As I indicated in last week’s post, I have not been diluted into thinking that this year’s Gopher football team is any good. But given the ample evidence that this year’s Michigan team is also horrible, I at least thought Minnesota would be competitive today. And given that in my lifetime, Minnesota has never beaten Michigan at home, I was at least somewhat hopeful that this would be the year.
Boy was I wrong. Honestly, I really hope for Tim Brewster’s sake that no recruits were watching this game, because this was by far the most pathetic performance I have seen by a team with a winning record.
On Minnesota’s first 8 drives, the Gophers gained 1 first down. The rest were 3 and outs. To put it another way, 4 and out was the best Minnesota did in the first half.
Meanwhile, on Michigan’s first 8 drives, Michigan got 1 TD, 4 FGs, and turned it over once in the redzone. If it were not for Michigan’s general ineptness, they might have been leading 42-0.
Watching SportsCenter last year, I heard Kirk Herbstreit make the comment that certain teams are destined to collapse and have a horrible finish to the season. He was referring to Michigan St. at the time, and the Spartans have actually finished strong this year. But his comment remains true for Minnesota. I think it is pretty clear that Minnesota is going to lose by 21 to Wisconsin next week, lose a closer game at home to Iowa and head into a bowl game with a 4 game losing streak.
Note to announcers: You sound like idiots when you say Minnesota is playing for a New Year’s day bowl, you really do.
The knock against Glen Mason was that Minnesota couldn’t win in November or go to a New Year’s Day bowl. Tim Brewster is about to learn, that losing in November is a school tradition.
Again, you may ask how this loss can be so crushing. I’d certainly rather be a Minnesota Gopher fan than a Washigton St. fan or a Syracuse fan.
But the key is the “levels of excitement” that I introduced in the last post. This was a drop game. While the loss to Northwestern kept me firmly rooted at level 3, the complete lack of competitiveness shown by the Gophers in this game against a bad team, dropped my level of excitement from a 3 to a 2, and possibly down to a 1.
Oh well, basketball starts on Monday. What? The only game is on ESPNU. I hate ESPNU. OK, I’m still grumpy.