Minnesota was 2018’s most wonderfully chaotic college football team

Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck once willed Western Michigan to three-star recruiting classes and the top of the mid-major universe. And in his second year in Minneapolis, he just produced ... half of a top-20-caliber team.

In my 2018 college football stat profiles’ Schedule & Results sections, you can find a team measure I call Percentile Performance. It is a single-game S&P+ rating of sorts, taking the same factors that go into the full S&P+, adjusting for opponent, and telling you where on the bell curve said performance belongs.

In a six-game sample in the regular season — games against New Mexico State, Miami (Ohio), and Indiana, plus games against good to excellent Fresno State, Purdue, and Wisconsin teams — Minnesota enjoyed an average percentile performance of 85 percent, or 4 percentage points ahead of what Oklahoma produced in 2018, 6 points ahead of Notre Dame. For a full season, an 85-percent rating would rank fourth in the country behind just Alabama, Clemson, and Georgia. The Gophers went 6-0 in those games.

We’ll see what the numbers have to say about their 34-10 walloping of Georgia Tech in Wednesday’s Quick Lane Bowl, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it graded out that highly as well.

Take out decent games against Iowa (55 percent) and Ohio State (67), and their average performance against Maryland, Nebraska, Illinois, and Northwestern was 15 percent. A full-season average of 15 percent would have ranked 129th in FBS, ahead of only UConn.

Whereas all the teams in the College Football Playoff had a standard deviation rating in the FBS top 15, Minnesota’s was dead last.

Remember the old Lou Holtz truism about how you have a different team every single week of the year? Fleck’s 2018 squad was perhaps the most ridiculous personification of that imaginable. (Holtz, by the way: former Minnesota coach.)

The extremes in Minnesota’s season — losses to Nebraska and Illinois by a combined 108-59, wins over Purdue and Wisconsin by a combined 78-25 — were nearly unfathomable, but the up-and-down nature was not. That’s what tends to happen with young teams.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Minnesota ranked just 88th in Off. S&P+ heading into bowl season. The defense was both more experienced — nine juniors and seniors among the top 13 tacklers — and better, but it was no more stable.

After a brilliant start to the season, the Gophers were allowing 43 points per game in conference play when Fleck fired defensive coordinator Robb Smith. The unit rebounded under new coordinator Joe Rossi, improving from 62nd in Def. S&P+ to 44th by the end of the regular season.

It was easy to assume that in Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson’s final game, the Yellow Jackets would come out on fire. But when you’ve got too much emotion, sometimes it has the opposite effect; sometimes you come out flat as hell. Tech did, and Minnesota very much did not.

By the time the Jackets found their footing in Detroit, they were down 13-0. After the briefest rally — they hurried for a field goal to end the first half, then moved the chains to start the second half — Minnesota stiffened, forced a punt, then put the game out of reach with three consecutive TD drives.

The dominance was comprehensive. Minnesota averaged 7 yards per play to Tech’s 5.1 and outgained the Jackets by 109 yards despite taking just 56 snaps. With fans tuned in to watch the final go-round for Johnson’s vaunted spread option offense, they instead got a sustained glimpse at the Georgia side of Minnesota’s split personality — both Georgia and Minnesota beat the Jackets by exactly 24 points, in fact.

(Don’t feel too badly for Johnson and Tech, by the way. There is consolation in the simple fact that your last game doesn’t really matter. Bear Bryant lost to Southern Miss in his third-to-last game, barely beat Illinois in his finale, and still remained Bear Bryant. Johnson’s legacy — multiple FCS national titles, the resurrection of Navy, and an ACC title and two major bowl appearances at Tech while fielding what is unfairly seen as an outdated offense — is set as well.)

The payoff was inconsistent but undeniable. While the bad version of his squad was horrid, the good version was the best team in the Big Ten West.

Aside from linebacker Blake Cashman, left tackle Donnell Greene, center Jared Weyler, and maybe Johnson (depending on whether he elects to go pro), most of the reasons for the upside will return in 2019.

With Minnesota and Nebraska returning thrilling and young-as-hell two-deeps, Purdue retaining head coach Jeff Brohm, division champ Northwestern returning most of its awesome defense and adding former blue-chip quarterback Hunter Johnson via transfer, and more stalwart Wisconsin and Iowa programs still maintaining plenty of upside, the Big Ten West could be more intriguing than it’s ever been next fall. Hell, even Illinois should improve.

While Nebraska is sure to receive hype, don’t forget about the equally interesting team a few hours north of Lincoln.

We shouldn’t overreact to bowl performances, so the most noteworthy thing about Minnesota’s impressiveness in Detroit was that that impressive team made quite a few appearances this fall. And we should probably expect even more in 2019.