The Culture Year: A Survival Guide

You ever have those dreams where you're trapped in a wooden box? 

It's dark, but the sounds and bouncing around lead you to believe you're in the back of a truck or something. Eventually, the truck stops and you hear the door slide open. A couple of dudes hop in, lift up the box you're in throw it down on the ground, laugh, then get back in the truck and drive away. It's effing hot and you're sweating already. Recognizing there's no one around to hear you yelling, you start kicking at one of the sides to get out. After an hour or two, you finally break one of the boards and manage to extract yourself. Once your eyes adjust to the light, you see you're in an arid environment on the side of a dirt road. You stumble along the road for a few miles, you're disoriented, exhausted and dehydrated and finally come to a small village. There's an old car on the side of the road and...it has a Mexican license plate. You don't really remember how or why, but you've been kidnapped and sent to Mexico. Your life seems to have gone sideways.

Well, we Gopher fans have just kicked our way out of the box and find ourselves in a culture year, which is just like Mexico except without Tecate, delicious refried beans and likelihood of being beheaded in a war between drug cartels. 

Heart and Quit: The a Purdue Game Prediction

So, yeah, the model didn't work so well last week. We grossly underestimated Maryland's Heart Factor. While their Quit % reached a high of 89% in the 2nd quarter, their interception of a Connor Rhoda pass off the hands of Tyler Johnson at the three yard line immediately caused a ten-fold increase in Heart Factor to 12.2, a high for this season. 

We were surprised at the Gophers lack of Heart Factor from the outset - it just didn't seem like they were ever in the game, consistently missing tackles and not getting lit on the sidelines nearly as much as in the previous three weeks. And when Maryland went ahead with 90 seconds to play and the Gophers failed to catch the ensuing kickoff, well, the Quitometer reached a Quit % of 100% and, uh, quit working. It was the worst of times.

PJ Fleck or: How I Stopped Worrying and Loved the Shtick

Time for a very special episode of Still Got Hope....

Your boy here has clinical depression and has his whole life. Hasn't kept me from mostly doing what I want and having a very solid career as a blogger; but it's imbued me with a very pessimistic, cynical attitude about almost everything.

I followed PJ Fleck a bit last year as his star rose at Western Michigan. ESPN and others named him the first coach of the Millennial generation and, frankly I had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean, but okay. Myriad stories about his unorthodox approach to culture and team management kind of went in one eyeball and out the other. I thought he was a bit kooky, but it was fun to watch a MAC team make a run to a NY6 bowl game and give Wisconsin everything they could handle in the Cotton Bowl.

Why Is the Gopher Football Atmosphere So Anemic?

Had a good discussion with some of the Gopher Illuminati last night about how jealous we were of the atmosphere around programs that haven't exactly been paragons of success over the last 25 years. Specifically, we were marveling at how rowdy NC State's fans were during their game against Louisville, though the same applies to Iowa State and a number of other middling-at-best programs. 

NC State is a good comparable program as they've consistently been a fringe bowl team (RIP in peace MV) for most of the last 40 years (my lifetime, which is all that matters on my blog). They've had four 9+ win seasons in that time, including one 11-win season in 2002 where they finished ranked 11/12 in the polls. Other than that, they've consistently been in the 5-8 win range; kind of like us, with a slightly higher average win count (I didn't do the math, so "slightly" is probably the wrong qualifier) and no tire fire seasons like we had in 1983 and 2007 (/cuts). But their game-day atmosphere is orders of magnitude better than ours. Same for Iowa State, the Mario Mendoza of college football. How? Why do fans go all out for college teams that are comparable or worse than we are when we can't get close to filling the stadium while undefeated on a beautiful fall day?

Battle of the First Year B1G Coaches: Who's More Elite so Far?

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Taken All Wrong Podcast

I had the chance to make a guest appearance on the Taken All Wrong Podcast with FOtB JD Mill and Jeffrick and fellow guest Matt O'Connell, also of the internet.

