Minnesota Football: NCAA Football Preseason S&P+ Projections Are Out

It's never to early to start talking about the 2016 NCAA Football season. I mean, what are we supposed to discuss, basketball?  You've heard it said before, but Minnesota's 2016 schedule lightens considerably (on paper). Up until now, any discussion of that easier schedule was partially anecdotal and based on all of our own observations combined with the 2015 performance of our upcoming opponents.

SBN's Bill Connelly has published his S&P+ projections (you can find the full list here), which means we now have a new objective measure to add to the discussion of "what kind of season will Minnesota have in 2016?" Because after all, the first think we care about when projections like this come out is where do the Gophers stack up in the Big Ten West and what kind of results should we expect based on the rankings?

You can see below that based on the three factors of returning production, recent success and recruiting impact; Nebraska is projected to finish atop the Big Ten West this year.  Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Northwestern are grouped in the middle with Purdue and Illinois unsurprisingly toiling at the bottom. Beneath that I've included Minnesota's Big Ten East opponents and at the bottom you'll find the non-conference opponents.

Just based on S&P+ ranking the Gophers are projected to have an 8-4 record.  Winning all three non-conference games and then going 5-3 5-4 in conference.  Not taking into account home/road and of course they play the games for a reason.  But It makes for something to look at during the offseason.  College Football ended in January and it turns out that basketball and hockey did too...so we need something to talk about right?