ESPN: B1G Week 8 bowl projections (Minnesota: No bowl)

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per ESPN:

So we're leaving Big Red out of the bowls this week. There's not a ton of other movement here, though Northwestern qualified for its first bowl in three years with its sixth win of the season. We're hesitantly keeping Illinois in this week while still waiting for more proof from Indiana, Rutgers and Minnesota. As of right now, we have only eight Big Ten teams going bowling, which would leave two open spots. So teams have much more work left to do.

College Football Playoff: Ohio State

Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual: Michigan State

Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl: Iowa

Outback Bowl: Michigan

National University Holiday Bowl: Wisconsin

Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl: Penn State

New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Northwestern

Foster Farms Bowl: Illinois

Quick Lane Bowl: Not filled

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: Not filled

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/125844/b1g-bowl-projections-nebraska-in-danger

Go Gophers!!
 

We know Minnesota's path to a bowl game is tricky.

Assuming Illinois beats Purdue at home, they'll come to TCF with bowl eligibility on the line.

Indiana closes the year with trips to Maryland and Purdue -- win both, they go bowling.

If Rutgers beats Nebraska at home, they finish with Army and Maryland. Conversely, a Nebraska win would likely have them playing for a bowl bid when they host Iowa.
 


At this point the only good thing about going to a bowl would be the extra practices and probably winning one of our trophy games. Although the extra practices would make it worthwhile, I can't stand the thought of playing in another meaningless bowl game.
 

MNGoldenGophers1 said:
At this point the only good thing about going to a bowl would be the extra practices and probably winning one of our trophy games. Although the extra practices would make it worthwhile, I can't stand the thought of playing in another meaningless bowl game.
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This is basically it, it gives your team that much more leg up with practice time
for your younger players and even the most fringe bowl is an experience and exposure that
creates a huge difference in teams moving forward having gone to A bowl, than staying
home and watching from the dorms.
 


Question - If there are not enough eligible teams to fill all of the bowl game slots, in the past, they have allowed some 5-7 teams to play in a bowl game.

So - I pose this thought: IF the Gophers finish 5-7, would you want them to play in a bowl game (providing they receive the exception)?
 

I guess playing in a meaningless bowl game could provide an opportunity to actually win a bowl game. Oddly, our last bowl win was against Alabama.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Question - If there are not enough eligible teams to fill all of the bowl game slots, in the past, they have allowed some 5-7 teams to play in a bowl game.

So - I pose this thought: IF the Gophers finish 5-7, would you want them to play in a bowl game (providing they receive the exception)?
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That is a good question. I would most likely say yes just for the extra practices (see above) but not necessarily. Here are two scenarios where one would be a yes and the other a no:

If we play Michigan, OSU, Iowa, and Ill tough but lose by very close margins but then hand WI a beat down winning back the axe, get sent to a decent warm weather destination, and get pitted against a P5 school with a 7-5 or 6-6 record, then yes.

But let’s say we get blown out by Michigan, OSU, Iowa & WI but sneak by Illinois in an ugly one, get sent to some place like Detroit to play North TX St. or some other helpless program, then no.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Question - If there are not enough eligible teams to fill all of the bowl game slots, in the past, they have allowed some 5-7 teams to play in a bowl game.

So - I pose this thought: IF the Gophers finish 5-7, would you want them to play in a bowl game (providing they receive the exception)?
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Would I personally want them to play in it....no, but if I were in the position to make the decision I would 100% accept the invite for the extra practice time and the perception of going to a bowl even if it is a crappy one.

For years now the bowl system has basically been an "everybody gets a trophy" thing with so many games featuring mediocre teams. I keep thinking some of these games will fold but instead they just keep adding more and more of them.

I have said many times that if you can't go at least .500 in your conference you don't deserve to go to a bowl game. Of course that would eliminate way too many teams from the pool so instead we will continue to reward teams for beating up on crappy non-conf teams and then winning just enough games within their conference to get to that magical 6 win threshold.

It is what it is but the whole concept of being bowl eligible these days is really pretty meaningless. In a lot of cases it just signifies that you were not terrible.
 



They need to win a bowl game. And the Axe. Monkeys need to get off of backs in order to make some sort of progression.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
They need to win a bowl game. And the Axe. Monkeys need to get off of backs in order to make some sort of progression.
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Yep. I think winning a bowl (even a meaningless one) and more importantly, defeating Wisconsin, would make most fans happy. Or would at least gather enough interest to roll into next season on a high-note. I would still be disappointed with a 5-7 record. But what can ya do. At this rate we will go back to being underdogs in almost every game next year like we are used to.
 

Playing is always better than not playing. For players and fans.
 

Winnipegopher said:
Playing is always better than not playing. For players and fans.
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+1 This! No real downside to a bowl. Especially if the team wins. It is good for the program to be able to say they have been in x number of consecutive bowl games.
 



I agree. Any bowl > no bowl.
As many have touched on, player development is huge with these extra practices. Bowls also give players a taste of success. Even going to a low-level bowl will make the returning players hungry to work in the offseason for something bigger and better in 2016.
 

