In the team’s first year under coach Tim Brewster, the Golden Gophers finished 1-11, their worst record in school history. Defensive end Willie VanDeSteeg anointed it “probably the toughest thing I’ve ever been through,” and today, players still can remember the sting of watching the bowl season from the comfort of their homes, as the Gophers failed to earn a postseason invitation for the first time in six years.

“I sat there,” senior linebacker Steve Davis said, “and thought, ‘I don’t want to end (up) not going to a bowl game ever again.'”

Mission accomplished.

No team in the country enjoyed a better turnaround in 2008, as the Gophers improved by six victories — and possibly seven, with today’s 5 p.m. Insight Bowl matchup with Kansas University still on deck — over their ’07 record.

During a regular season in which it finished 7-5 and ascended to as high as No. 20 nationally, Minnesota improved in nearly every facet of its game, from its defensive execution — UM finished 74th in the nation in total defense this year compared to 119th in ’07 — to its newly implemented spread offense, orchestrated by sophomore quarterback Adam Weber.

And despite a late-season swoon in which the Gophers lost their final four games, including a 55-0 home drubbing by Iowa, there was little for Minnesota fans to be disappointed in during the 2008 season.

“I think the biggest question that I’m asked is, ‘How did you do it? How did you turn it?'” said Brewster, who spent five years as an NFL assistant before taking over at UM. “And it is just a commitment from within to make the team more important than individuals. … And guys, I know that may sound corny or whatnot, but you know what? I truly believe that’s what made us a better football this season.”

The players insist that this year’s performance came as no surprise to them. They point to the focused preparation heading into the season, and the fact that, in spite of their dismal ’07 record, they managed to keep things close in many of their games.

This season, they say, they’ve learned how to finish games, and the result has been favorable.

“We have a lot of talent on this team,” VanDeSteeg said. “And we have a lot of kids who are ready to lead. Like coach Brewster said, we lost six games last season by a combined 23 points. We were in every single one of those games, we just couldn’t finish them. That’s what we worked on in the offseason, in the fourth-quarter program. We tried to figure out how to win the last quarter.”

Time will tell whether the Gophers can parlay this year’s success into future prominence. Brewster understands that building a consistent winner will be key, and he points to Kansas coach Mark Mangino as an example of a coach who has brought respectability to a downtrodden program in a short amount of time.

Like Minnesota, the Jayhawks overcame a rough transition season under first-year coach Mangino in 2002, when they finished 2-10 and were outscored by an average of three touchdowns a game, to become bowl-eligible the following year. Since then, Kansas has finished with at least six victories every year but one — 2004 — while emerging as Orange Bowl champs last season after posting a 12-1 record.

“What (Mangino) has done is nothing short of amazing,” Brewster said. “In seven years, Mark has built a program at Kansas that can play with anybody in the country.”

That, in essence, is what Brewster hopes to accomplish at Minnesota.

Much of that likely will depend on how well the Gophers can respond to the occasional bout of adversity — such as the loss to Iowa — and while their short-term focus is ending their season on a winning note today, building off this year’s success is no doubt a priority heading into 2009.

“To me, winning is what it is about at the University of Minnesota,” Brewster said. “The bar, the standard of excellence, has been set well before I got there. And what we want to do is just kind of reclaim what we feel like is Minnesota’s rightful place amongst the elite teams in college football.”