As Littlefinger said in another thread, the Gophers received six votes in the latest Coaches Poll.
Here's where the Gophers stand in my three favorite computer rankings. All three have weights that account for last season's performance and returning talent into their rankings.
Here are Oregon State's:
Why does Vegas have Oregon State by two?
Last year, S&P+ had Oregon State as the No. 65 team in the country (although FEI had 74). They also have more returning production (70%) than Minnesota (57%), per Football Outsiders.
What's interesting is that of course Oregon State has been terrible this year, which seems to reflect more in TeamRankings than the other models. The Gophers haven't done well either, as they just beat a team that's projected to be one of the very worst in FBS by ten at home.
The computer rankings don't really paint a clear picture of how good each team is yet, which is probably expected from a week 2/3 game, but there's certainly a lot of reasons why this game is especially an unknown:
Here's where the Gophers stand in my three favorite computer rankings. All three have weights that account for last season's performance and returning talent into their rankings.
- S&P+: No. 63 overall, 101 offense, 21 defense
- TeamRankings: 61
- FEI: 56
Here are Oregon State's:
- S&P+: No. 68 overall, 63 offense, 60 defense
- TeamRankings: 97 <- Definitely an outlier, maybe they don't weight last season as much
- FEI: 62
Why does Vegas have Oregon State by two?
Last year, S&P+ had Oregon State as the No. 65 team in the country (although FEI had 74). They also have more returning production (70%) than Minnesota (57%), per Football Outsiders.
What's interesting is that of course Oregon State has been terrible this year, which seems to reflect more in TeamRankings than the other models. The Gophers haven't done well either, as they just beat a team that's projected to be one of the very worst in FBS by ten at home.
The computer rankings don't really paint a clear picture of how good each team is yet, which is probably expected from a week 2/3 game, but there's certainly a lot of reasons why this game is especially an unknown:
- OSU was better than their record last year, which is not apparent to the average fan
- OSU was projected to be better this year but has instead been awful. So despite the terrible first two weeks, they might be in some models still better last season.
- Minnesota played poorly against Buffalo.
- Minnesota's only game this year was the first game for a new head coach.
- Minnesota is playing two time zones away.
