A deep Duck dive into the 2024 Gophers.

[Cobra]

Duck Dive: Minnesota Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Golden Gophers’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Special thanks to Max Oelerking of Ski U Pod for joining me on the Quack 12 Podcast to discuss Minnesota’s roster. LISTEN HERE

In a novel twist, Minnesota paywalled their Spring game – only members of the Dinkytown Athletes NIL collective were allowed to attend the April 11th open practice and scrimmage, with media members and recording devices prohibited. Max told us on the podcast that the only other accessible practice was moved indoors due to a “weather event” with limited attendance.

As such Minnesota presents more obstacles to observing the state of its Spring roster than any other Big Ten program, even including schools like Northwestern and Wisconsin which had no Spring games but invited the media to practices and I’ve been able to interrogate those secondary sources.

That’s unfortunate because more than most, the Gophers’ 2023 season came in below what their 2021 and 2022 seasons set up expectations to be due to a rash of injuries, and because most of the key players so affected are returning for 2024. Last year was also the first in a long time with a different quarterback than the one who’d defined head coach Fleck’s tenure in Minneapolis – it didn’t go great, but he’s now transferred out and they’ve brought in a veteran FCS passer who’d have been quite helpful to see against an FBS defense.

In other words, this coming season is potentially set up to be a big jump in performance for the Gophers, back to what their earlier trajectory was pointing to, if they get happy answers to QB viability and injury readiness questions that even five minutes of Spring tape would have provided. Without it, those questions linger till the Fall.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Duck Dive: Minnesota Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Golden Gophers’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Special thanks to Max Oelerking of Ski U Pod for joining me on the Quack 12 Podcast to discuss Minnesota’s roster. LISTEN HERE

In a novel twist, Minnesota paywalled their Spring game – only members of the Dinkytown Athletes NIL collective were allowed to attend the April 11th open practice and scrimmage, with media members and recording devices prohibited. Max told us on the podcast that the only other accessible practice was moved indoors due to a “weather event” with limited attendance.

As such Minnesota presents more obstacles to observing the state of its Spring roster than any other Big Ten program, even including schools like Northwestern and Wisconsin which had no Spring games but invited the media to practices and I’ve been able to interrogate those secondary sources.

That’s unfortunate because more than most, the Gophers’ 2023 season came in below what their 2021 and 2022 seasons set up expectations to be due to a rash of injuries, and because most of the key players so affected are returning for 2024. Last year was also the first in a long time with a different quarterback than the one who’d defined head coach Fleck’s tenure in Minneapolis – it didn’t go great, but he’s now transferred out and they’ve brought in a veteran FCS passer who’d have been quite helpful to see against an FBS defense.

In other words, this coming season is potentially set up to be a big jump in performance for the Gophers, back to what their earlier trajectory was pointing to, if they get happy answers to QB viability and injury readiness questions that even five minutes of Spring tape would have provided. Without it, those questions linger till the Fall.

This is a remarkably well-researched primer by someone that clearly watches A LOT of college football. Yep, a deep dive into departing, returning, and arriving talent levels.

 

[Word]

This is a remarkably well-researched primer by someone that clearly watches A LOT of college football. Yep, a deep dive into departing, returning, and arriving talent levels.

Yeah sounds like this person bases everything they write off of spring game footage and are really bitter we have none.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Yeah sounds like this person bases everything they write off of spring game footage and are really bitter we have none.

Well, I’m not happy about it either so…

 

[goldenboy]

Apparently ducks can’t really dive all that deep. Don’t most of them just pivot their butts in the air and reach down? That’s not a dive!

 

[TwistingMyMelon]

Yeah sounds like this person bases everything they write off of spring game footage and are really bitter we have none.

You shouldn't judge an article by a selected excerpt. The one here is very misleading. If you read through this article, you'll see that the analysis is pretty extensive, especially for an author who isn't a fan of the team. One could disagree with the author's methods, assumptions, and conclusions but the author can't be accused of not trying.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

Melon is right. read the entire article. a very detailed look at the entire offense and defense, position by position. (did not cover special teams...) one of the better previews of its type that I've read in terms of looking at an opponent.

very worth-while read to get a different perspective. the author clearly has questions about some positional depth, but was complimentary of other groups. biggest laugh - describing Cody Lindenberg as a "folk hero." (the author did not have Lindenberg graded very high in some areas.)

but my overall takeaway is that it was a very fair look at the Gophers. the author talks about charting players and had stats to back things up.

one question - he did a podcast (almost 2 hours long) about the Gophers with a guy - Max Oelerking - who has a Gopher podcast - Ski U Pod. has anyone ever listened to this pod? I don't know anything about the guy, but I'm going to have to give him a listen to check it out.

but again - check out the whole article. it's worth it.

