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With Minnesota coming off of a 9-4 record a year ago and with a new coach in PJ Fleck who is coming off of a thrilling season of his own, one might think the national prognostications for the Gophers might be fairly positive. Unfortunately, that definitely appears to not be the case. USA Today announced their preseason record projections for all 130 NCAA Football Teams on Monday, and well...lets just say they don’t foresee positive events this season for Minnesota.
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By looking at the other teams records, you can extrapolate out that USA Today predicts the Gophers will lose at Oregon State in the non-conference and then will lose all of their Big Ten games with the exception of Purdue and Illinois. Ouch.
CBSSports.com came out with their rankings of the NCAA Football Teams from 1-130 on Tuesday. They have the Gophers at #50 overall. That sounds a bit more optimistic, but then you see how they rank the rest of the Big Ten:
#37 Iowa Hawkeyes
#50 MINNESOTA GOLDEN GOPHERS
#65 Indiana Hoosiers
They also see the Gophers coming in 5th in the Big Ten West behind Wisconsin, Nebraska, Northwestern and Iowa. At least they see Minnesota as more favorable that Maryland.
We know that many fans and some media (you know who) are thinking that it will be a disappointment if the Gophers do not come close to matching last years record. We here have been on the record that we see a more middle of the road type of season as the Gophers work out the kinks of a new system and work in a new quarterback. While I don’t think many of us here think 4-8 is in the cards, a 6-6 or 7-5 season would not be surprising. But if Minnesota can find a quality quarterback and put things together, we are all willing to be positively surprised as well.