"Thumbs down, Minnesota's game preparation: The Illinois loss falls squarely on Gophers head coach Tim Brewster and his staff as Minnesota didn't show up until the second half. After jumping on Michigan State from the get-go last week, Minnesota found itself down 28-7 at halftime and fell to an Illini team that had lost starting quarterback Juice Williams to an ankle injury. The Gophers can't afford another lapse this week against South Dakota State"
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Rittenberg calls out Brewster
Rittenberg (as usual) absolutely nailed it in his weekly "Thumbs up-thumbs down" post...
Suck it, Iowa! You too, Notre Dame!
About the only bright spot to come out of a weekend where the Gophers lose to a two win Illinois team was Iowa, Notre Dame AND Michigan all losing. Really, if Minnesota could have just taken care of business this would have been about the most joyous of joyous college football weekends. A Gopher victory AND three of our most hated opponents going down in flames would have been almost more fun than I could handle. Thankfully (said with a heavy, heavy amount of sarcasm), Tim Brewster, Adam Weber and Co. saved me from an overwhelming amount of glee that probably would have caused me to pass out.
Still, I can take solice despite our loss that Iowa fans can shut the **** up about being disrespected, and how "it doesn't matter how much we win by, just that we win." Um, no. It does matter. Your defense is very good and very opportunistic and Ricky Stanzi and your offense had so many horseshoes up their keisters I'm surprised they could walk. Pundits and people outside the state of Iowa kept telling you over and over how lucky your team was simply because your team was lucky. Well their luck ran out Saturday against Northwestern.
You remember Northwestern, don't you Gopher fans? The same team we beat at their house and hung 35 on? Yep, that Northwestern. Anywho, Stanzi sprained his ankle, the Wildcats took the lead, and Iowa fans saw their dream season go down in flames. Awesome. Couldn't have happened to a classier group of fans (and by "classier" I actually mean the opposite). Their national championship (pipe) dreams are gone, and WHEN they get slaughtered by Ohio State this weekend, their hopes of a Big Ten title will disappear too. The sad part (at least if you're nto an Iowa fan)? If (and probably when they beat us. And that's with or without Stanzi back), they'll still get to 10 wins and will probably take a BCS bowl spot. That's because of 1) Iowa's traveling horde and 2) other than Alabama, Florida and Texas, nobody else in any of the other conferences will be any better.
And if Iowa doesn't take that spot, Penn State, who played two good teams all year and got thumped by both of them, will. Once again, more evidence that regardless of the national perception of this conference, our top teams travel as well or better than anyone else (and that includes the SEC), and therefore you'll continue to see Big Ten teams in as many big bowls as they can get them into.
As for Notre Dame, we're all pretty sure the Charlie Weis Era ended with a loss to Navy. Want to hear an amazing stat from E!SPN.com's Mark Schlabach? Weis has lost to Navy two out of the last three years. Before that first loss to them in 2007, the Irish had beaten the Midshipmen 43 STRAIGHT TIMES (told you it was amazing). Yep, the shine is definitely off the Golden Domers (Hello Brian Kelly? Notre Dame is holding impatiently for you on line 1...they say it's urgent...very urgent...and no they don't seem to care about your run for a BCS game).
Continuing to pile on The Irish, SI.com's Stewart Mandel had a fantastic piece yesterday in his weekly College Football Overtime column, where he says that Notre Dame is now just like, and no better, in football than academic superpowers Stanford and Northwestern. And you know what? He's right. Even better, Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald actually thinks they're worse!
"Even though we're similar academically, we're in a little different boat as Stanford and Notre Dame... We've been consistently winning since 1995. They're still saying they can do it, but we're doing it."
Ahhhhhhh yeah, if that doesn't make your day, I don't know what will. And to finish kicking Notre Dame while they're down, not only will they now not get to 10 wins and a BCS bowl game that they didn't deserve to be in, but at 6-3, they're going to need all the "Luck o' the Irish" they can get just to get to eight wins. Before the season Notre Dame's schedule looked easy after USC, but now, the last three games at Pitt, home to UConn and at Stanford don't look so easy anymore. It would be shocking to see The Irish win all three, and somewhat surprising to see them beat Pitt or Stanford, which means the team is likely to finish 7-5. Not what the ND administration had in mind when they gave ol' Charlie that 10 year extension.
As for Michigan, well, I still say RichRod needs one more season, but whether he gets it is anyone's guess. I say he should get his third year because yanking him after two seasons means you're very likely to bring in another coach who will want to completely change up the offensive system. Again. So now you've got at least two more years with a new guy while he tries to run HIS offense with players that don't fit it. Give RichRod one more year (and another monster recruiting class) and see what happens. Remember, winning cures everything. With all the drama of the offseason, everything was forgotten when Michigan started 4-0. As "un-Michigan" as this has been for Wolverines fans, this is a young team, and with another year of seasoning and another strong recruiting class, there's no reason they're not competiting for a Big Ten title next year. No really- tell me who's going to be a juggernaut in the Big Ten next year other than Ohio State? Please, I'm waiting. So IF Michigan can stick to the plan and give Rodriguez one more year, I think they'll be fine.
Then again, the argument to can him now is gaining steam. They are going to finish with a losing record for the second straight season (keep in mind, before RichRod showed up they hadn't suffered a losing season in four decades!!!) because there's no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks they're going to win at Wisconsin and home to Ohio State. None. So Rodriguez will finish with two losing seasons AND a swirling NCAA investigation. I say he SHOULD get one more shot, but I suppose you can't blame the folks in Ann Arbor if he doesn't get it.
Still, let this be a lesson to Michigan, and anyone else whose fanbase is unhappy with a coach who averages nine or ten wins a year but is deemed to "not be able to win the big one" like Lloyd Carr was: be careful what you wish for, because it could be worse. A lot worse. Just ask Notre Dame or Nebraska.
Still, I can take solice despite our loss that Iowa fans can shut the **** up about being disrespected, and how "it doesn't matter how much we win by, just that we win." Um, no. It does matter. Your defense is very good and very opportunistic and Ricky Stanzi and your offense had so many horseshoes up their keisters I'm surprised they could walk. Pundits and people outside the state of Iowa kept telling you over and over how lucky your team was simply because your team was lucky. Well their luck ran out Saturday against Northwestern.
You remember Northwestern, don't you Gopher fans? The same team we beat at their house and hung 35 on? Yep, that Northwestern. Anywho, Stanzi sprained his ankle, the Wildcats took the lead, and Iowa fans saw their dream season go down in flames. Awesome. Couldn't have happened to a classier group of fans (and by "classier" I actually mean the opposite). Their national championship (pipe) dreams are gone, and WHEN they get slaughtered by Ohio State this weekend, their hopes of a Big Ten title will disappear too. The sad part (at least if you're nto an Iowa fan)? If (and probably when they beat us. And that's with or without Stanzi back), they'll still get to 10 wins and will probably take a BCS bowl spot. That's because of 1) Iowa's traveling horde and 2) other than Alabama, Florida and Texas, nobody else in any of the other conferences will be any better.
And if Iowa doesn't take that spot, Penn State, who played two good teams all year and got thumped by both of them, will. Once again, more evidence that regardless of the national perception of this conference, our top teams travel as well or better than anyone else (and that includes the SEC), and therefore you'll continue to see Big Ten teams in as many big bowls as they can get them into.
As for Notre Dame, we're all pretty sure the Charlie Weis Era ended with a loss to Navy. Want to hear an amazing stat from E!SPN.com's Mark Schlabach? Weis has lost to Navy two out of the last three years. Before that first loss to them in 2007, the Irish had beaten the Midshipmen 43 STRAIGHT TIMES (told you it was amazing). Yep, the shine is definitely off the Golden Domers (Hello Brian Kelly? Notre Dame is holding impatiently for you on line 1...they say it's urgent...very urgent...and no they don't seem to care about your run for a BCS game).
Continuing to pile on The Irish, SI.com's Stewart Mandel had a fantastic piece yesterday in his weekly College Football Overtime column, where he says that Notre Dame is now just like, and no better, in football than academic superpowers Stanford and Northwestern. And you know what? He's right. Even better, Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald actually thinks they're worse!
"Even though we're similar academically, we're in a little different boat as Stanford and Notre Dame... We've been consistently winning since 1995. They're still saying they can do it, but we're doing it."
Ahhhhhhh yeah, if that doesn't make your day, I don't know what will. And to finish kicking Notre Dame while they're down, not only will they now not get to 10 wins and a BCS bowl game that they didn't deserve to be in, but at 6-3, they're going to need all the "Luck o' the Irish" they can get just to get to eight wins. Before the season Notre Dame's schedule looked easy after USC, but now, the last three games at Pitt, home to UConn and at Stanford don't look so easy anymore. It would be shocking to see The Irish win all three, and somewhat surprising to see them beat Pitt or Stanford, which means the team is likely to finish 7-5. Not what the ND administration had in mind when they gave ol' Charlie that 10 year extension.
As for Michigan, well, I still say RichRod needs one more season, but whether he gets it is anyone's guess. I say he should get his third year because yanking him after two seasons means you're very likely to bring in another coach who will want to completely change up the offensive system. Again. So now you've got at least two more years with a new guy while he tries to run HIS offense with players that don't fit it. Give RichRod one more year (and another monster recruiting class) and see what happens. Remember, winning cures everything. With all the drama of the offseason, everything was forgotten when Michigan started 4-0. As "un-Michigan" as this has been for Wolverines fans, this is a young team, and with another year of seasoning and another strong recruiting class, there's no reason they're not competiting for a Big Ten title next year. No really- tell me who's going to be a juggernaut in the Big Ten next year other than Ohio State? Please, I'm waiting. So IF Michigan can stick to the plan and give Rodriguez one more year, I think they'll be fine.
Then again, the argument to can him now is gaining steam. They are going to finish with a losing record for the second straight season (keep in mind, before RichRod showed up they hadn't suffered a losing season in four decades!!!) because there's no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks they're going to win at Wisconsin and home to Ohio State. None. So Rodriguez will finish with two losing seasons AND a swirling NCAA investigation. I say he SHOULD get one more shot, but I suppose you can't blame the folks in Ann Arbor if he doesn't get it.
Still, let this be a lesson to Michigan, and anyone else whose fanbase is unhappy with a coach who averages nine or ten wins a year but is deemed to "not be able to win the big one" like Lloyd Carr was: be careful what you wish for, because it could be worse. A lot worse. Just ask Notre Dame or Nebraska.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Confusion
Since leaving The Bank on Saturday I've been mulling over quite a few things about Gopher football. So this post will serve as me clearing my head... and lucky you, you get to be a witness to it.
Expectations...
Jeff and I have been saying since the spring that this Gopher team could quite possibly be better than last year's Gopher team, but wind up having a poorer record. That being the expectation that we set ourselves up for, we probably shouldn't feel too poorly about a 5-5 record right now. Let's be serious here, the Gophers are going to finish 6-6 and go to yet another low-tier bowl game. Based on that assumed record and that result alone the Gophers have met expectations this year.
The reality...
