Dreaming of future Gophers football glory: A Citrus Bowl victory

Ohio State held its spring football game on Saturday. There was a record crowd announced at 101,000 in Ohio Stadium as the backdrop to the Big Ten Network telecast of the game.

Nebraska also held its spring game. Coming off a disappointing 5-7 record in coach Mike Riley's first season, the crowd was announced at 72,000.

Penn State, a disappointment in coach James Franklin's first two seasons, unveiled a new offense in its spring game and had a crowd estimated at over 60,000.

Michigan had its spring game on April 1, a Friday night, and had a crowd estimated at 40,000. This came after coach Jim Harbaugh had held a week of practice during spring break in Bradenton, Fla.

The Gophers held a spring game at TCF Bank Stadium on April 9. Tracy Claeys, in his first season in charge of the program, changed it up so that there would be actual competition – rather than the glorified practice used as a spring game by his predecessor, Jerry Kill.

The Big Ten Nework was on hand to show it live, with a backdrop of endless empty seats.

From the Big Ten Network broadcast

There were reasons for this:

The weather was cold. We have too much to do in the Twin Cities to use a valuable Saturday afternoon to attend a meaningless football exercise. People would've been there, but they had to go to a cousin's daughter's birthday party.

You know -- the usual stuff, since we don't want to admit the obvious: a paltry level of interest in the Gophers, compared to a large share of the locations in the imbalanced world of Power Five football.

There are 65 teams in the Power Five half of FBS football: 14 apiece from the ACC, SEC and Big Ten; 12 from the Pac-12; 10 from the Big 12, and Notre Dame.

This is where the Gophers are trying to compete. This is where they must be judged.

When it was over, the "best'' Gophers' recruiting class since the merciful end of the Tim Brewster Era wound up rated 10^th in the Big Ten and 55^th nationally by ESPN.

The Gophers trailed Ohio State (5), Michigan (6), Penn State (18), Michigan State (22), Nebraska (26), Wisconsin (41), Maryland (43), Iowa (49) and Northwestern (52). They were ahead of Indiana (58), Purdue (61), Rutgers (64) and Illinois (71).

Only Houston (30) was rated among the top 54 in recruiting as a non-Power Five school.

That means the Gophers trailed 53 Power Five programs in these recruiting rankings and were ahead of 11: The four bottom feeders from the Big Ten, plus Washington State, Virginia, Syracuse, Kansas State, Boston College, Kansas and Colorado.

On a positive note, the Gophers are coming off a better school year in the two major men's sports – football and basketball – than Boston College. The Gophers' two main programs were a combined 4-23 (.174) in Big Ten competition and the Eagles were a combined 0-27 (.000) in ACC competition.

We are approaching the 50^th anniversary of the Gophers' last share of a Big Ten title – a three-way tie with Purdue and Indiana in 1967. There was the outright conference title in 1960.

The previous Big Ten title came in 1941. It was secured with a season-closing victory over Wisconsin on Nov. 22.

That's right. You have to go back to 15 days before the attack on Pearl Harbor to find more than one outright conference title and one title share for the Gophers.

The Gophers are about to increase the substantial debt load of the athletic program with facilities carrying a price tag of $170 million. Less than half the money has been raised. There will be three buildings – one strictly for football, another largely for football.

People will talk of Big Ten titles and recruiting glories when the grand opening occurs for these new football facilities. More likely, it is an enormous expenditure that will allow the Gophers to stay ahead of Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers and Illinois, to push past Maryland and Northwestern, and stay on the heels of Iowa and Wisconsin in recruiting.

The main problem here is simple: Deep in our souls, most hardcore sports consumers in the Twin Cities don't really care if the Gophers are good, fair or poor.

That's why 3,000 people show up for a spring game. That's why tickets are easy to get in a small-sized Power Five stadium ... unless people from Nebraska, Iowa or Wisconsin are buying them up.

We've had good coaches give it a try here. Lou Holtz was a great coach and came and went after two years. Glen Mason was a good coach (remember, he didn't have the advantage of a West Division) and couldn't get over the hump. Jerry Kill was a good coach and was forced by health to leave in the middle of a fifth seaspn that was going backwards.

Tracy Claeys is a smart guy with a plan. He could be the coach to get the Gophers back to their mountain top – a return to the Citrus Bowl, and maybe this time, victory.

As Gophers football dreams go, that's about it.