Let’s appreciate the Gophers for a second

The state of Minnesota’s athletic history skews towards misfortune and underachievement. Look at the Vikings, for example, who made it to the NFC Championship game last year and signed a quarterback they liked to a huge contract, and now are sputtering just above .500. It is because of this history, I assume, that people are so down on what the Gophers are accomplishing this year, both in football and basketball.

First, let’s take sure we veer away from the unrealistic expectations of the Patrick Reusse’s of the world, and move into what is more feasible, and then really consider what PJ Fleck and Richard Pitino are doing. Let’s start with the football team, since Fleck is the most recently hired source of derision for local sports guys.

PJ Fleck, as you might all remember, only came to the team last season, and the program was in shambles. He didn’t have many of his own recruits,  and the previous regime left him with a walk on quarterback as his best starting option. And he got hurt half way through the season. Then there were all the injuries to his running backs, and the best defensive player in Antoine Winfield Jr. 

But then towards the end of the season, the Gophers made an adjustment, Fleck fired his defensive coordinator, and suddenly, the Gophers were world beaters, and the team ended up clobbering a ranked Purdue team and winning on the road against Wisconsin. They made an adjustment, battled through some adversity and are in a bowl game. PJ Fleck is seen as a top flight recruiter, but I think this season, if nothing else, has proven that he can coach players he has up pretty well too.
It's only Detroit, but the Gophers are going to a Bowl game in Fleck's second season. It was a strategy that Jerry Kill employed as well, getting his team to bowl games so he had more time to coach underclassmen. Wit the in season improvement that they made, one has to wonder how much the team is going to grow as they head into next season. They might even have a quarterback. It was a 6-6 season, but it was so much more than that.

The basketball team was disappointing last year, but that was as much a function of injuries striking all of their top player as anything, but Jordan Murphy and Amir Coffey are back and healthy, and are no bracketed by some emerging freshman. Not only that, but those freshman are local kids. Wasn’t that always the criticism of Tubby Smith, that he failed to recruit Minnesotans? Not the case with Pitino, it appears.

There are three freshman who look to contribute early, and are local products. Gabe Kalschuer from DeLaSalle, Jarvis Omersa from Orono, Daniel Oturu from Cretin-Derham Hall, making this a good, local class for Pitino. That’s one impressive thing about the team so far.

The other is that they are winning. They had a terrible game against Boston College, and were overmatched in Columbus against Ohio State, but then they came back against Nebraska and beat a ranked team in Minneapolis. There wasn’t much of that last season, and it showed growth after a tough stretch. 

The Gophers basketball team is a young team who has grown from their worst game of the season, the BC game, by learning from their mistakes. They couldn’t figure out the zone, and took terrible shots. They proved themselves to be coachable, however, because other teams haven’t been able to derail them entirely with the same defense. They are talented, and they are smart enough to learn from their mistakes. These things signal the beginning of a turnaround. And it’s with local players, which everyone loves, right?

The University of Minnesota has a long history of athletic mediocrity, and taken in isolation, this year is another year of the same. A closer inspection, however, shows two programs on the rise, even if local fans refuse to believe it.