Gopher Football: A New Hope

Posted by Higgy

The Minnesota football team has never _________________________ in my lifetime.

Since I was born a few decades after the golden age of the Golden Gophers, there are a lot of significant accomplishments that could go in that blank. Here's a list of some of the more important ones.

-won a conference championship
-won a division championship
-played in the Rose Bowl
-played in a BCS bowl
-played in a New Year's Day bowl game
-finished second in the conference
-won 11 games in a season ... or 12 ... or 13 ... or 14
-won 6 conference games in a season ... or 7 ... or 8
-won 5 conference games in a row ... or 6 ... or 7 ... or 8
-beaten Michigan at home

That list could go on and on. Simply put, there's a lot my alma mater has yet to achieve during my existence. In fact, I don't harbor delusions of grandeur that I'll cross ALL those items off the list in my lifetime.  But this season, the Gophers have allowed me to ceremoniously take a red pen to that list twice, and two significant items no longer remain.

-beaten Nebraska
-won four conference games in a row

Those type of accomplishments may be commonplace for some, but for a Minnesota fan those are two accomplishments worthy of celebration. You know, because they hadn't yet accomplished either one IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Now our team is sitting at 8-2, ranked in both the Coaches' Poll and the BCS and has knocked a pair of items off my Gopher fan bucket list. But these milestones have also inspired something far more significant.

Hope.

Though hope isn't entirely unfamiliar to our fan base, it's been absent in its truest form in recent years. Hope certainly existed during my college days and the pinnacles of the Glen Mason era, but it eventually collapsed like so many of those Gopher teams during the fourth quarter.

Coach Kill is selling hope, and I'm buying.

Enter used car salesman Tim Brewster. Even he instigated some semblance of hope with big talk of Pasadena, a nationally-ranked recruiting class, hot chili and an amazing start to the 2008 season (7-1, nationally ranked). But those good vibes were just as quick to vanish. Before we could even say "New Year's Day Bowl" there were six-straight losses, a carousel of coordinators and the destruction of Adam Weber's throwing motion, and our optimism was Brewster's lead blocker, clearing a path for both to leave town.

Now Jerry Kill and his crew have brought their program-turning magic to Minneapolis, and the ascent has been obvious to even casual observers. Three wins became six wins and six has become eight, with the possibility for even more in year three of the Kill era. Though the third year has resulted in the most serious progress at each of his previous stops, we were told to temper expectations since his staff hasn't brought in three full recruiting classes. Little did they know, few fan bases can temper expectations the way we can. Two decisive losses to open B1G play followed a 4-0 start and our head coach took a leave of absence, and suddenly we were all at our all-time tempering best.

Then this improbable and amazing four-game winning streak came along, and suddenly tempering expectations was replaced by honest-to-God actual hope, not to mention a top 25 ranking and even some national praise and adoration. I mean, we were in the conversation to host ESPN College GameDay. I'm not upset in the least college football's defnitive pregame show is now headed to an important Big 12 matchup instead of the oldest rivalry in college football ... I'm stunned and proud we were even in the conversation.

For me, this recent winning helps, but I was officially inspired a year ago. Kill was under fire for the decision to drop the North Carolina series and even received some ridiculous criticism of his epilepsy, with one fan even calling him, "a freak." I was fortunate enough to tune in to his weekly radio show that week, and what I heard made me realize that Minnesota may never fully reach the level to which fans like myself aspire ... but if Kill can't get us there, no one can.

To paraphrase Kill's fiery response to those critiques, he basically said that Minnesota has been struggling for four decades and he was brought in to not only reverse a few years of losing, but a few generations. He has a plan for how to do that, and he's going to work his tail off following that plan. Cancelling the series with North Carolina was part of the plan. Recruiting student-athletes that fit his program was part of that plan. Building the team from the line out was part of that plan. Practicing faster and more efficiently and expecting more out of the players was part of that plan.

First of all, I was thrilled he had evaluated our situation so thoroughly and actually had a plan. His predecessor had a plan, then scrapped it for a new plan, then scrapped it again, then was loading up a moving truck. Kill and his staff trust their vision, and all they were asking is that we put a similar trust in them. I was convinced, and I vowed to trust him that day. That's a huge part of what has made this season and especially the last month so incredible ... that trust has been rewarded.

Also, he was pissed off that anyone would dare to suggest Minnesota should accept mediocrity, and at that moment I realized he saw things the exact same way that I have for a long time now. The only thing worse than not acheiving goals is never setting them in the first place. It's been suggested to me more than once that as a Minnesota fan, I should accept a ceiling of 7-8 wins, an occasional decent bowl game and title contention once every decade or so. I'm sorry, but accepting mediocrity just isn't in my DNA, and our coaching staff has now proven it isn't in theirs either.

Saturday, our team has the opportunity to help me cross two more things off my lifetime Gopher fan list. We could win our fifth-straight B1G game, and win Paul Bunyan's Axe for the first time at TCF Bank Stadium with a victory over Wisconsin. Because of our history and Wisconsin's pedigree, I'm certainly not expecting it, but for the first time in years I've got hope. Damn does it feel good.