Iowa football: No, this 2019 Gopher team is not like the 2015 Hawks

With Minnesota starting off 7-0 against a weak schedule, people are comparing them to the 2015 Iowa football team. That’s disrespectful to the Hawks.

If my last article calling the Minnesota Golden Gophers pretenders caught some flack, I am ready for a whirlwind of hate from our “Minnesota nice” neighbors up north when I refute any ill-attempted claims that Iowa football fans can’t speak about Minnesota’s weak schedule because of our 2015 season.

If you haven’t seen that weird comeback on Twitter or Facebook, get ready.

Here is all I am trying to say. Personally, I don’t think Minnesota is that good. I watched their first four games and made that judgment.

Then, I proceeded to watch the Nebraska game, and while impressed, took it with a grain of salt because they played an Adrian Martinez-less Nebraska squad that has about as much mental toughness as a 2-year-old. And yes, I watched the Rutgers game, but come on. If the Big Ten can, they should get rid of Rutgers. Let’s go European style and relegate the Scarlet Knights to the FCS.

They don’t have more talent than the Iowa football team or Wisconsin. They’re not a bad team by no means, and they actually have a few quality NFL prospects, but they’ve widely benefited from an incredibly weak schedule, which brings me to the point of this article.

When I say Minnesota isn’t good because of their schedule, I get hit with the “well, the Iowa football team played a weak schedule back in 2015” argument. I will admit that the Hawks lucked out not having to play Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, or Michigan State in the regular season, but their schedule was not nearly as weak as Minnesota’s is currently.

During that 2015 season, the Hawks defeated a top-25 10-3 Wisconsin Badger team and a top-25 10-3 Northwestern Wildcat team in the first seven games. They also knocked off an 8-5 Pitt squad in those first seven games.

Against College Football Playoff participant Michigan State, the Hawks were literally seconds and inches away from being going to their first College Football Playoffs themselves.

Their strength of schedule that year was 1.51 according to Sports Reference, which placed them at 55th out of 128 teams.

Now, let’s take a look at Minnesota through their first seven.

The combined record of their opponents are 22-25, with six of those wins coming from the FCS program South Dakota State. The combined record of the actual FBS schools is 16-24, and there’s a chance not a single team in that group goes to a bowl game, let alone finishes with 8 wins like 3 of Iowa’s first 7 opponents back in 2015 did.

Minnesota’s strength of schedule so far?

-4.98.

That’s bad.

Their schedule is ranked 115th out of 130 teams.

Now, as I said before if Minnesota comes out and beats Penn State this weekend or Iowa in a few weekends or Wisconsin later on, you’ve earned it. But until then, realize your team for what it is. The Gophers are an above-average team taking advantage of a severely below-average schedule.