We discussed the aftermath of the Maryland game, what that portends for the future, Purdue and whether 2018 or 2019 will be the season we win the B1G.

Give it a listen during work today or over an especially long poop.

Paul Molitor: Wanna Keep Him?

A funny thing happened when Jim Pohlad hired Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey and GM Thad Levine during last off-season.  Pohlad ended any speculation by announcing that Paul Molitor would return to finish the third year of his contract as manager of the Twins.

It seemed unusual to me at the time because that's sorta, you know, what the GM and Chief Baseball Officer should be deciding.  It might be safe to say that Falvey and Levine were on board with this though as it gave them a year to evaluate the staff.  That didn't stop them from replacing a number of coaches, including bringing in hitting coach James Rowson.  Rowson deserves some credit for a season where the Twins were 4th in the AL in runs scored.

On Dog Ownership

I love dogs. Always have. They're fun, they're a great excuse to get some exercise and they generally love you unconditionally. I have one now. Her name is Charlotte and she's a German Shepherd. She sheds a lot and has some anxiety issues, but she's my best buddy in the world.

The problem with dogs is they don't live very long. Maybe ten to twelve years, if you're lucky and then they're gone. If you're unlucky, they run away, bite the neighbor kid and have to be euthanized, irrationally support a bowl boycott by your players that caused a nationally-broadcast debasement of your brand, or get shmucked by a car.

Contemplating the Rest of the Season

I think I'm finally over the funk of the Maryland game. Still stings to think about it on occasion; but the feeling like there's a delicious terrapin eating me from the inside out seems to have dissipated. I'm not quite at a point where I'm ready to get hyped for Purdue yet - the fear is real there - but I suspect by Thursday, the excitement will be back and I'll be convinced 10-2 and a NY6 bowl game will be in reach. Again, I'm working on being an optimist, people.

On Attendance and Other Sundries

For what it's worth, I was a 3 on this morning's quiz. Love what Fleck brings to the table and I'm super optimistic about the future, but, man, I am not in his target audience when it comes to the hype. I love excitement around the program, but the vernacular is over the top for me. But, hey, if 17 - 22 year old dudes who can ball out embrace it and we're in Pasadena on 1/1/20, I'm not afraid to get 'Nekton' tattooed on my throat.

Tonight's topic is on attendance and the overall atmosphere at games. In my opinion, the atmosphere has been a lot better this year: the music, particularly has been an improvement and I've appreciated that they've front loaded the sick kid tributes to the first half and let the game flow largely without interruption during second half breaks. It's still a bit herky at times - DJ Kool's 'Let Me Clear My Throat' has been interrupted by game play two games in a row and we didn't even get to sing the chorus of 'Livin' on a Prayer' this week before it was forced to stop as the game resumed (some of us did anyway, much to the chagrin of our section mates). So there's some kinks to work out, but it's at least moving in the right direction.

Fan Factions with a Buzzfeed Quiz!

It seems like with every coaching change, fans split into factions. Zealous factions. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends. The dynamics of message boards totally change as long-term alliances blow apart into acrimonious flame wars where people who used to tailgate together no longer acknowledge the existence of one another. Twitter devolves into a Hobbesian state of nature, irrational arguments lobbed into the ether where they are countered with appeals to emotion and, if you’re Brian Anderson, claims that you’ve got a lot to say, but are going to remain silent. Classic use of the paralepsis, folks.

The Sunday After

Like this, only our hopes and pride and less gamma rays.

Happens every year for us. That Sunday after the first loss of the year. You wake up feeling good for three seconds before you remember the Gophers lost. Then whatever the opposite of endorphins are start flowing from some god-forsaken gland in your brain and you start to feel that ache somewhere between your heart, stomach and solar plexus. That's where the hope for the season used to live, but now there's an absence. You know it'll be filled up with something else in the next few days or weeks; but right now it's a sense of loss. Of dreams of Pasadena that will be deferred for at least another season.