Greder: 1. Less experience. 2. Tougher schedule. Story: Those two factors contribute to Gophers football team facing headwinds of lower expectations

Donate To GopherHole
BilldGopher said:
The numbers certainly tell a good story but the perception still lingers. Purdue last year comes to mind. Granted, we had injuries to deal with but that was a hugely disappointing game.
Click to expand...


losing to Purdue is not an example of laying an egg against crap competition. It is an example of not rising to the challenge of beating a good team. The point you just made agrees with me, it doesn’t disagree with me .
 

Gophers_4life said:
He wasn't referring to playing 0.501-0.749 teams. So your stats are false to include those.
Click to expand...
My stats are false?
My stats are 100% accurate
Your brain is broken and I will no longer talk to you in this thread
 

Another point of why SG’s argument is false: the mindset of the team in “rising up” can only depend on the state of the opponent at that time.

For example, last year Mich State in week 4, the team was still thinking of them like the 2021 version of MSU.
 

Meh. Team’s replace players with younger ones all the time. The inexperience reasoning is bs. We have the talent to be pretty good this year and beyond despite a tougher schedule.
 

Some guy said:
Not really a history of that:
Bowling green is the only non conference loss

In 2022
6-0 against teams sub.500
3-4 against teams .500+

In 2021
5-2 against teams sub.500
4-2 against teams .500+

In 2020
3-2 against teams sub.500
0-2 against teams .500+

In 2019
7-0 against teams sub.500
4-2 against teams .500 or better


Since 2019
21-4 against teams sub.500
11-10 against teams .500 or better
Click to expand...
Statistically yes, my assessment is incorrect. But in those games against teams that are supposed to beat us, we typically don't get bombed and it's tight for the most part, even when the spread says we're significant dogs.
 


No, it’s a much more nuanced and harder thing to measure than just an oversimplification as SG did.
 

mngg11 said:
Statistically yes, my assessment is incorrect.
Click to expand...
Correct

You can go ahead and be more concerned about vibes
I’ll continue to be more concerned about results

My take was more critical of the accusation that the team “lays eggs”
It simply isn’t very true.
 


Gophers_4life said:
This 100%.

Plays scared. Plays not to lose. Plays too conservative.


Hoping the Wisc win in Madison gave him the correct blueprint to follow. Something has to change PJ.

And it ain't on defense. We're as solid as we're going to get, identity/scheme wise there.
Click to expand...
Conservative Fleck was few games late in opening up the offense for Athan.
 



Some guy said:
Correct

You can go ahead and be more concerned about vibes
I’ll continue to be more concerned about results

My take was more critical of the accusation that the team “lays eggs”
It simply isn’t very true.
Click to expand...
Being charitable, maybe "laying eggs" is also referring to close games that we won, but should have won more easily? Of course Georgia Southern and South Dakota State in 2019 come to mind, and you could maybe argue both Fresno State games, although I don't think we were expected to blow them out or anything, and 2018 Fresno State in particular went 12-2 and finished the season ranked. We were also down 10-0 to Nebraska at halftime last year before coming back to win 20-13. Fleck is also just 2-3 against Maryland, with a blowout loss, a blowout win, and I think we gave up a 17 point 4th quarter lead in 2020 and lost by 1 in overtime on a missed extra point. But that's 2020, and I'm pretty sure we had basically no kickers due to COVID. Maybe 2020 Michigan is a bad loss in hindsight too?

But as far as games that we actually lost, it does seem like it's mostly just Bowling Green and Illinois in 2021 that are going to have people acting like Fleck routinely blows it against teams he has no business losing to.
 

Cayman said:
Being charitable, maybe "laying eggs" is also referring to close games that we won, but should have won more easily? Of course Georgia Southern and South Dakota State in 2019 come to mind, and you could maybe argue both Fresno State games, although I don't think we were expected to blow them out or anything, and 2018 Fresno State in particular went 12-2 and finished the season ranked. We were also down 10-0 to Nebraska at halftime last year before coming back to win 20-13. Fleck is also just 2-3 against Maryland, with a blowout loss, a blowout win, and I think we gave up a 17 point 4th quarter lead in 2020 and lost by 1 in overtime on a missed extra point. But that's 2020, and I'm pretty sure we had basically no kickers due to COVID. Maybe 2020 Michigan is a bad loss in hindsight too?