But doesn't the reality of the situation feel much, much different than that? Even though they will meet expectations, didn't it feel, at least earlier in the year, that this team could certainly outpace those expectations? After the Gophers dropped a hard-fought game to Cal and were 2-1 going into the Big Ten season, didn't you feel like this team should absolutely win more than 6 games?
What happened?
If you walk through the schedule so far I would argue that the W's & L's fall pretty much where we thought they would... EXCEPT for Illinois (which is what makes that loss such a stomach punch)...
Yes, we're probably going to finish the season about where we thought we could end up. Yes, the record is down from last year, but again, we thought this was possible because of the difficulty of the schedule. And yes, the games, for the most part, fell into the W-L columns the way we thought they would. But that's not the whole story.
We beat an improved Syracuse team, a good Air Force team, and lost admirably to a Cal team that was considered a BCS contender when we played them. We then beat a decent NWestern team on the road, lost at home to our biggest rival in a game that was not as close as the score indicated, and beat Purdue handily enough on homecoming to feel comfortable. We get absolutely run out of the stadium by both PSU and Ohio States, we show signs of life against MSU and get a win, and then we lay a first half egg that we couldn't overcome against, arguably, the worst team in the Big Ten. And the point is this...
JUST WHO THE HECK IS THIS TEAM?
Listen, if we were 5-5 right now and it actually felt like we should be a 6 win team, I'd be totally fine with that. But at times this season we have felt like AT LEAST a 7-win team... after we beat NWestern I wasn't so sure we couldn't find a way to 8 wins. And at other times we have felt like a 4 or 5 win team (PSU, OSU, first half against Illinois). At times this season it has felt like our defense was our strength, and at other times they have looked completely lost. At times our offense has been unreal... okay, ONCE, but most of the time we've looked like a D-II team. If we played every game this season the way we did against Cal, I think we'd be an 8-2 football team right now. I truly believe that would have been the case.
But the bottom line is that we have been inconsistent all year, and even our inconsistency has been inconsistent. What causes inconsistency?
Inexperience?
This is not the issue. The only place on our team where we are even a little inexperienced is the O-line, which hasn't been good, but I don't think they've been bad enough to blame all of the inconsistency on.
QB play?
Don't get me started, but here are some interesting tidbits:
Did you know that Adam Weber...
...has thrown more TD passes than INT's only twice this season, (NW, MSU)...
...has thrown more INT's than TD's four times (Cal, Purdue, PSU, OSU)...
...has had two games where he threw as many INT's as TD's (Syracuse, Wisky)...
...and has thrown more INT's than TD's for the year (13 INT's, 12 TD's)?
Kick-off time?
A guy sitting behind me at the game on Saturday (who was a 10 out of 10 on the Annoying Football Fan Scale) was convinced that the Gophers are horrible in 11:00am games. So our team prefers to sleep in? If you look at the results, it's hard to argue with it... but there's no chance I'm ready to chalk up our inconsistency to kick-off times.
Coaching?
Now this is interesting. First of all, we've had some slow starts this season, but early in the year we did a decent job of adjusting. You look at a game like Illinois, however, and we just dug ourselves too big of a hole to climb out of. Does coaching play a part in slow starts? I would argue yes.
How about play-calling? I think this is an issue as well. It's 2nd & goal from your opponent's 1 yard line on your first drive of the 2nd half. You are a team that claims to want to "Pound the Rock." So what do you do? Well, naturally you call a... um, pass play? Weber gets sacked. Now it's 3rd & goal from the 9 yard line and now you don't have a choice anymore, you HAVE to pass. How did that work out for you?
I realize we got down by 14 points early (thanks to a beautiful pass that Adam Weber threw into the arms of Terry Hawthorne (he plays for the Illini, not the Gophers), so there was bound to be some passing to get back into the game, but we should have gone to the run more often in the first half when Weber CLEARLY didn't have it.
Again, all of this comes down to a team that has zero identity, and I think that lack of identity (and this is just my opinion) is leading to a lack of confidence in our players.
Can this team beat SDSU? This is not 2007 people, we WILL beat SDSU.
Expectations...
Jeff and I have been saying since the spring that this Gopher team could quite possibly be better than last year's Gopher team, but wind up having a poorer record. That being the expectation that we set ourselves up for, we probably shouldn't feel too poorly about a 5-5 record right now. Let's be serious here, the Gophers are going to finish 6-6 and go to yet another low-tier bowl game. Based on that assumed record and that result alone the Gophers have met expectations this year.The reality...
But doesn't the reality of the situation feel much, much different than that? Even though they will meet expectations, didn't it feel, at least earlier in the year, that this team could certainly outpace those expectations? After the Gophers dropped a hard-fought game to Cal and were 2-1 going into the Big Ten season, didn't you feel like this team should absolutely win more than 6 games?
What happened?
If you walk through the schedule so far I would argue that the W's & L's fall pretty much where we thought they would... EXCEPT for Illinois (which is what makes that loss such a stomach punch)...
Syracuse, Air Force, Northwestern, Purdue: we expected wins, and we got them.
Cal, PSU, OSU: we expected losses, but we certainly didn't expect to lose the way we did in Happy Valley and at The Shoe.
Wisconsin, MSU, Illinois: I think that going into the season these games all looked like a crap shoot, but being as they were all at home, we figured to win 2 of the 3. Wisconsin is always a tough game, and we played well, but we couldn't get the W.
Earlier in the season when MSU dropped three strait including a game to Central Michigan, this game looked very winnable, but MSU fought back to respectability and the game with them looked tough... we got a nice win. After beating MSU, 7 wins looked very plausible for this Gopher team.
Instead of going 2-1 at home against these Big Ten foes, we went 1-2, and THAT my friends, is why we are in danger of going to Detroit.The end doesn't justify the means...
Yes, we're probably going to finish the season about where we thought we could end up. Yes, the record is down from last year, but again, we thought this was possible because of the difficulty of the schedule. And yes, the games, for the most part, fell into the W-L columns the way we thought they would. But that's not the whole story.
We beat an improved Syracuse team, a good Air Force team, and lost admirably to a Cal team that was considered a BCS contender when we played them. We then beat a decent NWestern team on the road, lost at home to our biggest rival in a game that was not as close as the score indicated, and beat Purdue handily enough on homecoming to feel comfortable. We get absolutely run out of the stadium by both PSU and Ohio States, we show signs of life against MSU and get a win, and then we lay a first half egg that we couldn't overcome against, arguably, the worst team in the Big Ten. And the point is this...
JUST WHO THE HECK IS THIS TEAM?
Listen, if we were 5-5 right now and it actually felt like we should be a 6 win team, I'd be totally fine with that. But at times this season we have felt like AT LEAST a 7-win team... after we beat NWestern I wasn't so sure we couldn't find a way to 8 wins. And at other times we have felt like a 4 or 5 win team (PSU, OSU, first half against Illinois). At times this season it has felt like our defense was our strength, and at other times they have looked completely lost. At times our offense has been unreal... okay, ONCE, but most of the time we've looked like a D-II team. If we played every game this season the way we did against Cal, I think we'd be an 8-2 football team right now. I truly believe that would have been the case.
But the bottom line is that we have been inconsistent all year, and even our inconsistency has been inconsistent. What causes inconsistency?
Inexperience?
This is not the issue. The only place on our team where we are even a little inexperienced is the O-line, which hasn't been good, but I don't think they've been bad enough to blame all of the inconsistency on.
QB play?
Don't get me started, but here are some interesting tidbits:
Did you know that Adam Weber...
...has thrown more TD passes than INT's only twice this season, (NW, MSU)...
...has thrown more INT's than TD's four times (Cal, Purdue, PSU, OSU)...
...has had two games where he threw as many INT's as TD's (Syracuse, Wisky)...
...and has thrown more INT's than TD's for the year (13 INT's, 12 TD's)?
Kick-off time?
A guy sitting behind me at the game on Saturday (who was a 10 out of 10 on the Annoying Football Fan Scale) was convinced that the Gophers are horrible in 11:00am games. So our team prefers to sleep in? If you look at the results, it's hard to argue with it... but there's no chance I'm ready to chalk up our inconsistency to kick-off times.
Coaching?
Now this is interesting. First of all, we've had some slow starts this season, but early in the year we did a decent job of adjusting. You look at a game like Illinois, however, and we just dug ourselves too big of a hole to climb out of. Does coaching play a part in slow starts? I would argue yes.
How about play-calling? I think this is an issue as well. It's 2nd & goal from your opponent's 1 yard line on your first drive of the 2nd half. You are a team that claims to want to "Pound the Rock." So what do you do? Well, naturally you call a... um, pass play? Weber gets sacked. Now it's 3rd & goal from the 9 yard line and now you don't have a choice anymore, you HAVE to pass. How did that work out for you?
I realize we got down by 14 points early (thanks to a beautiful pass that Adam Weber threw into the arms of Terry Hawthorne (he plays for the Illini, not the Gophers), so there was bound to be some passing to get back into the game, but we should have gone to the run more often in the first half when Weber CLEARLY didn't have it.
Again, all of this comes down to a team that has zero identity, and I think that lack of identity (and this is just my opinion) is leading to a lack of confidence in our players.
Can this team beat SDSU? This is not 2007 people, we WILL beat SDSU.
Back to the Ol' Drawing Board
Well I hope you enjoyed the feelings of happiness, hope, and the promise of something better after the Michigan State win, because apparently Tim Brewster and the Gopher football team went right back to the maddening and frustrating group we'd come to know and love.
Good gracious- WHAT HAPPENED? The Michigan State game did happen, right? We had an offense that scored 42 points (not on the season, but in one whole game) and put up 500 yards of offense (again, not on the season but in one whole game). That DID happen right? Just checking, because Minnesota played like that game didn't happen, and many of the struggles we'd seen all season long, on both sides of the ball, decided to make a comeback at the worst possible time.
We didn't lapse back into every problem we'd been having, but there were plenty of the "old familiars":
Adam Weber
This should probably be its only weekly post. The Weber Apologists will point to another shaky performance from the offensive line and more dropped passes. True on both accounts, but Weber is also accountable for missing open receivers, and taking some really, really dumb sacks. We can win with the Weber that we saw against Michigan State, but we cannot win with the guy we've seen in pretty much every game except that win over the Spartans, and when he returned against Illinois, we were sunk.
Receivers
The dropped passes were bad. And the big plays were lacking. No catches for Troy Stoudermire. One for Da'Jon McKnight. It's apparent that because of Weber's inability to throw timing routes, that if the big plays downfield don't happen, the Gophers chances of winning are slim.
MarQueis Gray
Two carries for two yards and 0-1 passing. That's it. That's all. With as poorly as Weber played as as the offense was performing, Gray barely got off the sideline. Being a Gray Apologist, he definitely needs to hit a WIDE open McKnight on that pass, but at the same time, the kid is getting yanked in and out of the game, and has no chance to get into a rhythm. Give him a full series to get comfortable and get some timing. Or just keep him on the bench because the way Fisch used him is pretty much pointless.
Good gracious- WHAT HAPPENED? The Michigan State game did happen, right? We had an offense that scored 42 points (not on the season, but in one whole game) and put up 500 yards of offense (again, not on the season but in one whole game). That DID happen right? Just checking, because Minnesota played like that game didn't happen, and many of the struggles we'd seen all season long, on both sides of the ball, decided to make a comeback at the worst possible time.
We didn't lapse back into every problem we'd been having, but there were plenty of the "old familiars":
Adam Weber
This should probably be its only weekly post. The Weber Apologists will point to another shaky performance from the offensive line and more dropped passes. True on both accounts, but Weber is also accountable for missing open receivers, and taking some really, really dumb sacks. We can win with the Weber that we saw against Michigan State, but we cannot win with the guy we've seen in pretty much every game except that win over the Spartans, and when he returned against Illinois, we were sunk.
Receivers
The dropped passes were bad. And the big plays were lacking. No catches for Troy Stoudermire. One for Da'Jon McKnight. It's apparent that because of Weber's inability to throw timing routes, that if the big plays downfield don't happen, the Gophers chances of winning are slim.
MarQueis Gray
Two carries for two yards and 0-1 passing. That's it. That's all. With as poorly as Weber played as as the offense was performing, Gray barely got off the sideline. Being a Gray Apologist, he definitely needs to hit a WIDE open McKnight on that pass, but at the same time, the kid is getting yanked in and out of the game, and has no chance to get into a rhythm. Give him a full series to get comfortable and get some timing. Or just keep him on the bench because the way Fisch used him is pretty much pointless.
Jed Fisch
Speaking of Wonderboy, his playcalling was lacking. Again. Too much Weber, and believe it or not, not enough trust in the running game. And I know what you're saying- we ran for 50 yards at 1.6 yards per carry. WHY WOULD WE KEEP RUNNING?!?! Well, because the running backs were actually moving the ball. Kevin Whaley, or as I like to call him "our best running back", averaged 5.1 yards per carry, and DeLeon Eskridge averaged 4.3 YPC , but between them they only carried the ball 17 times. The reason the run stats looked awful are because of Weber's eight rushes for -60. Yep, some of those are the offensive line, but again, some are Weber hanging onto the ball too long and not making a decision. When we actually gave the ball to our running backs, we were doing quite ok moving the ball. We just for whatever reason didn't give it to the enough.
Passing Defense and 3rd Downs
After a strong showing against a good passing team in Michigan State, our defense allowed the worst passing team in the Big Ten to throw for 238 yards on 9.5 per pass, and convert 9-17 third downs (52%). I continued to see WAY too much zone, especially on third downs. I continued to see way too much zone and a total lack of a pass rush. We had no picks and very few hurries on the Illini's third string freshman QB. Maybe Jacob Charest will be good, but he's not THAT good, at least not yet.
That isn't to say everything went wrong for us though. Among the positives were that we continued to perform well on third down offensively (8-15, which is much better than the mid-thirties percentage we'd been converting), and part of this can be attributed to having some third and shorts instead of third and longs. Our run defense was once again awesome, holding the 20th best rushing team in the nation to just 113 yards on 2.7 YPC. Obviously when Juice went out they lost a big part of their rushing attack (he was their leading rusher on the season after all), but they still have three good running backs that we shut down. Finally, and perhaps most promising- we only committed three penalties. Not in a half, not in a quarter, not on one drive, but in the ENTIRE game!! To go from a Big Ten record 17 two weeks ago to just three against Illinois is incredible, and our coaching staff should be applauded for finally getting the message across.
So it wasn't all bad, but it was still a really painful loss, especially considering what happened around the rest of the conference. With a win we would have been sitting fifth at 4-3, with a real shot at the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio (a better bowl than Mason ever got us to), but instead we're now eighth and are staring the Pizza! Pizza! Bowl in beautiful Detroit square in the face. Not exactly what we had in mind. Still, with as poorly as Iowa played in losing to Northwestern, and coupled with the fact their QB Ricky Stanzi will miss the rest of the regular season, the season finale down in Iowa City is absolutely winnable for the Gophers. Iowa was playing with fire all season long, and without Stanzi (and top back Adam Robinson), they REALLY struggled to move the ball in the second half on Northwestern. You remember Northwestern, right? The team we hung 35 points on and ran for 166 yards? Yep, that Northwestern. Iowa managed just 65 yards rushing and 281 total yards AT HOME. The Hawkeyes were riding a good defense and an opportunistic offense all season. Their D has a lot of takeaways, but their offense wasn't even ranked in the top half of the Big Ten WITH Stanzi. Without him, it's going to be interesting to see how they move the ball. If the Gophers bring the offense we saw against Michigan State to Iowa City and leave the penalties at home, we can absolutely win that game.
Of course, that's a BIG if, and it's still two weeks away. If you haven't heard, South Dakota State should not be taken lightly, and will not be a pushover. The season isn't over, and seven regular season wins is still in our sights, but we need to play a lot better than we did against Illinois to make that happen. With the way the Gophers have played this season, your guess is as good as mine which team will show up to The Bank on Saturday.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Comparing Rushing Offenses with the Women of Mad Men
Ok so you know how nervous I was in my last post about the Illinois game? While after looking at the stats for both teams, I am now 10 times more nervous. No really, I am. This is not a reverse jinx or something designed to butter up the Illini. Don't believe me? Just wait until you see the numbers. I am going to tell you right here and now that a win over Illinois will not come easily, and that a victory by any margin- be it by one point or twenty- will be well earned. I know we said don't let the records fool you with Purdue and Michigan State, and I'm going to say it again- this is NOT a 2-6 team we're playing, and they are much better and more dangerous than their record indicates.
That, or the Gophers are much worse than their record indicates because the stats for these two teams are eerily similar. Like if you didn't know the record before hand, you'd have trouble telling me which team had five wins and which had just two.
OFFENSE
Total Offense
Minnesota: 316.3 yards per game (11th in the Big Ten)
Illinois: 371.6 yards per game (7th in the Big Ten)
Scoring
Minnesota: 23.4 pts per game (10th)
Illinois: 18.9 ppg (11th)
Rushing
Minnesota: 104 yards per game (11th)
Illinois: 197.5 (2nd- and 20th nationally)
Yards Per Carry
Minnesota: 3.4 (9th)
Illinois: 5.0 (2nd)
Passing
Minnesota: 212.3 Yds/G (7th)
Illinois: 174.1 yds/G (11th)
Pass Efficiency
Minnesota: 125.7 (7th)
Illinois: 109.3 (11th)
Completion Percentage
Minnesota: .553 (8th)
Illinois: .552 (9th)
First Downs
Minnesota: 136 (11th)
Illinois: 149 (10th- and they've played one less game!!!)
Third Down Conversions
Minnesota: 37.9% (10th)
Illinois: 39.5% (7th)
Sacks Taken
Minnesota: 23- 139 yds (9th)
Illinois: 26- 155 yds (11th)
Time of Possession
Minnesota: 27:55 (10th)
Illinois: 28:54 (8th)
Giveaways
Minnesota: 8 Fum-12 INT- 20 total 2.2 per game (9th)
Illinois: 6 Fum-8 INT-14 total 1.75 per game (4th)
Offensively, these teams are going about it in different ways, but are coming up with similar results on the scoreboard. Yes, our passing game is better than theirs, but their running attack is MUCH better than ours. If I can use a Mad Men analogy, our passing attack looks like Peggy Olson while theirs looks like Peggy's sister. But our rushing attack looks like Peggy's mother while their rushing attack looks like...Joan Holloway.
See the difference? Hello? Hey- are you still staring at these pics of Christina Hendricks? Or these? Are you? Ok well now so am I...um wow...I...yeah, so...ok look we'll reconvene this when we're both done staring at her...good lord almighty...wow...I love my wife! I love my wife! I love my wife!
Ok then, are we back? Sort of? So if you can get past the size of her...I mean Illinois running game, you can see that this is a legitimate breast- I MEAN threat to the the Gophers. Despite their poor record the Illini have run the ball well all year, as they're second in the conference and 20th in the entire country. Believe it or not, they're better than Wisconsin. You know what? Since we're doing the whole Mad Men women comparison thing, let's just do the whole conference, shall we?
Michigan has the top ranked rushing attack but they're moody, whiny, are impossible to empathize with and are generally overrated- just like Betty Draper. Wisconsin is third but I think they're the one I'd take over any other- like Rachel Menken (who is the one Don should have taken over any other). Ohio State is only ranked fourth but are young and quite possibly the most dangerous and explosive of the bunch- just like Jane Sterling. Penn State is the Trudy Campbell of the conference (not spectucular and sitting middle of the pack, but consistently good every week. Also, I did not realize until last week she is also Annie in the new sitcom Community), Purdue is Helen Bishop (inconsistent, erratic yet can be SO enticing when they're on), Michigan State is Francine Hanson (not exciting and or particularily good and you know exactly what you're getting), Iowa is Peggy Olson (not exactly pretty but somehow effective), Indiana is Mona Sterling (boring and forgettable), Northwestern is Peggy's sister (I don't think I need to explain it), and Minnesota is indeed Peggy's mother (I think you get the idea).
Ok so what where talking about again? Oh yes, Illinois' Joan Holloway-esque running game. Well, unlike Wisconsin, there is not just one guy you have to stop. The Illini's top two backs, Mikel Leshoure and Jason Ford, each have at least 356 yards rushing and have yards per carry averages as big as Christina Hendrick's....well, you know. They're big. HUGE even. Leshoure averages 6.7 per carry while Ford averages a Dolly Parton-esque 8.7. And those two aren't even their top rushers- that would go to Juice, who has struggled as a passer but continues to be a nightmare for opposing defenses running the ball, as he leads the team with 529 yards and three TD's. A running quarterback is always a major headache for a defense to contain, and when you add in two solid backs (and maybe even a third as Daniel Dufrene has 220 yards at 4.9 a pop but seems to have dropped to third on the depth chart), well let's just say it's not going to be easy to stop their rushing attack.
I was going to all also show you all of the defensive statistics and how they don't really favor the Gophers at all and show you that once again they are eerily similar to Illinois. But let's be honest, you're probably still looking at the pics of the many fine women of Mad Men, so just take my word for it. Or go look for yourself. Illinois is NOT a crappy 2-6 team, but one to be taken seriously. The Gophers are going to have their hands full tomorrow with the Illini.
That, or the Gophers are much worse than their record indicates because the stats for these two teams are eerily similar. Like if you didn't know the record before hand, you'd have trouble telling me which team had five wins and which had just two.
OFFENSE
Total Offense
Minnesota: 316.3 yards per game (11th in the Big Ten)
Illinois: 371.6 yards per game (7th in the Big Ten)
Scoring
Minnesota: 23.4 pts per game (10th)
Illinois: 18.9 ppg (11th)
Rushing
Minnesota: 104 yards per game (11th)
Illinois: 197.5 (2nd- and 20th nationally)
Yards Per Carry
Minnesota: 3.4 (9th)
Illinois: 5.0 (2nd)
Passing
Minnesota: 212.3 Yds/G (7th)
Illinois: 174.1 yds/G (11th)
Pass Efficiency
Minnesota: 125.7 (7th)
Illinois: 109.3 (11th)
Completion Percentage
Minnesota: .553 (8th)
Illinois: .552 (9th)
First Downs
Minnesota: 136 (11th)
Illinois: 149 (10th- and they've played one less game!!!)
