Editor's note: Phil Miller has covered Gophers football for three seasons. His final game on the beat, before he begins covering the Twins, will be Friday's Meineke Car Care Bowl. He was asked to share his thoughts and observations on the Gophers program.

This might be the first and last time anyone compares Gophers football to a work of art. But hear me out.

I don't "get" modern art, not in the way artists do, not in the way art lovers do. I've been to several museums, absorbed my share of avant-garde work, but long ago came to the realization that I understand art like a sportswriter. I see an orange circle and a blue triangle and yellow paint splattered over them; I missed the metaphorical commentary on the cynicism of post-humanism, but if you see that, terrific. It's possible I was just too hungry to notice.

After spending three seasons covering the University of Minnesota, I've concluded that Gophers football has the same inscrutability as anything hanging at the Museum of Modern Art. It's performance art, perhaps, or a sports Picasso: You can see anything you want in it.

Think the 2012 Gophers are a sleeping giant, a rapidly improving squad that's better than the five that came before it? Well of course they are. They doubled their win total this year, got invited to a bowl game, and a victory on Friday means you would have to go back to 2005 to find a Minnesota team with a better record.

Believe that the so-called success is a fraud, that these are the same old underachievers cleverly disguised by a feather-pillow-soft schedule? That works, too. Their six victories came against teams that went a combined 17-40 against FBS competition. They haven't beaten a Big Ten team that posted a winning conference record since 2009, and their coach is actively working to declaw their future nonconference schedules.

For any optimism, there's a cold reality. For any attack, there's a defense. Jerry Kill's defense was noticeably better this year -- but mostly used Tim Brewster's players. Freshman quarterback Philip Nelson could barely complete a pass in November -- but his best receiver stalked off, and four of his 10 teammates on offense against Nebraska were freshmen. And he's only 19!

The cynics -- and they are shockingly legion around this program, taking odd delight in rubbing the team's noses in its failures -- have an endless supply of ammunition, because more than half a century has gone by since the Gophers played in a Rose Bowl. The optimists, a smaller and quieter bunch, are hardened by the history but resolute in their reverie. A booster told me with a straight face that he was encouraged by the Gophers' never-competitive 24-point loss to Nebraska last month; the margin had been 27 a year ago. Progress.

Maybe so. The Gophers really did keep opponents from connecting on long passes with any regularity this year, as happened so frequently a year ago. But they were victimized by running backs and huge gains almost weekly. Minnesota managed to survive its three-quarterback circus, though its passing game has gradually disappeared, making points scarce, too. Are the Gophers slowly evolving into an established winner before our eyes, one that just needs maturity and experience? Or are they bottom feeders that merely momentarily broke their habit of playing down to the competition? Go ahead: See what you want to see.

Just one step in a process?

Covering sports always requires a certain suspension of disbelief, but the Gophers take it to the extreme. You can't blame players for stubbornly believing months of work are about to pay off, that surely practice will someday make perfect, but I was struck by the team-wide insistence this year that a breakthrough was due at any moment, that victory was a simple matter of playing as they practiced. If anyone expected to be routed by Michigan, it didn't show.

For many, this year's results seem unsatisfying, often even dismal. Yet they are exactly what Kill predicted, precisely the incremental progress he planned, and he doesn't appear disappointed in the least. His background (and his own tubthumping) insist that he has done this before, and this is precisely what it looked like: slow, messy, halting. But Gophers fans have seen this before, too; to them, it looks like another coach with big plans and good intentions suffocated by a program that hasn't had enough oxygen in decades. So has he succeeded in changing the culture and setting the stage for a turnaround -- or in merely lowering expectations?

Kill's equity with Gophers fans was certainly lowered this year, partly by two new seizure episodes that became public (much to his annoyance), partly because of a public condemnation by former wide receiver A.J. Barker, but mostly because of his own misstep. The coach underestimated how the public would react to the news that not only had he requested that two future games with North Carolina be canceled, but that he had the university write an $800,000 check to do so. When Kill explained that lowering the level of competition was necessary to build his players' confidence, several fans simply heard "afraid."