Golden Gophers Football - Another Long Year?

Well, as you all know, the Gophers are coming off what is possibly their worst season ever. But not to fear Minnesota fans.

We may not be competing for a Big Ten title this year but the future is very bright.  And let's not forget about their brand spankin' new stadium that opens up in the 2009 season.

Tim Brewster did an amazing thing (aside from kicking those losers off the team last year, real bright move guys) considering his team went 1-11 last year.  He got a top 20 recruiting class according to Rivals.com.  We got seven 4-star recruits, eighteen 3-star recruits, and five 2-star recruits. 

Let's not forget to mention Marquis Grey, who some people are saying might be the next Michael Vick (but without the dogfighting and jail time) and who is a top five QB. He is by far our biggest catch. Yes, I know you're thinking offense is one area where were actually fine.

It's our defense that needs the recruits. 

Well, we got Keanon Cooper who is a top 25 safety out of Dallas, Texas and Sam Maresh, a local boy out of Champlin Park who was Minnesota's number three recruit.  The fact that Brewster managed to sell him this program when colleges like Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Michigan were recruiting him means that he is one heck of a recruiter and that our new stadium is a really good selling point.

Now on to the fun part.

How will this team fare in 2008?  Well I can tell you this much: it will be better than last year.  Ok, I know that's not saying much considering we probably shouldn't have even won the one game that we did, but this is a rebuilding year again folks.

Looking at our schedule, we should win all four of our non-conference games (Northern Illinois, Bowling Green, Montana State, and Florida Atlantic) and if we're lucky we could win three, maybe four Big Ten games. 

The obvious losses are at Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Outside of that, the Big Ten games we SHOULD win are against Indiana and Northwestern.

The two games that are wild-card in my opinion (and both are at home, thank god) are Michigan and Iowa. Iowa is freaking bi-polar, you couldn't figure them out last year and Michigan is getting settled with Rich Rodriguez so they could be vulnerable, especially if we pack the Dome with GOPHER FANS (teams come in and have a habit of getting a pretty good presence at the Dome, but this will most likely be the last year that happens) for that game. 

My prediction: I'm probably going to be laughed at for this but I say 7-5.  Although, to make my prediction clear I thought they could win three Big Ten games last year.