 

[Ski-U-Ham]

Apparently ducks can’t really dive all that deep. Don’t most of them just pivot their butts in the air and reach down? That’s not a dive!

It depends on if the duck is a diver or a dabbler.

Dabbling and Diving Ducks

Hi everyone! Sorry I didn’t post a Waterfowl Wednesday yesterday. One of my pets has been sick, so it’s been a rough week for me and I haven’t been getting much sleep. So I’…

birdnationblog.wordpress.com

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Melon is right. read the entire article. a very detailed look at the entire offense and defense, position by position. (did not cover special teams...) one of the better previews of its type that I've read in terms of looking at an opponent.

very worth-while read to get a different perspective. the author clearly has questions about some positional depth, but was complimentary of other groups. biggest laugh - describing Cody Lindenberg as a "folk hero." (the author did not have Lindenberg graded very high in some areas.)

but my overall takeaway is that it was a very fair look at the Gophers. the author talks about charting players and had stats to back things up.

one question - he did a podcast (almost 2 hours long) about the Gophers with a guy - Max Oelerking - who has a Gopher podcast - Ski U Pod. has anyone ever listened to this pod? I don't know anything about the guy, but I'm going to have to give him a listen to check it out.

but again - check out the whole article. it's worth it.

Previously he’d done Iowa and Wisconsin. Interesting, IMO.



According to F+ that’s what happened, ranking Wisconsin 16th defensively for 2023. But that doesn’t match up with Rohan’s or my observations or the record from charting, in which there was a significant collapse in defensive efficiency by almost ten points in success rate against both the run and the pass, and over 20 points in short-yardage effectiveness (although explosive play prevention and yards per play surrendered stayed pretty good). My model would have dropped Wisconsin’s defense to the low-40s in 2023 with numbers like these.

Rohan said he saw a step down in defensive line performance in 2023 and suggested the discrepancy might be a “bend but don’t break” philosophy where Wisconsin gives ground between the 20s but toughens up in the redzone. I thought that was a good idea to look into and said I’d run a regression analysis after we finished recording, but it turned out the opposite was the case: the Badgers were about six and a half percentage points weaker of a redzone defense than they were between the 20s, actually underwater in success rate against both the run and the pass in all comparable situations once the opponent crossed their 20. Raw stats back this up as well – Wisconsin ranked 92nd nationally in rate of redzone touchdowns surrendered last year (64%), down from 13th in 2021 (47%) and 57h in 2022 (58.5%).

Wisconsin did perform well in raw stats in scoring defense as Rohan pointed out, surrendering just 20.2 points per game for a 21st ranking nationally. But this appears to be an artifact of the Badgers’ historically awful schedule of poor offensive opponents which in the regular season averaged 23.6 points and had an average scoring offense of 83rd in raw stats. Holding opponents to about a field goal below their normal score is more in line with a 40th ranked defense; top-15 defenses typically reduce their opponents by two or more scores.

It seems to me the best explanation is that F+ got fooled badly in this rare instance. I think the pairwise comparison component mistook Wisconsin’s weak schedule (measured by every objective criteria like success rate, passer rating, Eckel score, etc.) including the less dynamic QBs of two teams with otherwise higher offensive outputs, Illinois and LSU, for the Badgers playing strong defense.

In my opinion, the defensive falloff was real in 2023, was a significant part of the team’s 7-6 record, and because they’d handled more significant personnel losses without as big of a problem under the previous staff the year prior, most likely attributable to the coaching change. I believe that Leonhard was holding the team together defensively and presented a very high extra value as a coordinator, who will be next to impossible to replace.

Duck Dive: Wisconsin Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Badgers’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Iowa. Tough but fair.





Iowa has fielded one of the worst offenses in the country the last three seasons that I charted, and 2023 was the worst iteration yet. This is the product of both ephemeral factors – the wrong person at certain key spots, some bad injury luck, poor in-game decision-making — that could be resolved in a single offseason but simply hadn’t been, and structural factors in roster management that would take years to fix even if strong cultural forces didn’t prevent the staff from identifying the problems. While it would be difficult for the Hawkeyes to get any worse on offense and some of their historically awful performance in 2023 was due to bad luck that can’t possibly last forever, I think the prospects for fixing either set of factors are dim in 2024.

The only staff change was replacing Brian Ferentz, son of head coach Kirk Ferentz, with new OC and QB coach Tim Lester. He was the head coach at Western Michigan for six years after PJ Fleck left for Minnesota, from 2017 through 2022, but was fired after the offense fell off on his watch twice – first when taking over from Fleck, and again after a severe downturn from a covid-season high. These are WMU’s offensive rankings in F+ advanced statistics during their tenures:

(See article for graph)

On the podcast, Trent noted a greater emphasis on pre-snap motions in Spring practices, as well as a discussion about more RPOs, but otherwise the offense looked structurally almost identical in the Spring game to me – a heavy usage of 12-personnel and most of the offense going through the inside run game and short passes to the TEs.

My opinion is that Brian Ferentz deserved the well publicized criticism he received as an ineffective playcaller, particularly on 3rd downs which had collapsed to an atrocious 12% success rate during meaningful play over the last three seasons, but that was only part of the problem. Ferentz dealt with completely ineffective quarterback play from Spencer Petras and Deacon Hill in addition to an unfortunate injury to #12 QB McNamara, an overall lack of talent up and down the roster except for the tight ends who kept getting hurt, and an offensive line that just wasn’t good enough for this kind of run-heavy scheme. Within those constraints I don’t think even the most inspired playcalling would have been much more effective.

Duck Dive: Iowa Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Hawkeyes’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

 

[Pompous Elitist]

More on Rutgers, PSU, Northwestern, and Nebraska. Maybe more than you want to know. We miss Northwestern and Nebraska this year. On AK’s bizarre turn at QB:



I watched all of Kaliakmanis’ reps at Minnesota and thought his shortcomings as a passer were the major contributing factor in the Gophers’ 45-spot falloff in offensive in F+ rankings when he took over as starter in 2023 from Tanner Morgan, whose long career in Minneapolis ended in 2022. I observed the same kinds of foundational processing and mechanical errors in Kaliakmanis that resulted in Wimsatt’s wild inaccuracies – how he reads the defense, loads his core, whips his upper body, and lacks the appropriate touch and layering of the ball at any level of the field … albeit slightly less so than Wimsatt.

I don’t think these things have anything to do with the relationship with the staff or the type of offense – they’re not about communication or psychological well-being, and Kaliakmanis was receiving better pass protection with measurably longer clean pockets on average than all but four Big Ten QBs I charted last year. I’m skeptical that there will be any substantive improvement in Kaliakmanis’ performance with the change in scenery.

Duck Dive: Rutgers Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Scarlet Knights’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Lions

Duck Dive: Penn State Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Nittany Lions’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Cats

Duck Dive: Northwestern Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Wildcats’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Huskers

Duck Dive: Nebraska Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Cornhuskers’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

 

[atsgopher]

Iowa. Tough but fair.





Iowa has fielded one of the worst offenses in the country the last three seasons that I charted, and 2023 was the worst iteration yet. This is the product of both ephemeral factors – the wrong person at certain key spots, some bad injury luck, poor in-game decision-making — that could be resolved in a single offseason but simply hadn’t been, and structural factors in roster management that would take years to fix even if strong cultural forces didn’t prevent the staff from identifying the problems. While it would be difficult for the Hawkeyes to get any worse on offense and some of their historically awful performance in 2023 was due to bad luck that can’t possibly last forever, I think the prospects for fixing either set of factors are dim in 2024.

The only staff change was replacing Brian Ferentz, son of head coach Kirk Ferentz, with new OC and QB coach Tim Lester. He was the head coach at Western Michigan for six years after PJ Fleck left for Minnesota, from 2017 through 2022, but was fired after the offense fell off on his watch twice – first when taking over from Fleck, and again after a severe downturn from a covid-season high. These are WMU’s offensive rankings in F+ advanced statistics during their tenures:

(See article for graph)

On the podcast, Trent noted a greater emphasis on pre-snap motions in Spring practices, as well as a discussion about more RPOs, but otherwise the offense looked structurally almost identical in the Spring game to me – a heavy usage of 12-personnel and most of the offense going through the inside run game and short passes to the TEs.

My opinion is that Brian Ferentz deserved the well publicized criticism he received as an ineffective playcaller, particularly on 3rd downs which had collapsed to an atrocious 12% success rate during meaningful play over the last three seasons, but that was only part of the problem. Ferentz dealt with completely ineffective quarterback play from Spencer Petras and Deacon Hill in addition to an unfortunate injury to #12 QB McNamara, an overall lack of talent up and down the roster except for the tight ends who kept getting hurt, and an offensive line that just wasn’t good enough for this kind of run-heavy scheme. Within those constraints I don’t think even the most inspired playcalling would have been much more effective.

Duck Dive: Iowa Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Hawkeyes’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

No way, this is wrong. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Iowa does not have one of the worst offenses in the country. They have two defenses. One just possesses the ball. Silly ducks.

 

[TwistingMyMelon]

More on Rutgers, PSU, Northwestern, and Nebraska. Maybe more than you want to know. We miss Northwestern and Nebraska this year. On AK’s bizarre turn at QB:



I watched all of Kaliakmanis’ reps at Minnesota and thought his shortcomings as a passer were the major contributing factor in the Gophers’ 45-spot falloff in offensive in F+ rankings when he took over as starter in 2023 from Tanner Morgan, whose long career in Minneapolis ended in 2022. I observed the same kinds of foundational processing and mechanical errors in Kaliakmanis that resulted in Wimsatt’s wild inaccuracies – how he reads the defense, loads his core, whips his upper body, and lacks the appropriate touch and layering of the ball at any level of the field … albeit slightly less so than Wimsatt.

I don’t think these things have anything to do with the relationship with the staff or the type of offense – they’re not about communication or psychological well-being, and Kaliakmanis was receiving better pass protection with measurably longer clean pockets on average than all but four Big Ten QBs I charted last year. I’m skeptical that there will be any substantive improvement in Kaliakmanis’ performance with the change in scenery.

Duck Dive: Rutgers Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Scarlet Knights’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Lions

Duck Dive: Penn State Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Nittany Lions’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Cats

Duck Dive: Northwestern Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Wildcats’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Huskers

Duck Dive: Nebraska Football 2024 Preview

Going deep with the Cornhuskers’ scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns

www.addictedtoquack.com

Ouch! This author is tougher on Athan than most of us were. Maybe that's because most of us were hoping he was better than what we were seeing most of the time.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Ouch! This author is tougher on Athan than most of us were. Maybe that's because most of us were hoping he was better than what we were seeing most of the time.

Well, the coaches also clearly saw/see potential. Kirk C. is staking fan goodwill that AK isn’t just an underwear Olympian that folds in games. For me, I love all the converging storylines this season. Pretty intriguing stuff…clash of the egos

 

[Hates Monikers]

I thought it was a very good article. There's a lot that could be discussed, but I found this to be interesting, coming from someone outside our fanbase who clearly watches film. We've been hearing about Fleck wanting to move Carroll inside for two years; some may ask why.

I was floored by the other story Max told us, which is a plan he’d heard to bench Lewis (the best performing interior lineman on my tally sheet), move Carroll inside (he’s definitely built like a tackle, not a guard), and have completely inexperienced redshirt freshman #60 OL Daniels take over at RT, or in the alternate, the transfer RT they just took from UTEP Aluma Nkele (I happened to have charted several UTEP games last year, against Northwestern, Arizona, and Liberty, so I checked my film library – Nkele was mostly on special teams and only started once that I could tell, in week 3, and at 375 lbs he’s clearly carrying some bad weight).

I couldn’t contain my exasperation at this on the podcast; it strikes me as folly to cast aside the benefits of such a well developed and highly performing line that’s gelled together for a plan that has no upside I can see. I’ll be watching the 2024 season with interest if for no other reason than the Anna Karenina principle – I wonder if Callahan turns out to be Kostya or Stiva.