But as far as games that we actually lost, it does seem like it's mostly just Bowling Green and Illinois in 2021 that are going to have people acting like Fleck routinely blows it against teams he has no business losing to.
Click to expand...
I mean 21-4 against bad teams.
So yeah they aren’t perfect.

2 of those 4 were in 2020 when the losing records were big ten teams that didn’t play non conference games.



Stylistically sometimes they leave stuff to be desired for sure.
I’ve never defined a win as “laying an egg”
If you do, that’s fine and we don’t really disagree about substance just the definition of what laying an egg is.

I am not arguing we always blow out bad teams. Just that we rarely lose to them.
 

Some guy said:
Correct

You can go ahead and be more concerned about vibes
I’ll continue to be more concerned about results

My take was more critical of the accusation that the team “lays eggs”
It simply isn’t very true.
Click to expand...
You like things black and white, I like to consider the gray because the world isn't black and white. Sera, sera. I still think you're a valuable human, you do you!

 




An argument between G4L and Some Guy...yikes

Anyone who wasted their time wading through this sewer of a thread is now dumber because of it (myself included)
 

Gophers_4life said:
Bowling Green. Illinois (2021).

Nope!

Statistics prove that we don't lay eggs!
Click to expand...
Tough crowd, yes a couple times… tough to regularly win 9 games if you are laying eggs all the time. Eventually you have to think things break right and they have some more 11 win seasons, maybe better.
 

Some guy said:
I mean 21-4 against bad teams.
So yeah they aren’t perfect.

2 of those 4 were in 2020 when the losing records were big ten teams that didn’t play non conference games.



Stylistically sometimes they leave stuff to be desired for sure.
I’ve never defined a win as “laying an egg”
If you do, that’s fine and we don’t really disagree about substance just the definition of what laying an egg is.

I am not arguing we always blow out bad teams. Just that we rarely lose to them.
Click to expand...
I agree with you, just trying to steelman the opposing argument. It's true that we don't often lose to bad teams.
 

Cayman said:
I agree with you, just trying to steelman the opposing argument. It's true that we don't often lose to bad teams.
Click to expand...
We do not, but a good chunk of those games against inferior teams were almost unwatchable. For 2-3 years PJ would literally use 3-4 different run plays and throw sparingly and we won ugly as hell. Left me wishing many times I had spent my Saturday doing something different; of course I never did….. That seems to have turned some lately it hasn’t been as bad; at least it seems that way.
 

mngg11 said:
I've always said it, this team plays up to the challenge. PJ is great at that. We lay eggs against crap competition.
Click to expand...
Considering PJ had only had 4 wins against ranked teams in 6 years (2 of them in 2019) I’d say they have issues with good teams too…
 

Cayman said:
Being charitable, maybe "laying eggs" is also referring to close games that we won, but should have won more easily? Of course Georgia Southern and South Dakota State in 2019 come to mind, and you could maybe argue both Fresno State games, although I don't think we were expected to blow them out or anything, and 2018 Fresno State in particular went 12-2 and finished the season ranked. We were also down 10-0 to Nebraska at halftime last year before coming back to win 20-13. Fleck is also just 2-3 against Maryland, with a blowout loss, a blowout win, and I think we gave up a 17 point 4th quarter lead in 2020 and lost by 1 in overtime on a missed extra point. But that's 2020, and I'm pretty sure we had basically no kickers due to COVID. Maybe 2020 Michigan is a bad loss in hindsight too?

But as far as games that we actually lost, it does seem like it's mostly just Bowling Green and Illinois in 2021 that are going to have people acting like Fleck routinely blows it against teams he has no business losing to.
Click to expand...
This a good recap. I think a couple things might be skewing perception a bit. The two stinkers you mentioned in 2021 were really bad ones, and while we've won games where the other team was favored, I can't recall any offsetting games where we pulled one out of our hat despite being as big of dogs as we were favorites in those two games.

