24 October 2020

Minnesota Golden Gopher football


The virus-delayed season starts a couple hours from now.  At the start of last year (highlights of the season embedded above) I offered the bold prediction that the unranked Gophers would finish the season ranked in the top-25 nationally.  In fact they finished at #10.

This year no season prediction is reliable because of the coronavirus.  The Big Ten conference has very rigid standards, testing each player multiple times per week and if a player tests positive, he has to isolate from all team activities for three weeks.  Since most of the Big Ten campuses are in the midwest and in the center of the coronavirus resurgence, it is almost impossible that the football teams will get through the season without major disruptions of their available personnel.

4 comments:

  1. This The Ohio State fan hopes you are very correct!

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    1. You must be wetting your pants during this Penn State/Indiana game.

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  2. I don't even follow college football, but I just had to come here and talk crap... only because the score was nearly 50 to 25, Michigan's favor... just my 2 cents ( or 2 points, I may be a little off on the final score )

    Love your blog!!

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    1. At game time the Gophers announced that they would be playing without multiple key personnel (presumably from positive coronavirus tests): two starting offensive linemen, the middle linebacker, both kickoff specialists, and the punter. There wasn't anyone who could kick the ball, so Michigan repeatedly got starting position midfield and got one touchdown on a kickoff. The Minnesota quarterback was sacked multiple times and then the defense couldn't stop Michigan's run game. It was pretty ugly.

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