With Minnesota winning last week and being toward the top of the conference for the first time in a long time, I thought I'd look up a little Golden Gopher history. They used to be a major power and I wanted to see if the drop off was quick or slow. Here are the national/Big Ten championships.

National champs: 1904, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1940, 1941, 1960
Big Ten champs: 1900, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1915, 1927, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1960, 1967

They seemed to be at their peaks in the 30s and 40s, had a resurgence in the 60s and faded away since then to middle of the pack. Even given multiple championships awarded, it is interesting seeing them win 5 national championships over an 8 year span.

They were the team of the city until 1961 when the Vikings arrived. All focus was taken off of them and placed on the NFL.

The school finally got with the times recently and invested in football. They now have the facilities and coaches to recruit and compete. Now, will it be consistent and grow? Time will tell.

Great post on their history. Appreciate the work you put in these posts.

(11-16-2019 12:45 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  With Minnesota winning last week and being toward the top of the conference for the first time in a long time, I thought I'd look up a little Golden Gopher history. They used to be a major power and I wanted to see if the drop off was quick or slow. Here are the national/Big Ten championships.

National champs: 1904, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1940, 1941, 1960
Big Ten champs: 1900, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1915, 1927, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1960, 1967

They seemed to be at their peaks in the 30s and 40s, had a resurgence in the 60s and faded away since then to middle of the pack. Even given multiple championships awarded, it is interesting seeing them win 5 national championships over an 8 year span.

It seems to me that WWII brought an end to a fairly dominant run. Then in the 60's they had a couple of strong years, but nothing since Mid-Viet Nam.

WWII marked a major man power shortage for everyone. Korea following up so soon didn't help. In the 60's Big 10 and Big 8 schools had a spike in championships by and large due to the continued Jim Crow in the South. By the early 70's Southern Teams started to integrate and the slow shift back to the South began. By the early 80's the South was holding on to many of its African American athletes and industry starting shifting overseas hurting the Northern Industrial areas.

So there's a lot of social factors that might be coming into play with a case study of the Gophers. But from the turn of the century until WWII began they were definitely dominant.

There were many schools that simply didn't field a team from 1942-45 and that was true all over the country. It was sort of like everyone who stopped football to support the war effort were in a 4 year death penalty and starting back up was more successful for some than others.

It is kind of telling their last Big Ten/national championship was in the final season before the US got into WWII. Looking at it like that, the return in the 60s seems like a more short lived resurgence than necessarily a complete change of pace. I guess it might be like Frost getting Nebraska over the hump for a bit at Nebraska and then seeing them slump back down to middle of the pack.

The expansion on the NFL really had a big impact on the trajectories of a lot of programs, permanently stunting a bunch and setting a low ceiling for others:

Dallas: SMU, TCU
Houston: Rice, Houston
Minneapolis: Minnesota
Seattle: Washington
Atlanta: GT
Buffalo: Syracuse
Cincinnati: Cincinnati
Phoenix: Ariz St
Miami: Miami

In other places, like Pittsburgh, who had older NFL teams, the pro team dominated the market.

(11-22-2019 09:40 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The expansion on the NFL really had a big impact on the trajectories of a lot of programs, permanently stunting a bunch and setting a low ceiling for others:

Dallas: SMU, TCU
Houston: Rice, Houston
Minneapolis: Minnesota
Seattle: Washington
Atlanta: GT
Buffalo: Syracuse
Cincinnati: Cincinnati
Phoenix: Ariz St
Miami: Miami

In other places, like Pittsburgh, who had older NFL teams, the pro team dominated the market.

I agree for the most part but there are some exceptions. Atlanta hasn't hurt Georgia and Georgia Tech has their own self-restrictions (triple option, elite academic standards) that lower their ceiling naturally. New Orleans hasn't hurt LSU (though not in the same city). So many Florida teams haven't hurt FSU or UF. I would say it depends more on the individual schools and the strength of the supporters rather than the NFL teams. But it is a small sample size.