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If things were normal…

Recently Sid Hartman began the lowering of expectations for the University of Minnesota football program.  This annual ritual first began after the hype Mona, Max, Lee, Scoggins, Coach Mason, and he created prior to the disappointing 2004 season (8th place conference finish).

Specifically, Sid responded to Erik Eskola’s question:  “How are the Gophers gonna be?” with a modest 6-6 prediction and then played the alibi card.

He moaned

“If things were normal…Maroney would stay”     

“If things were normal…Owens would play”                   

 “If things were normal…Russell would be eligible”                                     (Sid almost created his own rap)

He and other Gopher apologists want you to believe that no other Big Ten schools have players declaring early for the NFL (Ohio State DB’s Donte Whitner and Ashton Youboty), have career ending injuries, or flunk out of school.Going in to the head coaches tenth season what should be normal? If things were normal:•The non-conference schedule would have a Cal-Berkeley caliber opponent every year

•The stadium would be filled for every conference game (especially with metro area of over 2.5 million people)

•7th and 8th place conference finishes would be an aberration

•The states best recruits would remain home

•A coach with a .403 conference winning percentage would be on the hot seat

•A defense would not give up 40+ points per conference loss

•A modicum of depth would be in place to handle inevitable injuries

•The expectations would be much higher

The bewildering part of these pre-season prognostications is the way the local press accepts them without asking any tough questions.  Perhaps 44 years of disappointment has brought the death of outrage?

The media shills can only hope that Bernie Bierman will come to Sid in a dream and foretell a Gopher Rose Bowl bid.       

   

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 21st, 2006 at 10:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

One Comment on “If things were normal…”

  1. Jason V Says:
    August 4th, 2006 at 3:06 pm

    A truer assessment of the Golden Gophers football program has never been made. All of the Gophers’ problems are summed up in a nice, neat package in this article, and looking at them makes me wonder just how Mason can get as many passes as he does with the local sports media.

    Beautiful job, Homer