The other factor is the interaction between the close wins out of conference and Bowling Green. I am usually in the camp that says as long as we win the game, I'm not going to get bent out of shape over not beating a bad team by enough (I think I'm on record defending Ben Johnson after such a close win on the hoops board despite generally being pretty tough against him). But, after Fleck lost Bowling Green did have me rethinking the close wins against bad out of conference teams along the lines of "this is the problem with letting those teams hang around, eventually one is going to get away from you." I still think if one of your biggest knocks against a coach is "he isn't winning the games he is favored in by enough points", things are going pretty well.
 

1. Tons of Experience 2. Soft Schedule and where did that get us last year in the West???
 

My bad I forgot # 3. Per PJ last year was his most committed team…

Win the West!
 

btowngopher said:
Tough crowd, yes a couple times… tough to regularly win 9 games if you are laying eggs all the time. Eventually you have to think things break right and they have some more 11 win seasons, maybe better.
Click to expand...
Of course, "lay egg" is as squishy of a term as you can get. It can be twisted and molded to fit nearly anything that anyone wants.

I can claim that the Purdue game last year was an egg lay. I can claim that that the Iowa game both last year and in 2019 were egg lays. Wisconsin game in 2019 was an egg lay.


To have any kind of real, adult, honest discussion, it needs well defined descriptions and a sincere qualitative analysis of the games in 2019, 2021, and 2022. Those are the three real seasons of Fleck so far. 2020 is irrelevant and 2017 and 18 were building up and also sabotaged by Robb Smith to a degree.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Of course, "lay egg" is as squishy of a term as you can get. It can be twisted and molded to fit nearly anything that anyone wants.

I can claim that the Purdue game last year was an egg lay. I can claim that that the Iowa game both last year and in 2019 were egg lays. Wisconsin game in 2019 was an egg lay.


To have any kind of real, adult, honest discussion, it needs well defined descriptions and a sincere qualitative analysis of the games in 2019, 2021, and 2022. Those are the three real seasons of Fleck so far. 2020 is irrelevant and 2017 and 18 were building up and also sabotaged by Robb Smith to a degree.
Click to expand...
So you can’t count his 2nd season? If he had won 10 games that year would you say the same…every game counts IMO
 


QB is an upgrade (and yes, Morgan deserves all our thanks!), WR is a massive upgrade, RB is a slight downgrade, but more depth, TE is a upgrade, OL is a slight downgrade but will not have to run block as much (still more than the ave team), D is a downgrade, but a more explosive O helps balance it out. Gophers run the table, outside of MI and OSU and win the West. (right?)
 

gopherbadgerman said:
So you can’t count his 2nd season? If he had won 10 games that year would you say the same…every game counts IMO
Click to expand...
If grandma had balls, well, she'd be grandpa.

2017 and 2018 were startup years, and I am just fine discounting them as such. You can do as you please, of course.
 

schw0509 said:
QB is an upgrade (and yes, Morgan deserves all our thanks!), WR is a massive upgrade, RB is a slight downgrade, but more depth, TE is a upgrade, OL is a slight downgrade but will not have to run block as much (still more than the ave team), D is a downgrade, but a more explosive O helps balance it out. Gophers run the table, outside of MI and OSU and win the West. (right?)
Click to expand...
I think QB has the potential to be an upgrade but who knows how it will turn out. I think AK will be a bit more of a gunslinger and have a better deep ball. Compared to Morgan, his completion % might be lower and INT might be higher though. It will be fun to see how he develops.

I agree with your other assessments though.
 

Gophers_4life said:
If grandma had balls, well, she'd be grandpa.

2017 and 2018 were startup years, and I am just fine discounting them as such. You can do as you please, of course.
Click to expand...
That's absolute BS, and you know it.
 

I agree that the schedule this year is more difficult on paper
I disagree that experience will be a problem
This is college football in the portal era. Everyone's got roster turnover. The QB is the main thing, and he's already been a starter for most of the last Big Ten season.
 

schw0509 said:
QB is an upgrade (and yes, Morgan deserves all our thanks!), WR is a massive upgrade, RB is a slight downgrade, but more depth, TE is a upgrade, OL is a slight downgrade but will not have to run block as much (still more than the ave team), D is a downgrade, but a more explosive O helps balance it out. Gophers run the table, outside of MI and OSU and win the West. (right?)
Click to expand...
I’m not yet convinced that the D will be a downgrade.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom