Gopher Football
Bryan Cuptio
For the second year in a row the Minnesota offense will be lead by Bryan Cupito. The 6’1″ junior is hoping to build on a somewhat disappointing first year as the starting quarterback for the Gophers. Cupito is the clear number one guy on the team, and the starting position is his to lose. When looking at Cupito’s statistics from last season, the first number that sticks out to most people was the low 47% completion percentage. This number was a bit of a surprise when you consider that Cuipto was always billed as an accurate passer. A closer look at his season though shows why that percentage was so low. Possibly more than any other QB in the nation, Cupito was asked to chuck the ball down the field an awful lot. While he did hit on a respectable portion of those long passes, that kind of offensive attack just is not conducive for a lot of completions. The big question remains “œWhy so many deep passes”? There are a lot of theories out there; here are a few are: Receivers just didn’t run good routes”¦ The coaches were trying to protect Cupito since he was the only healthy option”¦ Or Cupito just wasn’t good enough to make the plays. Which is it? I don’t know”¦ possibly one of them, possible a combination of all three. There are a few changes that have taken place over the off season though that should help us get a better grasp on the situation.
First, and perhaps most interesting is the new Wide Receiver coach. Luke Tressell will replace Richard Wilson in this role. Can Tressell help the Gopher WR’s run better routes? Another development (and maybe the biggest one) is the Gophers depth at QB. Last season, Adam Ernst, John Carlson and Tony Mortensen all were injured to some degree. That left Cupito as the only veteran option at quarterback. Who knows how that played into the mind of the coaches, or Cupito himself last season. This year, Minnesota has a compliment of three redshirted freshmen who have a year under their belt. This year Cupito can go out there every week knowing that if he goes down, the offense won’t necessarily to in the tank. The third thing to watch this year is the bonding of Cuipto with his receivers. Coming up through high school and through his first year at the U Cupito was always billed as an accurate passer, so it was a bit surprising to see his passing struggles last year. But Minnesota returns about 90% of its receiving production from last season, so a full year of playing plus an off season of practice with these same players should yield some better results.
Statistically, it’s obvious that Cupito has a lot of room to improve. In my opinion, the biggest key will be for the offense to find the short & medium-short range passing game. If they can do that, I think we’ll see that Cupito really does have some good passing skills and it will add another dimension to the offense. If they don’t accomplish this, I wouldn’t expect things to change much from last year. But based on what I’ve seen and heard, I think it’s reasonable to expect a big improvement out of #3 this year.
Depth
The backup spot for Minnesota is still very much in the air. Last season Tony Mortensen emerged as backup after Adam Ernst went down. But since Mort was a true freshman, the coaches preferred not to play him if they didn’t have to. Going into this year however, it looks like Mike Maciejowski (another freshman) has caught up to Mortensen. Maciejowski was the forgotten man of the Gophers big recruiting class of QB’s in 2004, but he has really been improving since last season as evidence by a good spring. The other option the Gophers will have at QB is Andre Sloan El. Sloan El was the highest ranked QB of the three but is believed to be behind the two a fore mentioned players at this point. This past February the Gophers signed what will be the fifth scholarship quarterback on their roster, Marcel Jones of Simley high school. Barring a disaster, Jones will redshirt this season and compete for a backup spot next year. Experience at the backup spot is obviously still a huge concern, but at lease this season there three guys to choose from who have been in the system for a year.
Around the Big Ten . .
2003 saw the Big Ten graduate most of its best quarterbacks. A dropoff in the calibur of play at this position was to be expected, but what maybe wasn’t expected was just how fast the new faces started to shine. The best of the best in the conference was Iowa sophomore Drew Tate. The best comparison I can make regarding Tate is the he is to the Iowa team as Tyrone Carter was to Minnesota. Undersized? Yes. A little slow? Maybe. Heart? Tons. Talent? Oh yeah. A play maker? You betcha. Tate is one of those guys who just goes out on the field and makes things happen. He is a terrific improviser with a cannon arm who will only get better as he continues to learn the game. The other big star to be is Michigan’s Chad Henne. The Wolverine sophomore accomplished the unheard of last year: Starting at QB for Michigan as a true freshman. Henne showed great poise and an nice arm as a freshman, albeit while surrounded by an All-Star cast on the offensive line and wide receiver. Michigan brings back a good portion of its offensive contributors, so look for Henne to be outstanding again. One of the few new starting QB’s in the conference this year will be Purdue’s Brandon Kirsch. Though replacing Kyle Orton will be a difficult task, many Boiler fans have been excitedly waiting for Kirsch for some time.
Former Gopher QB commitment Tim Brasic will likely be the starting quarterback for Illinois and new coach Ron Zook. Brasic’s experience in the shotgun fits Zook’s offense, so he jumped in front of two other players to take the starting spot this spring. The best QB battle will be at Ohio State. Justin Zwick was the blue chip recruit that was supposed to be the next great one, but the Buckeye offense gelled better last season when Troy Smith was at the helm. The last QB worth mentioning is Michigan State’s Drew Stanton. If he didn’t play for a schizophrenic team in MSU, Stanton would be getting a lot more mentions as a top QB. He is a good passer, and underrated runner. In fact, Stanton quietly led Big Ten quarterbacks in rushing last season with 687 yards. All in all the Big Ten is full of a lot of good, young quarterbacks
Last Year . . .
As we all know by now, Bryan Cupito was the only legitimate option at quarterback at Minnesota most of last year. Because of that, his performance always will have to be taken with a grain of salt. What we saw from Cuipto was a mixed bag. In a few games, the deep balls clicked and the offense rocked. In a couple others though, the deep ball did not click and the offense struggled. The biggest problem was that there was no short pass last year. That led to Cupito having an unbelievable yards/completion ratio, but a bad completion percentage. The inconsistencies of the passing game kept the Gopher offense from being dominant, but it will was enough to make them very good in most games. In other factors, I thought Cupito did very well for a first year starter. He seemed to have good control of the team on the field and he did an acceptable job of directing the rushing game.
Bottom Line . . .
It’s beginning to sound like a broken record, I know. But for about the third season in a row we know the Gopher rushing game will be good. But if the Gopher passing game can click, then the offense will be REALLY good. The last two seasons have yielded mixed results passing the football, but will things happen this year to make it any different? In order for that answer to be “œYes” several things must happen, one of which is the improvement of Bryan Cupito. It is a two part game for Bryan. First, he must get back the confidence he had at the beginning of last year (which he seems to be doing), and second he must take this confidence and use it to complete more passes. As I alluded to above the struggles in the passing game can be traced to a lot of different things, but we know for sure that no matter what happens, nothing will improve if the guy delivering the ball doesn’t come through. If there is significant improvement passing the ball, there’s no reason the Gopher offense can’t be the best in the conference, and one of the best in the nation.
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