesota is where they can pull players from. Much easier for them to get guys from California and other areas on the West coast.

As for accepting mediocrity....I grew up in Minnesota and attended the U of M. The Gophers are the team I'm going to follow and root for. I can throw a hissy fit because we are not well positioned to compete in the current college football landscape for a number of reasons or I can chose to be a fan and pull for my team regardless of how they do on a year to year basis. If that means I am accepting mediocrity then so be it. I am not in a position personally to do anything that would change the trajectory of the program so there are not a lot of other options.
 

disco said:
Geography:
How so? Both are large metro areas that are relatively isolated in the Northern US. The notion that Seattle being on the west coast so they can recruit SoCal doesn't hold water unless you say that Minnesota being in the central US means we can recruit Texas. After all Dallas is closer to Minneapolis than LA is to Seattle.

Climate:
Both cities have nice summer and unpleasant winter climates, just in different ways.

Conference: (changing next year, but up to this point):
Somewhat true, but both conferences had the big two (OSU, Michigan, USC, Oregon) and the rest.
Utah has been very good recently as well. It's not C-USA.
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Spot on.

Except to add, even the conference isn't a reason. The Pac12 and B1G were always relatively even. In fact, all time, the Pac12 has slight advantages in W-L record over the B1G, both regular season and in bowl games.


The idea that somehow Washington isn't similar to MN is preposterous.
 

disco said:
We get it. You're a typical happy go lucky Minnesota sports fan.

"Oh shucks, the guys played their hearts out. Moral victory. Get em next time boys."

I stress again. This is big business and big time entertainment. The name of the game is winning, and is increasingly how much a team can pay to do so. I could not care less about the old timey attitudes of the threadbare sweater wearing Washburn-McReavy crowd.
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disco said:
Typical word salad from Wren. Try using some punctuation.

If you must know, I'm 50. The first season I really remember following Gopher football was the disastrous season that got Joe Salem fired. For some reason, I've remained a Gopher football fan all these years. I suppose its because the Gophers were the first team I ever saw in person, and we had season tickets in the Holtz/Guety/Wacker era.

My NFL fandom is with Seattle - I was equally a Seahawks and Vikings fan growing up, but after 41-donut, I swore off Vikings fandom for good. I suffered two Super Bowl losses by my Seahawks, but at least I got to see my team win the big one once, and I'll always have that memory. I literally laughed joyfully at Vikings fans when Blair Walsh went wide right against the Seahawks at TCF Bank in that subzero playoff game.

I don't have any experience with the Gophers other than "what could have been." I'd like to see something different once in my life from this team. When a team like Washington - a flagship school in a very similar size urban area, in a very similar state in terms of political orientation, can win a natty in my lifetime, and this year make the CFP, why can't we?

How about instead of appeasing the geezers who have accepted mediocrity for decades, and accepted things like taking down the final four banners because "gee shucks, we shouldn't have cheated" (never mind that in most markets, this would have been swept under the rug) this school committed itself to winning at all costs like Michigan, tOSU, Bama, etc.? Sure would be a lot more fun, wouldn't it?
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Thanks for the introduction disco.

“…you love the night life…
You love to boogie…
on the DISCO ROUND…”

Yes, you are how you are.
Still rehashing Clemgate?

We are done talking disco. I offer nothing you are interested in on this board. Obviously I have nothing to offer you in terms our experiences as Gopher fans.

So dust off those old Donna Summer tapes,
head on down to Old Broadway and boogie on down.

You are 50? It may be later than you realize.

Over and out! life on the “disco round” is way over.

;0)
 

RememberMurray said:
Yeah, we get it. You "couldn't care less" about 'old' folks, or tradition, etc. For you, it's all just another "big business" (your words, not mine).

I wonder: do you cheer passionately for this, or any other, "big business"?

We each have to find our own way of enjoying Gopher football, I guess.
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You assume that major college sports being a big business is a bad thing. I would argue that it's neither a bad thing or a good thing. It's simply the latest step in the evolution of college sports and schools need to keep up. I've long since accepted this.

Millions of people cheer passionately for teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, Premier League, Aussie Rules Football, the CFL and on and on and on. Are those not multi-billion dollar entities? Are those not big business? Being a fan of a team and understanding that money is a primary driver are not mutually exclusive.
 
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MNVCGUY said:
Not going to dive into this argument too much but one big difference between Washington and Minnesota is where they can pull players from. Much easier for them to get guys from California and other areas on the West coast.
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Seattle is way more isolated than Minneapolis for recuiting.
 



RememberMurray said:
A question:

As a fan, what procedures should I follow in order to avoid "accepting mediocrity"?
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We're going to need to quantify the effect on the team too!

Or if / why it matters at all ...

Personally I suspect folks worried about "accepting mediocrity" are similar to the NBA fans who get upset when the wolves were too excited for their play in game win. They went off about how "other fans are laughing about this". Like it's some weird social thing where these are folks way too worried about what other people/haters think / do / care about, or something or other to the point that they can't enjoy anything.
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
We're going to need to quantify the effect on the team too!

Or if / why it matters at all ...
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Yeah, that's a great point.

Obviously, my taking a positive attitude about Minnesota football has been ineffective — maybe even detrimental. I've also failed to recognize that Gopher football is just another big business.

So, now that I've been enlightened, and I'm ready and eager to stop accepting mediocrity... how do I proceed? I want to become one of the cool, cynical, jaded kids, damnit!

Fight on, Big Corporate!!!!!

Should I just commence with the complaining, or what? How is this done at the highest level?
 


MNVCGUY said:
What's confusing? If you don't constantly complain it means you are totally ok with the team not winning championships every year. :)
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Damnit, you're right. I keep forgetting: By having a positive attitude, I'm enabling mediocrity.
 

MNVCGUY said:
What's confusing? If you don't constantly complain it means you are totally ok with the team not winning championships every year. :)
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Accepting what college football is (a dirty, money driven business) and wanting the team to win at the highest level does not equate to constantly complaining.

The difference is that there seem to be a lot of people who would rather lose playing the game "the right way" than win playing the game the way the big dirty programs do. We call those people losers.
 


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