I sure bet the players would choose to go no matter what, and that's who it should be all about. Especially the seniors, I mean could you imagine any one of those players wanting to end their college career like that, in November and with no bowl game to cap it off? Even if people might see some of them as being crappy, bowl games are like a reward for the players for all their hard work and effort, and no matter whether it's in Detroit or Tempe, the players all get a TON of swag from the local bowl committee, Chamber of Commerce, and community, as they hook them up with some really nice gifts.

So why not? You get rewarded for your season, you get feted a little bit at some nice restaurants and functions, you get some nice stuff, and you get to play more football. I'd sure as heck want to do that.
 

Seany said:
I sure bet the players would choose to go no matter what, and that's who it should be all about. Especially the seniors, I mean could you imagine any one of those players wanting to end their college career like that, in November and with no bowl game to cap it off? Even if people might see some of them as being crappy, bowl games are like a reward for the players for all their hard work and effort, and no matter whether it's in Detroit or Tempe, the players all get a TON of swag from the local bowl committee, Chamber of Commerce, and community, as they hook them up with some really nice gifts.

So why not? You get rewarded for your season, you get feted a little bit at some nice restaurants and functions, you get some nice stuff, and you get to play more football. I'd sure as heck want to do that.
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Let's break this down a bit.

I sure bet the players would choose to go no matter what, and that's who it should be all about.

I'm sure they would, who wouldn't want an all expense paid trip.

Especially the seniors, I mean could you imagine any one of those players wanting to end their college career like that, in November and with no bowl game to cap it off?

Okay but what about the seniors on a 4-8 team or for that matter an 0-12 team? Wouldn't they like a bowl game too? And what about D2 and D3 players? Wouldn't they be equally deserving of a reward seeing how hard they tried. Keep in mind that many of those D2 and D3 had only two or three loses and didn't make the playoffs let alone a bowl game.

Even if people might see some of them as being crappy, bowl games are like a reward for the players for all their hard work and effort, and no matter whether it's in Detroit or Tempe, the players all get a TON of swag from the local bowl committee, Chamber of Commerce, and community, as they hook them up with some really nice gifts.

A reward for a 5-7 or even a 6-6 season, really?!? Let's say I had 12 hypothetical projects at work this year. There were three small ones I did a half-ass job on that I will call CSU, KSU, and O-hi-o. Then there was another three more moderately sized projects where two I accomplished (i.e., Purdue and Ill) but one I screwed up (NW). And finally there were these six big and most important projects named TCU, Nebraska, Michigan, OSU, Iowa and Wisky that I totally f'ed up. Do you think my employer would reward me with a nice trip and shower me with all sorts of gifts? Of course not.

So why not?

My question is why? See above.

You get rewarded for your season, you get feted a little bit at some nice restaurants and functions, you get some nice stuff, and you get to play more football.

Why reward mediocrity?

I'd sure as heck want to do that.

So would I.

I will add a couple of things. I think that a 7-5 record should be the minimum for bowl eligibility. For teams that don't go bowling, I think they should get 21 extra spring practices because they suck and god knows they need it and it would only be fair since the bowl teams get extra practices.
 

I'd rather see them reduce the number of bowls, a 6-6 team going to the postseason seems silly (especially if you go 2-6 in conference, obviously the Gophs would need to go 3-5). That said, given that they do have all these bowl games, if we earn a spot I want us to take it and I want us to win. I am surprised that some of us have so little faith in Coach Kill that we don't think he can win 2 out of 5 games.

On the subject of practices, I don't know how sold I am on the value of the extra practices for a bowl in terms of the next season. I haven't seen any stats which would show that Power 5 teams that slip into a bowl at 6-6 and get the extra practices tend to improve significantly more than Power 5 teams that go 5-7 and don't get the practices. Brewster got the extra practices twice, and both times, his teams got worse. We had the extra practices last year, didn't seem to do much for us so far. After Kill's first bowl, the team improved, but we didn't really hit our stride until the second half of the season, so I am not convinced that the extra practices had us ready to hit the ground running.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
I'd rather see them reduce the number of bowls, a 6-6 team going to the postseason seems silly (especially if you go 2-6 in conference, obviously the Gophs would need to go 3-5). That said, given that they do have all these bowl games, if we earn a spot I want us to take it and I want us to win. I am surprised that some of us have so little faith in Coach Kill that we don't think he can win 2 out of 5 games.

On the subject of practices, I don't know how sold I am on the value of the extra practices for a bowl in terms of the next season. I haven't seen any stats which would show that Power 5 teams that slip into a bowl at 6-6 and get the extra practices tend to improve significantly more than Power 5 teams that go 5-7 and don't get the practices. Brewster got the extra practices twice, and both times, his teams got worse. We had the extra practices last year, didn't seem to do much for us so far. After Kill's first bowl, the team improved, but we didn't really hit our stride until the second half of the season, so I am not convinced that the extra practices had us ready to hit the ground running.
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In the case of Brewster, less or even no practices would have probably been better ;-)
 


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