Fan Status: Sub-Casual

Once upon a time I was one of the most rabid Golden Gopher football fans around.  When Brewster initiated the Victory Walk, I could identify 95% of the players and coaches including walk-ons and grad assistants as they walked by.  I knew where they went to HS, their current position on the depth chart, their prior stops along the coaching trail, etc.  I would DVR the games and watch them a handful of times until the next season began.  That superfan is dead and I'm trying to pinpoint where I went astray.


Even though the 2007 season was painful to watch I felt like there was progress being made on the field and certainly on the recruiting trail.  The first half of 2008 felt great and then the bottom fell out.  I blamed it on not having enough depth to rest the starters, but eventually the improved incoming recruiting classes would resolve that.


The warning signs started in 2009 when I stopped caring about making it to the Victory Walk.  It didn't seem like the players cared if the fans were there or not so why should I care?  I felt like we were becoming a competitive B1G team beating MSU, Purdue and NU and a close loss to that team to the east.  It was tough to accept a loss to an awful Illinois team and even tougher when the mighty jackrabbits came to town and almost beat the Gophers.  Two poor offensive performances against the two Iowa schools didn't help my outlook either.

So not looking forward to watching the game on TV this weekend

I totally forgot about the worst fucking cheer in all of CFB.  The Boiler Up.  It's amazing that more people don't shoot themselves in the face when having to be subjected to hearing this at Purdue home games.  I will never go to a game at Ross-Ade Stadium.  Never.  I might put that on my tombstone.  "He never heard Boiler Up in person"

Play better this weekend boys!  The health of my face depends on it...

I really wanted to write something this week...

I know I've been away for a while but I've had an itch to post something, anything really, for a while now.  But when all you have to say is the same tired, negative thing as you said the last week and the week before then it takes the fight out of you.  Why subject Gopher fans to what I'm experiencing in my head?  It's bad enough that I have to suffer through that.

I wanted to write something that basically said I still support the Gophers despite the tough times we are all experiencing right now.  But every time my fingers stroke the keyboard it ends up some kind of scathing rant which isn't going help anything.  Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow? 

I was going to do some CFB point spread analysis this season, but consciously trying not to think about the blog made me forget about it.  I'll focus my efforts there and maybe I can have fun that way...

Week 5 lines - first thoughts:

Minnesota at Purdue (-10.5) - 48.5 o/u and a 10.5 pt spread means a 29-19 game.  The Purdue O has really been struggling to execute on Saturdays.  Does going up against the Gophers give a boost of confidence or do their woes continue?  I'm going to say somewhere in between.  It seems that everyone is writing off the Gophers at this point in time.  Are people forgetting that Purdue got thrashed by ND 10-38 last week and also have a 22-24 loss to Rice on their resume?  The 27-24 W over MTSU is essentially the equivalent of our W over MiamiOH.  I think we are fairly evenly matched this week.  This is the real litmus test for the Gophers this week.  If they have any pride they will step up and keep this game at least at within one score.  If there is no pride and Kill has lost the talented senior class (it happens to many new coaches around the country) then we could be in for another long Saturday.  I'm leaning towards the Gophers at this point in time.