Third Down Conversions
Minnesota: 37.9% (10th)
Illinois: 39.5% (7th)
Sacks Taken
Minnesota: 23- 139 yds (9th)
Illinois: 26- 155 yds (11th)
Time of Possession
Minnesota: 27:55 (10th)
Illinois: 28:54 (8th)
Giveaways
Minnesota: 8 Fum-12 INT- 20 total 2.2 per game (9th)
Illinois: 6 Fum-8 INT-14 total 1.75 per game (4th)
Offensively, these teams are going about it in different ways, but are coming up with similar results on the scoreboard. Yes, our passing game is better than theirs, but their running attack is MUCH better than ours. If I can use a Mad Men analogy, our passing attack looks like Peggy Olson while theirs looks like Peggy's sister. But our rushing attack looks like Peggy's mother while their rushing attack looks like...Joan Holloway.
See the difference? Hello? Hey- are you still staring at these pics of Christina Hendricks? Or these? Are you? Ok well now so am I...um wow...I...yeah, so...ok look we'll reconvene this when we're both done staring at her...good lord almighty...wow...I love my wife! I love my wife! I love my wife!
Ok then, are we back? Sort of? So if you can get past the size of her...I mean Illinois running game, you can see that this is a legitimate breast- I MEAN threat to the the Gophers. Despite their poor record the Illini have run the ball well all year, as they're second in the conference and 20th in the entire country. Believe it or not, they're better than Wisconsin. You know what? Since we're doing the whole Mad Men women comparison thing, let's just do the whole conference, shall we?
Michigan has the top ranked rushing attack but they're moody, whiny, are impossible to empathize with and are generally overrated- just like Betty Draper. Wisconsin is third but I think they're the one I'd take over any other- like Rachel Menken (who is the one Don should have taken over any other). Ohio State is only ranked fourth but are young and quite possibly the most dangerous and explosive of the bunch- just like Jane Sterling. Penn State is the Trudy Campbell of the conference (not spectucular and sitting middle of the pack, but consistently good every week. Also, I did not realize until last week she is also Annie in the new sitcom Community), Purdue is Helen Bishop (inconsistent, erratic yet can be SO enticing when they're on), Michigan State is Francine Hanson (not exciting and or particularily good and you know exactly what you're getting), Iowa is Peggy Olson (not exactly pretty but somehow effective), Indiana is Mona Sterling (boring and forgettable), Northwestern is Peggy's sister (I don't think I need to explain it), and Minnesota is indeed Peggy's mother (I think you get the idea).
Ok so what where talking about again? Oh yes, Illinois' Joan Holloway-esque running game. Well, unlike Wisconsin, there is not just one guy you have to stop. The Illini's top two backs, Mikel Leshoure and Jason Ford, each have at least 356 yards rushing and have yards per carry averages as big as Christina Hendrick's....well, you know. They're big. HUGE even. Leshoure averages 6.7 per carry while Ford averages a Dolly Parton-esque 8.7. And those two aren't even their top rushers- that would go to Juice, who has struggled as a passer but continues to be a nightmare for opposing defenses running the ball, as he leads the team with 529 yards and three TD's. A running quarterback is always a major headache for a defense to contain, and when you add in two solid backs (and maybe even a third as Daniel Dufrene has 220 yards at 4.9 a pop but seems to have dropped to third on the depth chart), well let's just say it's not going to be easy to stop their rushing attack.
I was going to all also show you all of the defensive statistics and how they don't really favor the Gophers at all and show you that once again they are eerily similar to Illinois. But let's be honest, you're probably still looking at the pics of the many fine women of Mad Men, so just take my word for it. Or go look for yourself. Illinois is NOT a crappy 2-6 team, but one to be taken seriously. The Gophers are going to have their hands full tomorrow with the Illini.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Illini
Only three more days till gameday, which means only three more days for more Gopher football and basketball players to get arrested. Let's hope everybody can find something better to do than run afoul of the law, like going to class and practice. Or just not trying to pick fights or shoplift. Or if anyone has a spare PS3 or Wii, I think some of these guys could use one for something to do with their spare time (and if not them, then I certainly could. My wife would disagree but trust me, my household needs one! And if you could include NCAA Football 10 and/or FIFA 10 with the PS3, it'd be appreciated. After all, it's almost Christmas! Or at least according to those in the retail world).
Anyway, as we focus on the task at hand Saturday, I can't help but feel nervous about playing Illinois. Illini blogger Joe Kutsunis of Hail to the Orange sums up his Jeckyl and Hyde team much better than I could:
Its living life on the margins of football. It would seem to me impossible for this team to be just mediocre. It seems like it is built to explode, either in a good way or bad. Every game seems like it is just a domino rally that will either fall to one side or the other depending on how a simple small event dictates it. Maybe that's why Zook has been looking for that spark, something to get things rolling, because he knows when the boulder of offense is rolling in one direction it is impossible to stop.
Just as it was hard to believe that a Gopher offense that had been SO bad all season was capabale of the explosion they had against Michigan State, so too was it baffling to see an Illinois squad that had looked so inept for much of the season blow out Michigan. Heck, it was the Illini's first win against a 1-A team all season!! Seriously, go ahead and read that last sentence again. As Stewy Griffin would say "What the DEUCE?!?"
It wasn't that Illinois lacks talent. After all, some bonehead picked them to share the Big Ten title this year (what an idiot that guy is) because of senior QB Juice Williams, junior wideout Arrelious Benn, and a wealth of offensive talent around them. After crapping the bed against Missouri in the opener, I kept waiting for that talent to show, but I finally gave up after a home loss to Michigan State October 10th that dropped them to 1-4. Two more losses to the two Indiana schools (with the Hoosiers coming off a 47-7 loss no less), and it looked like the Illini had quit on the Zooker. Especially considering Illinois' AD came out to say Zook's job was secure, it looked like the Illini had nothing to play for but pride, and if you're 1-6, what pride could you have left?
Well plenty apparently. After all of that, and playing host to a desparate Michigan squad last week, Illinois came out and played like the team most of us expected them to be before the season. They racked up 500 yards total offense, including a gawdy 377 on the ground. Two backs each went over 128 yards, and Juice, who had been the worst starting QB in the conference not named Adam Weber, played like the guy who led the Big Ten in total yards in 2008, rushing for 97 and a TD while also completing eight of 11 passes for 123 and another score. Sure, Benn still hasn't woken up (he had just one catch for 11 yards and on the season still hasn't topped three hundred yards receiving or hauled in a touchdown pass), but after last week's explosion, would it surprise you at all if Benn suddenly lived up to the preseason hype and potential of being All-conference and a possible All-American and went off against the Gopher secondary?
I don't know about you, but it would surprise me about as much as if the Illini turned back into the stinking pile of crap they've been for most of the season. Or if Adam Weber and the Gophers put up 400 yards passing again. Or if the Gophs continue to pick up as many penalties as the Twin Cities police have picked up Gopher athletes of late (ooooooh too soon? Sorry). Or if somehow they went back to being the worst offense in the Big Ten. That's the thing: I really have NO idea what to expect Saturday because both of these teams have been so maddeningly inconsisent. Although to be fair, as much as I've complained about a lot of things this year, I'd much rather deal with the Gophers issues and be 5-4 coming off a strong performance against a Michigan school than be Illinois and be 2-6 coming off a strong performance against a Michigan school.
Still, it makes me really nervous about Saturday's game. If the Gophers can bring the offense and defense to this one that they had against the Spartans- and of course leave the 17 penalties behind- I love their chances no matter what Illinois does. But still, what are the chances Minnesota has turned the corner and figured it out? And what are the chances Illinois win over Michigan was a fluke or a flash in the pan? Is Michigan that bad or has Illinois awoken from its slumber in time to try to ruin our season?
You KNOW Tim Brewster and the rest of the coaching staff are taking this seriously, and are telling their kids over and over and over to throw out Illinois record and just look what they did against Michigan. That team, the one who rolled to 500 yards and 38 points is the one coming to town, and THAT is the team you must prepare for. Hopefully the players get that message- as well as the one to stay out of the clink- and we'll get another effort like we did in last Saturday's win over Michigan State, and hopefully, another win.
Anyway, as we focus on the task at hand Saturday, I can't help but feel nervous about playing Illinois. Illini blogger Joe Kutsunis of Hail to the Orange sums up his Jeckyl and Hyde team much better than I could:
Its living life on the margins of football. It would seem to me impossible for this team to be just mediocre. It seems like it is built to explode, either in a good way or bad. Every game seems like it is just a domino rally that will either fall to one side or the other depending on how a simple small event dictates it. Maybe that's why Zook has been looking for that spark, something to get things rolling, because he knows when the boulder of offense is rolling in one direction it is impossible to stop.
Just as it was hard to believe that a Gopher offense that had been SO bad all season was capabale of the explosion they had against Michigan State, so too was it baffling to see an Illinois squad that had looked so inept for much of the season blow out Michigan. Heck, it was the Illini's first win against a 1-A team all season!! Seriously, go ahead and read that last sentence again. As Stewy Griffin would say "What the DEUCE?!?"
It wasn't that Illinois lacks talent. After all, some bonehead picked them to share the Big Ten title this year (what an idiot that guy is) because of senior QB Juice Williams, junior wideout Arrelious Benn, and a wealth of offensive talent around them. After crapping the bed against Missouri in the opener, I kept waiting for that talent to show, but I finally gave up after a home loss to Michigan State October 10th that dropped them to 1-4. Two more losses to the two Indiana schools (with the Hoosiers coming off a 47-7 loss no less), and it looked like the Illini had quit on the Zooker. Especially considering Illinois' AD came out to say Zook's job was secure, it looked like the Illini had nothing to play for but pride, and if you're 1-6, what pride could you have left?
Well plenty apparently. After all of that, and playing host to a desparate Michigan squad last week, Illinois came out and played like the team most of us expected them to be before the season. They racked up 500 yards total offense, including a gawdy 377 on the ground. Two backs each went over 128 yards, and Juice, who had been the worst starting QB in the conference not named Adam Weber, played like the guy who led the Big Ten in total yards in 2008, rushing for 97 and a TD while also completing eight of 11 passes for 123 and another score. Sure, Benn still hasn't woken up (he had just one catch for 11 yards and on the season still hasn't topped three hundred yards receiving or hauled in a touchdown pass), but after last week's explosion, would it surprise you at all if Benn suddenly lived up to the preseason hype and potential of being All-conference and a possible All-American and went off against the Gopher secondary?
I don't know about you, but it would surprise me about as much as if the Illini turned back into the stinking pile of crap they've been for most of the season. Or if Adam Weber and the Gophers put up 400 yards passing again. Or if the Gophs continue to pick up as many penalties as the Twin Cities police have picked up Gopher athletes of late (ooooooh too soon? Sorry). Or if somehow they went back to being the worst offense in the Big Ten. That's the thing: I really have NO idea what to expect Saturday because both of these teams have been so maddeningly inconsisent. Although to be fair, as much as I've complained about a lot of things this year, I'd much rather deal with the Gophers issues and be 5-4 coming off a strong performance against a Michigan school than be Illinois and be 2-6 coming off a strong performance against a Michigan school.
Still, it makes me really nervous about Saturday's game. If the Gophers can bring the offense and defense to this one that they had against the Spartans- and of course leave the 17 penalties behind- I love their chances no matter what Illinois does. But still, what are the chances Minnesota has turned the corner and figured it out? And what are the chances Illinois win over Michigan was a fluke or a flash in the pan? Is Michigan that bad or has Illinois awoken from its slumber in time to try to ruin our season?
You KNOW Tim Brewster and the rest of the coaching staff are taking this seriously, and are telling their kids over and over and over to throw out Illinois record and just look what they did against Michigan. That team, the one who rolled to 500 yards and 38 points is the one coming to town, and THAT is the team you must prepare for. Hopefully the players get that message- as well as the one to stay out of the clink- and we'll get another effort like we did in last Saturday's win over Michigan State, and hopefully, another win.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
GFB Top 25 Week 10
Last weekend saw few big games with really one big result that shakes up the standings. In the most pressing debate this week between Oregon and Boise State, I am siding with the Ducks and their hideous uniforms, but I'm going to finally give the Broncos some credit and move them out of the teens and into the top 10 for the first time all year.
Before I get to the explanation, here's my Top 25 for week 10:
1. Alabama (8-0)
2. Florida (8-0)
3. Texas (8-0)
4. Iowa (9-0)
5. Cincinnati (8-0)
6. TCU (8-0)
7. Oregon (7-1)
8. Boise State (8-0)
9. Georgia Tech (8-1)
10. LSU (7-1)
11. Penn State (8-1)
12. USC (6-2)
13. Ohio State (6-2)
14. Miami (6-2)
15. Wisconsin (5-2)
16. California (6-2)
17. Arizona (5-2)
18. Oklahoma (4-3)
19. Virginia Tech (5-3)
20. Pittsburgh (7-1)
21. Utah (6-1)
22. Notre Dame (6-2)
23. Houston (6-1)
24. Oklahoma State (6-2)
25. BYU (6-2)
Dropped Out: 18. South Carolina (6-3) 19. West Virginia (6-2)
Ok, so my rationale for putting Oregon ahead of Boise State is as follows: head-to-head carries some weight in an argument of two teams, but shouldn't carry ALL of it. Yes Boise thumped Oregon 19-8 on opening night, and yes the Broncos have played pretty well since then. My caveat is that Oregon has turned their season around and is playing like one of the best four teams or five teams in the country right now against a much, much tougher schedule than Boise has seen. I believe in a rematch Oregon would win on a neutral field and I don't think the Broncos would be undefeated right now if they played Oregon's schedule.
While most of that is pure opinion, I am starting to use the Jeff Sagarin ratings more and more as a good barometer of how good teams are. After blowing out USC, Sagarin has the Ducks rated 2nd in the entire country (he has Florida first) while playing the eighth toughest schedule. He has Boise rated 6th (which is actually higher than the BCS has them ranked this week) while playing the country's 81st toughest schedule. So yes the Broncos beat the Quack Attack at the beginning of the season, and while the Broncos have continued to play very well, this Oregon team is playing light years better than they did that night. So they're one spot ahead in my poll.
As for the six teams ahead of Oregon and Boise, I left Bama and Florida as my top two: I'm not moving Bama down on a bye week, but was definitely impressed by the Gators finally blowing somebody out, especially in a rivalry game. Texas jumps Iowa because as much as I'm a Big Ten-homer, I just don't have the confidence they could beat any of the top three, let alone top seven or eight right, right now. Still, they've won all of their games regardless of the margin and have done it against a difficult schedule, so they only drop to four.
Cincy stays at five after another blowout, this one with their backup QB, and TCU moves up as well after plowing over UNLV. Georgia Tech should win out and go to the Orange Bowl but this is probably as high as they'll get barring disaster in front of them, while LSU and Penn State get monster opportunities to move up this week with games against Bama and Ohio State.
SC takes Virginia Tech's spot atop a growing group of good two-loss teams. We'll get to Tech in a bit, but I have the Trojans ahead of Ohio State because of their win and both teams (despite USC getting blown out) have still played pretty well overall. Miami drops after escaping with their lives against Wake. Of the three, Ohio State is definitely peaking while the other two seem to be going the wrong direction.
The losses for the next three teams- Sconnie, Cal, and Arizona- continue to look better and better (or maybe a better way to say it is "less worse") as Iowa, Ohio State, Oregon, and USC are proving to be pretty darn good.
Oklahoma and the aforementioned Hokies are the two best three loss teams in the country right now, with Oklahoma getting the nod over Va Tech because the Sooners do not have an inexplicable loss to North Carolina on their record (Stewart Mandell of SI.com pointed this out a couple of weeks ago, and the Tar Heels shocker drove home his point: if you're a ranked team with conference title aspirations, DO NOT play on Thursday nights. No matter how much ESPN pays you and how much exposure it gets you, don't do it. Just don't), and also have played without their Heisman trophy-winning quarterback (Sam Bradford) and best offensive weapon (TE Jermaine Gresham) for pretty much the entire season.
How good are Pitt and Utah? No real idea, but good enough to each have just one loss but I'm not sold on the strength of their conferences, so for now they drop to here. Notre Dame jumps into the poll because as much as I hate them, they are 6-2 and Sagarin thinks they play a pretty tough schedule (ranked 22). The last four games won't be easy with Navy, Pitt, UConn and Standford on their November slate.
Oklahoma State's blowout loss to Texas not only drops the Cowpokes in the rankings but Houston too. Why? Neither of them have really played anyone of consequence. Oklahoma State lost to the only two good teams on their schedule, and Houston? Sagarin rates their schedule 95th, and their "quality wins" against the Cowboys and Texas Tech look less and less impressive each week. BYU stays in after a bye week because honestly, there just wasn't anyone I liked better in their spot right now.
Before I get to the explanation, here's my Top 25 for week 10:
1. Alabama (8-0)
2. Florida (8-0)
3. Texas (8-0)
4. Iowa (9-0)
5. Cincinnati (8-0)
6. TCU (8-0)
7. Oregon (7-1)
8. Boise State (8-0)
9. Georgia Tech (8-1)
10. LSU (7-1)
11. Penn State (8-1)
12. USC (6-2)
13. Ohio State (6-2)
14. Miami (6-2)
15. Wisconsin (5-2)
16. California (6-2)
17. Arizona (5-2)
18. Oklahoma (4-3)
19. Virginia Tech (5-3)
20. Pittsburgh (7-1)
21. Utah (6-1)
22. Notre Dame (6-2)
23. Houston (6-1)
24. Oklahoma State (6-2)
25. BYU (6-2)
Dropped Out: 18. South Carolina (6-3) 19. West Virginia (6-2)
Ok, so my rationale for putting Oregon ahead of Boise State is as follows: head-to-head carries some weight in an argument of two teams, but shouldn't carry ALL of it. Yes Boise thumped Oregon 19-8 on opening night, and yes the Broncos have played pretty well since then. My caveat is that Oregon has turned their season around and is playing like one of the best four teams or five teams in the country right now against a much, much tougher schedule than Boise has seen. I believe in a rematch Oregon would win on a neutral field and I don't think the Broncos would be undefeated right now if they played Oregon's schedule.
While most of that is pure opinion, I am starting to use the Jeff Sagarin ratings more and more as a good barometer of how good teams are. After blowing out USC, Sagarin has the Ducks rated 2nd in the entire country (he has Florida first) while playing the eighth toughest schedule. He has Boise rated 6th (which is actually higher than the BCS has them ranked this week) while playing the country's 81st toughest schedule. So yes the Broncos beat the Quack Attack at the beginning of the season, and while the Broncos have continued to play very well, this Oregon team is playing light years better than they did that night. So they're one spot ahead in my poll.
As for the six teams ahead of Oregon and Boise, I left Bama and Florida as my top two: I'm not moving Bama down on a bye week, but was definitely impressed by the Gators finally blowing somebody out, especially in a rivalry game. Texas jumps Iowa because as much as I'm a Big Ten-homer, I just don't have the confidence they could beat any of the top three, let alone top seven or eight right, right now. Still, they've won all of their games regardless of the margin and have done it against a difficult schedule, so they only drop to four.
Cincy stays at five after another blowout, this one with their backup QB, and TCU moves up as well after plowing over UNLV. Georgia Tech should win out and go to the Orange Bowl but this is probably as high as they'll get barring disaster in front of them, while LSU and Penn State get monster opportunities to move up this week with games against Bama and Ohio State.
SC takes Virginia Tech's spot atop a growing group of good two-loss teams. We'll get to Tech in a bit, but I have the Trojans ahead of Ohio State because of their win and both teams (despite USC getting blown out) have still played pretty well overall. Miami drops after escaping with their lives against Wake. Of the three, Ohio State is definitely peaking while the other two seem to be going the wrong direction.
The losses for the next three teams- Sconnie, Cal, and Arizona- continue to look better and better (or maybe a better way to say it is "less worse") as Iowa, Ohio State, Oregon, and USC are proving to be pretty darn good.
Oklahoma and the aforementioned Hokies are the two best three loss teams in the country right now, with Oklahoma getting the nod over Va Tech because the Sooners do not have an inexplicable loss to North Carolina on their record (Stewart Mandell of SI.com pointed this out a couple of weeks ago, and the Tar Heels shocker drove home his point: if you're a ranked team with conference title aspirations, DO NOT play on Thursday nights. No matter how much ESPN pays you and how much exposure it gets you, don't do it. Just don't), and also have played without their Heisman trophy-winning quarterback (Sam Bradford) and best offensive weapon (TE Jermaine Gresham) for pretty much the entire season.
How good are Pitt and Utah? No real idea, but good enough to each have just one loss but I'm not sold on the strength of their conferences, so for now they drop to here. Notre Dame jumps into the poll because as much as I hate them, they are 6-2 and Sagarin thinks they play a pretty tough schedule (ranked 22). The last four games won't be easy with Navy, Pitt, UConn and Standford on their November slate.
Oklahoma State's blowout loss to Texas not only drops the Cowpokes in the rankings but Houston too. Why? Neither of them have really played anyone of consequence. Oklahoma State lost to the only two good teams on their schedule, and Houston? Sagarin rates their schedule 95th, and their "quality wins" against the Cowboys and Texas Tech look less and less impressive each week. BYU stays in after a bye week because honestly, there just wasn't anyone I liked better in their spot right now.
Discipline Has Become an Issue
As excited as I am about the Gopher's prospects for the last three games of the season (In the post about Weber and the offense yesterday I used the word "love" more often than a high school girl talking about the stupid Twilight series), the 17 penalties were and are a cause for concern. The official stats came out today, and as expected, our 65 penalties for 567 yards both rank dead last in the Big Ten (and 83rd and 87th nationally). Now, considering those numbers are actually better than teams like Oregon, Southern Cal, Texas, Oklahoma and Miami, a lot of penalties are not always a recipe for disaster. However, to compensate for all of their penalties, all of those teams are just a wee bit better on offense and defense than we are, so I'd say the problem is bigger for us than it is for them.
And make no mistake, it IS a problem. Since week one we've seen penalty after penalty called on the offensive line, and a lot of them are what I'd call "mental errors" like false start penalties. I don't love physical mistakes, but they happen, and usually because your players are being aggressive and flying around. Most pass interference and late hit calls are phyical mistakes, where you're playing all-out and you maybe get to a receiver a step too early or hit a guy inbounds and you finish the hit which takes you out of bounds. It happens, and it happens to fast, aggressive defenses. Offensively, and especially on our line, we're seeing a lot of mental mistakes, and we're seeing the same ones over and over and over. I know mental mistakes happen from time to time (after all, nobody's perfect- even Adam Weber), but I have no patience for false start calls. None. Of all the penalties in football, there is zero excuses for that one because you know EXACTLY when the ball is being snapped. Every time. And yet that one happens repeatedly to our line.
While our linemen are probably just that good, some of that blame also has to go on the coaches. How does this keep happening week after week after week? Sure, maybe it happens a few times early in the season when our new starters are learning the ropes, or it happens in a hostile road environment like Happy Valley or The Shoe, but at home? AT HOME?!?!? For Jeff Wills to false start twice in a row on third and long? TWICE IN A FREAKING ROW?!?!?!?!?!?!?
As you can tell, I have no patience for it, and it needs to stop. As I said yesterday, I've heard Brewster looks at every single penalty with the team when they review game tape, and while the accountability is nice, it doesn't mean much if it's not working. And it's clearly not working, as discipline problems and mental errors continue on the field. As much as I love this team right now and am excited about the positive direction we're going, the Gophers are not good enough yet to overcome this many penalties against good teams and get away with it. Laugh if you want, but if we bring the offense and defense we saw against Michigan State down to Iowa City and leave most of the dumb penalties at home, I like our chances against Iowa. I really, really do. But no matter how well we play, we don't stand a chance against the stinkin' Hawks if we continue to give up and hand out free yards on penalties.
Speaking of the dirty, stinkin', cheating Hawkeyes, I picked on them before the season started because it seemed so many of their players were getting arrested down in Iowa City that they were going to have to add a practice facility at the local jail just to make sure all the players could get to practice. Well, in the wake of the Michael Carter arrest news from yesterday, I won't be saying a word about Iowa's off-field incidents anymore. As the Hawkeye fans so kindly pointed out back in August, the Gopher football program have had their fair share of incidents now too, and while Carter only faces misdemeanor charges of obstruction of justice and consumption by a minor, it still looks terrible for the program. Especially after Carter himself played so well and looked so promising Saturday night.
I have no idea what penalties are coming for Carter, if any. What's sad is that as a Gopher fan, I'm hoping he'll just learn from his mistake and get a slap on the wrist. I'm not ready to say we have a serious off-field discipline problem for our football team, but this is certainly troubling for us fans, and for Brewster. You probably remember the story from September about sophomore linebacker Gary Tinsley alledgedly swinging a piece of wood in a Dinkytown brawl. No charges ended up being brought against Tinsley, but it put the football program in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons, and continued a string of arrests and off-field incidents that goes back to the Mason Era.
I'm by no means expecting the Gopher football players to be choir boys. I was in college once and made some dumb decisions, almost all of them involving alcohol, so I'm not expecting them to act like perfect adults and always make a good decision. But this kind of stuff needs to stop, and these guys needs to realize some level of responsibility that as football players, they're going to be held to a higher standard and unfair or not, they're probably going to be singled out more than your average student. It's not fair, but it comes with playing football and receiving a free education at a Big Ten school. As a fan, it's frustrating to have such a thrilling positive win Saturday night, only to have discpline issues, both on and off the field, grabbing the headlines this week instead. I know and trust Coach Brewster is doing the right things behind the scenes to get this message across to his guys, and hopefully this will be the last one for awhile so we can concentrate on what the team is doing on the field, and not how they're acting off of it.
And make no mistake, it IS a problem. Since week one we've seen penalty after penalty called on the offensive line, and a lot of them are what I'd call "mental errors" like false start penalties. I don't love physical mistakes, but they happen, and usually because your players are being aggressive and flying around. Most pass interference and late hit calls are phyical mistakes, where you're playing all-out and you maybe get to a receiver a step too early or hit a guy inbounds and you finish the hit which takes you out of bounds. It happens, and it happens to fast, aggressive defenses. Offensively, and especially on our line, we're seeing a lot of mental mistakes, and we're seeing the same ones over and over and over. I know mental mistakes happen from time to time (after all, nobody's perfect- even Adam Weber), but I have no patience for false start calls. None. Of all the penalties in football, there is zero excuses for that one because you know EXACTLY when the ball is being snapped. Every time. And yet that one happens repeatedly to our line.
While our linemen are probably just that good, some of that blame also has to go on the coaches. How does this keep happening week after week after week? Sure, maybe it happens a few times early in the season when our new starters are learning the ropes, or it happens in a hostile road environment like Happy Valley or The Shoe, but at home? AT HOME?!?!? For Jeff Wills to false start twice in a row on third and long? TWICE IN A FREAKING ROW?!?!?!?!?!?!?
As you can tell, I have no patience for it, and it needs to stop. As I said yesterday, I've heard Brewster looks at every single penalty with the team when they review game tape, and while the accountability is nice, it doesn't mean much if it's not working. And it's clearly not working, as discipline problems and mental errors continue on the field. As much as I love this team right now and am excited about the positive direction we're going, the Gophers are not good enough yet to overcome this many penalties against good teams and get away with it. Laugh if you want, but if we bring the offense and defense we saw against Michigan State down to Iowa City and leave most of the dumb penalties at home, I like our chances against Iowa. I really, really do. But no matter how well we play, we don't stand a chance against the stinkin' Hawks if we continue to give up and hand out free yards on penalties.
Speaking of the dirty, stinkin', cheating Hawkeyes, I picked on them before the season started because it seemed so many of their players were getting arrested down in Iowa City that they were going to have to add a practice facility at the local jail just to make sure all the players could get to practice. Well, in the wake of the Michael Carter arrest news from yesterday, I won't be saying a word about Iowa's off-field incidents anymore. As the Hawkeye fans so kindly pointed out back in August, the Gopher football program have had their fair share of incidents now too, and while Carter only faces misdemeanor charges of obstruction of justice and consumption by a minor, it still looks terrible for the program. Especially after Carter himself played so well and looked so promising Saturday night.
I have no idea what penalties are coming for Carter, if any. What's sad is that as a Gopher fan, I'm hoping he'll just learn from his mistake and get a slap on the wrist. I'm not ready to say we have a serious off-field discipline problem for our football team, but this is certainly troubling for us fans, and for Brewster. You probably remember the story from September about sophomore linebacker Gary Tinsley alledgedly swinging a piece of wood in a Dinkytown brawl. No charges ended up being brought against Tinsley, but it put the football program in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons, and continued a string of arrests and off-field incidents that goes back to the Mason Era.
I'm by no means expecting the Gopher football players to be choir boys. I was in college once and made some dumb decisions, almost all of them involving alcohol, so I'm not expecting them to act like perfect adults and always make a good decision. But this kind of stuff needs to stop, and these guys needs to realize some level of responsibility that as football players, they're going to be held to a higher standard and unfair or not, they're probably going to be singled out more than your average student. It's not fair, but it comes with playing football and receiving a free education at a Big Ten school. As a fan, it's frustrating to have such a thrilling positive win Saturday night, only to have discpline issues, both on and off the field, grabbing the headlines this week instead. I know and trust Coach Brewster is doing the right things behind the scenes to get this message across to his guys, and hopefully this will be the last one for awhile so we can concentrate on what the team is doing on the field, and not how they're acting off of it.
Monday, November 2, 2009
And Now...The Rest of the Story
(said in my best Paul Harvey voice)
Ok so after chowing down on some Adam Weber Crow (garnished with Chipotle flavored tobasco, ground pepper and season salt. Honestly, if he keeps playing the way he did Saturday I hope to be eating "AWC" every Monday for the rest of the season- and hopefully next season too) it's time to review the rest of the 42-34 win in what was THE most important game of the Brewster Era.
By the way, have I mentioned how much better I feel about the Gophers, this season, our bowl chances, next season, really just life in general, after a win like that? The last two weeks I just wanted to punch people. I felt like we were talented and #$*%&^&^!! WE WERE BETTER THAN THIS!!??!?! It wasn't just that we lost to Penn State and Ohio State, it was the way we lost and how completely horrible, inept and lost we looked. For as well as we played against Michigan State I do not feel bad about doubting Coach Brewster because those were two awful games that we did not show up for, but hopefully the win over the Spartans will just the beginning of a competitive, competent football team and not just a flash in the pan.
Anyway, some more random, non-Weber thoughts about the win:
PENALTIES
Yes, we got jobbed on a few calls. The pass interference, the "excessive celebration" BS on Troy Stoudermire, the late hit out of bounds, and the phantom holding call on Ben Kuznia that brought back MarQueis Gray's long run in the third quarter were all awful calls. But the zebras gave a few back in the fourth with some calls going against Michigan State, and no matter what, when you commit a school-record 17 penalties for a whopping 157 yards, you can't blame them all on the refs. This team still has a penalty problem, and it's showing up on offense, defense and special teams. A commenter on the PP said Brewster reviews every penalty call on film with his players, and while I love the accountability he's trying to invoke, it's still not working. The official Big Ten stats don't come out until tomorrow, but I can tell you unofficially that we will be the most penalized team in the conference with 65 penalties for 567 yards. While Saturday's win showed an improvement in our offense, and in a lot of other places, we're walking a dangerous line if we're going to continue to commit so many dumb penalites.
OFFENSIVE LINE
They deserve praise for having their best pass blocking game of the year, and probably of the three years of the Brewster Era. But the o-line is far from fixed. A lot of those 17 penalties came from this group, including right tackle Jeff Wills, who at one point on third and long had back to back false start penalties. Wills has struggled all year, and while he's a mountain of a man at 340+ pounds, he has the lateral movement and agility of a dump truck, and struggles with the concept of not moving before the ball is snapped. This is especially troubling considering he knows WHEN the ball is going to be snapped on every play. Do we have better options? With the injury to center Jeff Tow-Arnett, maybe not, but we need to give someone else a shot there. Or maybe they've tried, and Wills is as good as it gets for this year. Yeesh.
The other problem with the line that continues is run blocking, or a lack thereof. Yep, Michigan State had a really good run D, but we made them look even better rushing 39 times for just 89 yards, a paltry average of just 2.3 per carry. Duane Bennett (14 carries 36 yards) and Kevin Whaley (13 carries 35 yards) split carries and ended up with basically identical numbers- and when both averaged about 2.7 yards per carry, that is not a good thing. I've been wrong about a few things this year, and one of them was my preseason prediction that we wouldn't miss Hasan Lipscomb (a four star tailback recruit from Texas who didn't qualify academically) that much because we already had plenty of talent at tailback. Whoops! Surely these guys could be better if they had some holes to run through, but we're still not going to confuse Bennett, Whaley and DeLeon Eskridge with Penn State's or Wisconsin's stable of running backs (the signing of another four star back for next year's class is nice, but doesn't solve anything for this season).
They had one huge blunder when they allowed Keshawn Martin to get loose on a wide receiver reverse that he housed for 84 yards. Other than that, they held Michigan State to 40 yards on 19 carries, for an average of 2.1 YPC. So other than one play where a few key guys had a collective mental brain fart, the run D was awesome. Granted, Michigan State does not have a strong run game this year, but to hold anyone in the Big Ten to 40 yards and 2.1 per carry is impressive. Nose tackle Garrett Brown was a monster, and a huge part of the disruptive run defense. He was in the backfield almost as much as the Spartans running backs. Let's hope that effort is a sign of things to come, because we're going to need it next week against Illinois.
MICHAEL CARTER AND TRAYE SIMMONS
Nobody wins when your pre-season All-Big Ten corner isn't playing well. Traye Simmons came into the season as a possible first day draft pick, but right now, the guy would be lucky to make a high school team let alone an NFL roster. He's been burned repeatedly this season, and has just one pick through nine games. I don't know if he got over-confident or what happened, but he's regressed badly this season. Jer and I had wondered after getting torched by Ohio State and Penn State why they weren't giving talented true freshman Michael Carter a chance? Well, midway through the second quarter defensive co-ordinator Kevin Cosgrove had finally seen enough of Simmons and put in Carter. The result? He wasn't spectacular, he didn't stand out with any monster plays, but for two and a half quarters against the best passing team in the Big Ten in the most important game of Minnesota's season, the kid more than held his own. Carter is fast, athletic, and looks to have pretty good instincts, and after that performance, the coaches know he can be trusted.
We'll see whether Simmons gets the start this week or not but regardless, this is making the best of a bad situation. Hopefully Simmons gets his s*** together and turns back into the "Big Play Traye" of 2008. If not, we've got a ready and willing replacement in Carter.
******EDIT******
Just as I hit the "Publish Post" button Jer sends me the Startrib link that the aforementioned Carter got arrested Monday morning. I wish I were kidding. If you need me, I'll be banging my head against my desk. Hopefully a concussion and all knowledge of this happening being forgotten will result.
THIRD DOWN
See? Good things happen when you convert third downs, and stop the opposition from doing so. The Gophers were 10-18 on third downs, a 55.5% clip, which is light years better than the ghastly 34% we had going into the night. And defensively, they held Michigan State to 41.7%, below the 50% they were averaging. While 41.7% isn't great, it's a lot better than what we were giving up, and whatever the coaches are doing to make things better, it's working. Now let's keep it working for the rest of the season.
Ok so after chowing down on some Adam Weber Crow (garnished with Chipotle flavored tobasco, ground pepper and season salt. Honestly, if he keeps playing the way he did Saturday I hope to be eating "AWC" every Monday for the rest of the season- and hopefully next season too) it's time to review the rest of the 42-34 win in what was THE most important game of the Brewster Era.
By the way, have I mentioned how much better I feel about the Gophers, this season, our bowl chances, next season, really just life in general, after a win like that? The last two weeks I just wanted to punch people. I felt like we were talented and #$*%&^&^!! WE WERE BETTER THAN THIS!!??!?! It wasn't just that we lost to Penn State and Ohio State, it was the way we lost and how completely horrible, inept and lost we looked. For as well as we played against Michigan State I do not feel bad about doubting Coach Brewster because those were two awful games that we did not show up for, but hopefully the win over the Spartans will just the beginning of a competitive, competent football team and not just a flash in the pan.
Anyway, some more random, non-Weber thoughts about the win:
PENALTIES
Yes, we got jobbed on a few calls. The pass interference, the "excessive celebration" BS on Troy Stoudermire, the late hit out of bounds, and the phantom holding call on Ben Kuznia that brought back MarQueis Gray's long run in the third quarter were all awful calls. But the zebras gave a few back in the fourth with some calls going against Michigan State, and no matter what, when you commit a school-record 17 penalties for a whopping 157 yards, you can't blame them all on the refs. This team still has a penalty problem, and it's showing up on offense, defense and special teams. A commenter on the PP said Brewster reviews every penalty call on film with his players, and while I love the accountability he's trying to invoke, it's still not working. The official Big Ten stats don't come out until tomorrow, but I can tell you unofficially that we will be the most penalized team in the conference with 65 penalties for 567 yards. While Saturday's win showed an improvement in our offense, and in a lot of other places, we're walking a dangerous line if we're going to continue to commit so many dumb penalites.
OFFENSIVE LINE
They deserve praise for having their best pass blocking game of the year, and probably of the three years of the Brewster Era. But the o-line is far from fixed. A lot of those 17 penalties came from this group, including right tackle Jeff Wills, who at one point on third and long had back to back false start penalties. Wills has struggled all year, and while he's a mountain of a man at 340+ pounds, he has the lateral movement and agility of a dump truck, and struggles with the concept of not moving before the ball is snapped. This is especially troubling considering he knows WHEN the ball is going to be snapped on every play. Do we have better options? With the injury to center Jeff Tow-Arnett, maybe not, but we need to give someone else a shot there. Or maybe they've tried, and Wills is as good as it gets for this year. Yeesh.
The other problem with the line that continues is run blocking, or a lack thereof. Yep, Michigan State had a really good run D, but we made them look even better rushing 39 times for just 89 yards, a paltry average of just 2.3 per carry. Duane Bennett (14 carries 36 yards) and Kevin Whaley (13 carries 35 yards) split carries and ended up with basically identical numbers- and when both averaged about 2.7 yards per carry, that is not a good thing. I've been wrong about a few things this year, and one of them was my preseason prediction that we wouldn't miss Hasan Lipscomb (a four star tailback recruit from Texas who didn't qualify academically) that much because we already had plenty of talent at tailback. Whoops! Surely these guys could be better if they had some holes to run through, but we're still not going to confuse Bennett, Whaley and DeLeon Eskridge with Penn State's or Wisconsin's stable of running backs (the signing of another four star back for next year's class is nice, but doesn't solve anything for this season).
WHAT TO DO WITH MARQUEIS
While I loved offensive coordinators Jed Fisch's play-calling in the passing game, he seemed to go pretty vanilla in the run, especially when MarQueis Gray was in the game. For one, Gray was almost always in on second down, and he was either a) handing off or b) keeping it for a run up the middle. Neither worked all that well (Gray had 8 carries for just 23 yards). Michigan State seemed to know exactly what was coming as they would swarm Gray, knowing that if he did hand off their interior defenders would take of the back. Either run more option or let Gray throw some more (0 for 2 passing against Michigan State), or defenses are going to know exactly what's coming when #5 is in the game.
They had one huge blunder when they allowed Keshawn Martin to get loose on a wide receiver reverse that he housed for 84 yards. Other than that, they held Michigan State to 40 yards on 19 carries, for an average of 2.1 YPC. So other than one play where a few key guys had a collective mental brain fart, the run D was awesome. Granted, Michigan State does not have a strong run game this year, but to hold anyone in the Big Ten to 40 yards and 2.1 per carry is impressive. Nose tackle Garrett Brown was a monster, and a huge part of the disruptive run defense. He was in the backfield almost as much as the Spartans running backs. Let's hope that effort is a sign of things to come, because we're going to need it next week against Illinois.
MICHAEL CARTER AND TRAYE SIMMONS
Nobody wins when your pre-season All-Big Ten corner isn't playing well. Traye Simmons came into the season as a possible first day draft pick, but right now, the guy would be lucky to make a high school team let alone an NFL roster. He's been burned repeatedly this season, and has just one pick through nine games. I don't know if he got over-confident or what happened, but he's regressed badly this season. Jer and I had wondered after getting torched by Ohio State and Penn State why they weren't giving talented true freshman Michael Carter a chance? Well, midway through the second quarter defensive co-ordinator Kevin Cosgrove had finally seen enough of Simmons and put in Carter. The result? He wasn't spectacular, he didn't stand out with any monster plays, but for two and a half quarters against the best passing team in the Big Ten in the most important game of Minnesota's season, the kid more than held his own. Carter is fast, athletic, and looks to have pretty good instincts, and after that performance, the coaches know he can be trusted.
We'll see whether Simmons gets the start this week or not but regardless, this is making the best of a bad situation. Hopefully Simmons gets his s*** together and turns back into the "Big Play Traye" of 2008. If not, we've got a ready and willing replacement in Carter.
******EDIT******
Just as I hit the "Publish Post" button Jer sends me the Startrib link that the aforementioned Carter got arrested Monday morning. I wish I were kidding. If you need me, I'll be banging my head against my desk. Hopefully a concussion and all knowledge of this happening being forgotten will result.
THIRD DOWN
See? Good things happen when you convert third downs, and stop the opposition from doing so. The Gophers were 10-18 on third downs, a 55.5% clip, which is light years better than the ghastly 34% we had going into the night. And defensively, they held Michigan State to 41.7%, below the 50% they were averaging. While 41.7% isn't great, it's a lot better than what we were giving up, and whatever the coaches are doing to make things better, it's working. Now let's keep it working for the rest of the season.
Mmmmmm This Crow Tastes Good!
Ok, ok so maybe I've been a little harsh to Adam Weber this year. Just a little. Maybe a lot. I said on numerous occassions that he's the worst starting quarterback in the Big Ten, that he's regressed, and that we cannot win with him playing the way he was.
I was wrong, so my apologies to Adam Weber, and coach Tim Brewster (who I criticized heavily for sticking so blindly with Weber): I guess we can win with Adam Weber as our starting quarterback, and if he continues to play the way he did against Michigan State, I have no problems with him starting the rest of the year over MarQueis Gray.
Weber picked a really, really good time to have the game of his life with 414 yards and 5 TD's. My favorite part (well besides only the one pick)? His 61.3 completion percentage, completing 19 of his 31 attempts on the night. We can not only live with that Adam Weber, but we can win with him too.
Not that I'm expecting 400 yards a game now, or even 300 for that matter. His 13.4 yards average per pass was absurd, and wouldn't even be sustainable in the video game on PS3, but if he can keep hitting roughly 60% of his passes and keep the turnovers down, we'll be alright. He did continue to struggle on timing routes, like slants and comebacks. It's never been his strength and probably never will be, but he sure throws a beautiful deep ball, which we saw on a number of throws. The best of the night was the Brandon Green touchdown in the first quarter where he threw it 37 yards to the back of the end zone where only Green could get it. An absolute beauty. He also showed a good ability to find guys in the seam, and it's obvious that TE Nick Tow-Arnett has become his go-to guy with 8 catches for 81 yards and two scores. Fine by me if we keep getting these results!
Two other Weber comments before we move on to other things (isn't it amazing not only how much more there is to talk about after a win, but how much more you WANT to talk about after a win? Good lord almighty this is so much more fun than the last two weeks. You might even hear a positive podcast this week! No really, you might): one is the offensive line was great in pass protection. Fantastic even. Weber had time to actually look off his primary read when he needed to, and was even getting to his third and fourth read for completions at times. This just did not happen in previous weeks, and the offensive line must get credit for doing a great job of pass protection against what has been a really ferocious pass rush (the Spartans were second in the Big Ten in sacks coming into the night).
The other thing is that Weber was actually willing to check down or not force the ball to his primary target, and I think the reason is because his primary target all night wasn't Eric Decker. Look, I love Decker, and he's one of the best offensive players we've ever had at Minnesota, but this might be the best thing to happen to Weber and the passing game. Decker was Weber's security blanket and as amazing as Decker was, Weber just wouldn't throw to anyone else unless Decker was triple-teamed, and even then he would force throws to him. Decker being Decker would usually make the catch, but it created a very one-dimensional passing offense, with the biggest disparity in the Big Ten, and quite possibly the country, between a top receiver and the rest of his teammates. I don't know if Weber didn't seem to trust anybody else because he didn't want to or because he didn't have to. We'll probably never know.
But what we do know is that faced with the fact he'll never throw another collegiate pass to his best buddy Decker, Adam Weber looked like a quarterback. He started trusting the rest of his guys, and they made plays for him. Tow-Arnett will be his security blanket the rest of the year, and again, that's fine. A QB needs that, and Tow-Arnett, a former walk-on, has earned that status. But I LOVED seeing Weber make throws to this young group of receivers that we'd heard so much about and yet had done so little. The numbers are really not that eye-popping: because he only completed 19 passes all night only two guys, Tow-Arnett with eight and Da'Jon McKnight with four, caught more than two passes. But it's the catches they made and the passes that were thrown downfield that was the big change.
Green and Stoudermire were both averaging under 12 yards per catch, and McKnight of course was averaging zero yards because he had caught zero passes. Well that changed Saturday night: Green averaged 30 a catch, McKnight 24.5 and Stoudermire 48. Like Weber's pass average of 13.5 is unsustainable, obviously so too are those yards per catch numbers, but what they show is a willingness from Weber, and perhaps more importantly offensive coordinator Jed Fisch, to start calling more aggressive down-field passing plays, and putting some trust in these young kids to make plays. And they did.
Green continued to do a lot with a little, and McKnight looked like the real deal. He's 6'3 and at least 200 pounds and looks like he's got some giddy-up in his step, so while you could wonder why the hell it took Fisch nine games to get him involved, I would say better late than never. Stoudermire continued to be...well, he was Troy being Troy. Frustrating at times, and yet so freaking explosive you can see the potential he has. The dropped touchdown in the second quarter (yep, the one where he was open by at least 20 yards), was awful, but I loved that Fisch drew up a play to go right back to him in the end zone. I also love that they called a big play for him later, where he caught the 48 yarder down the middle. My goodness does this offense ever need a guy like that to stretch the field and provide a home-run threat that a defense has to account for. The personal foul call on him right after that catch was an absolute joke (the Gophers earned most of their penalties, but that call, the "late hit" call, and the pass intereference were brutal. Just brutal. I'd like to think that the crowd booing the refs for five solid minutes after that last one swayed them to make finally start making some calls on Michigan State late in the game), and I love the enthusiasm he showed.
I also love that we finally started blocking for him on kickoffs without cheating. It seemed like all season long he was THIS close to busting one, only to have it brought back by a holding or clipping call. Well the boys finally held their blocks legally and Stoudermire did the rest- 6 returns for 192 yards. He was electric, and sitting there in the last row of the stadium (which were still pretty good seats. I also liked that we could stand the whole game and not get yelled at to sit down. God forbid we stand and support the team), it felt like every time they kicked to him he was going to house it. Anyway, as someone who has been really frustrated with the way Brewster and Fisch was using- or misusing- the wide receivers on this team, it was great to see them finally play the way we thought and hoped they could.
One other thing on Brewster (this has gotten so long I think I'll write a separate- and less glowing- post on the defense): I HATED the call to sit on a half time lead. With 1:04 left and the ball at your own 37 with TWO TIMEOUTS and a 21-10 lead, Brewster chose to do what he always seems to do, and that's play not to lose. I HATED that call, and if you were at the game or saw it on TV, you heard that I was not alone, as a cascade of boos rained down on the field from the crowd. After this had backfired on him before, I couldn't believe we were doing this again! Jer and I talked at halftime about how I would be interested to see if we'd go into full-fledged "play not to lose" mode like we had done against Wisconsin earlier in the year. Of course, Michigan State started the second half with the kick return for TD to make it a game 21-17, and I had less than flattering things to say about Brewster at that point.
Yet the Gophers got the ball, and stayed aggressive, throwing deep balls and taking good chances. Congrats to Brew for learning from his mistakes of the past, and staying aggressive and challenging the Spartans. Hopefully that, and just about everything we saw from the offense, was a sign of things to come.
Not that I'm expecting 400 yards a game now, or even 300 for that matter. His 13.4 yards average per pass was absurd, and wouldn't even be sustainable in the video game on PS3, but if he can keep hitting roughly 60% of his passes and keep the turnovers down, we'll be alright. He did continue to struggle on timing routes, like slants and comebacks. It's never been his strength and probably never will be, but he sure throws a beautiful deep ball, which we saw on a number of throws. The best of the night was the Brandon Green touchdown in the first quarter where he threw it 37 yards to the back of the end zone where only Green could get it. An absolute beauty. He also showed a good ability to find guys in the seam, and it's obvious that TE Nick Tow-Arnett has become his go-to guy with 8 catches for 81 yards and two scores. Fine by me if we keep getting these results!
Two other Weber comments before we move on to other things (isn't it amazing not only how much more there is to talk about after a win, but how much more you WANT to talk about after a win? Good lord almighty this is so much more fun than the last two weeks. You might even hear a positive podcast this week! No really, you might): one is the offensive line was great in pass protection. Fantastic even. Weber had time to actually look off his primary read when he needed to, and was even getting to his third and fourth read for completions at times. This just did not happen in previous weeks, and the offensive line must get credit for doing a great job of pass protection against what has been a really ferocious pass rush (the Spartans were second in the Big Ten in sacks coming into the night).
The other thing is that Weber was actually willing to check down or not force the ball to his primary target, and I think the reason is because his primary target all night wasn't Eric Decker. Look, I love Decker, and he's one of the best offensive players we've ever had at Minnesota, but this might be the best thing to happen to Weber and the passing game. Decker was Weber's security blanket and as amazing as Decker was, Weber just wouldn't throw to anyone else unless Decker was triple-teamed, and even then he would force throws to him. Decker being Decker would usually make the catch, but it created a very one-dimensional passing offense, with the biggest disparity in the Big Ten, and quite possibly the country, between a top receiver and the rest of his teammates. I don't know if Weber didn't seem to trust anybody else because he didn't want to or because he didn't have to. We'll probably never know.
But what we do know is that faced with the fact he'll never throw another collegiate pass to his best buddy Decker, Adam Weber looked like a quarterback. He started trusting the rest of his guys, and they made plays for him. Tow-Arnett will be his security blanket the rest of the year, and again, that's fine. A QB needs that, and Tow-Arnett, a former walk-on, has earned that status. But I LOVED seeing Weber make throws to this young group of receivers that we'd heard so much about and yet had done so little. The numbers are really not that eye-popping: because he only completed 19 passes all night only two guys, Tow-Arnett with eight and Da'Jon McKnight with four, caught more than two passes. But it's the catches they made and the passes that were thrown downfield that was the big change.
Green and Stoudermire were both averaging under 12 yards per catch, and McKnight of course was averaging zero yards because he had caught zero passes. Well that changed Saturday night: Green averaged 30 a catch, McKnight 24.5 and Stoudermire 48. Like Weber's pass average of 13.5 is unsustainable, obviously so too are those yards per catch numbers, but what they show is a willingness from Weber, and perhaps more importantly offensive coordinator Jed Fisch, to start calling more aggressive down-field passing plays, and putting some trust in these young kids to make plays. And they did.
Green continued to do a lot with a little, and McKnight looked like the real deal. He's 6'3 and at least 200 pounds and looks like he's got some giddy-up in his step, so while you could wonder why the hell it took Fisch nine games to get him involved, I would say better late than never. Stoudermire continued to be...well, he was Troy being Troy. Frustrating at times, and yet so freaking explosive you can see the potential he has. The dropped touchdown in the second quarter (yep, the one where he was open by at least 20 yards), was awful, but I loved that Fisch drew up a play to go right back to him in the end zone. I also love that they called a big play for him later, where he caught the 48 yarder down the middle. My goodness does this offense ever need a guy like that to stretch the field and provide a home-run threat that a defense has to account for. The personal foul call on him right after that catch was an absolute joke (the Gophers earned most of their penalties, but that call, the "late hit" call, and the pass intereference were brutal. Just brutal. I'd like to think that the crowd booing the refs for five solid minutes after that last one swayed them to make finally start making some calls on Michigan State late in the game), and I love the enthusiasm he showed.
I also love that we finally started blocking for him on kickoffs without cheating. It seemed like all season long he was THIS close to busting one, only to have it brought back by a holding or clipping call. Well the boys finally held their blocks legally and Stoudermire did the rest- 6 returns for 192 yards. He was electric, and sitting there in the last row of the stadium (which were still pretty good seats. I also liked that we could stand the whole game and not get yelled at to sit down. God forbid we stand and support the team), it felt like every time they kicked to him he was going to house it. Anyway, as someone who has been really frustrated with the way Brewster and Fisch was using- or misusing- the wide receivers on this team, it was great to see them finally play the way we thought and hoped they could.
One other thing on Brewster (this has gotten so long I think I'll write a separate- and less glowing- post on the defense): I HATED the call to sit on a half time lead. With 1:04 left and the ball at your own 37 with TWO TIMEOUTS and a 21-10 lead, Brewster chose to do what he always seems to do, and that's play not to lose. I HATED that call, and if you were at the game or saw it on TV, you heard that I was not alone, as a cascade of boos rained down on the field from the crowd. After this had backfired on him before, I couldn't believe we were doing this again! Jer and I talked at halftime about how I would be interested to see if we'd go into full-fledged "play not to lose" mode like we had done against Wisconsin earlier in the year. Of course, Michigan State started the second half with the kick return for TD to make it a game 21-17, and I had less than flattering things to say about Brewster at that point.
Yet the Gophers got the ball, and stayed aggressive, throwing deep balls and taking good chances. Congrats to Brew for learning from his mistakes of the past, and staying aggressive and challenging the Spartans. Hopefully that, and just about everything we saw from the offense, was a sign of things to come.
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