Saturday’s win over San Jose State left the Gophers with a 3-1 record heading into conference play but with a number of nagging injuries to key players. Jerry Kill, Matt Limegrover, and Tracy Claeys addressed the media on Tuesday to discuss everything Gopher football including injuries, creating turnovers, and the play of Chris Streveler.
Ailing Gophers
Against the Spartans, Minnesota was without a number of key starters including Mitch Leidner and Maxx Williams. Although Streveler was able to get the win, all eyes are still on Leidner’s progress with his knee injury and turf toe.
“He’s got turf toe; had an MRI, all that stuff, on top of what he’s had before,” said Kill. “We’ll see how he progresses, see what happens. I certainly won’t count him out, but I won’t know till the week goes.”
One of the reasons for just seven passing yards against SJSU was the lack of Maxx Williams who was a game-time decision. His status to play this weekend is still unknown.
“Right now I think he’s questionable,” said Kill. “He won’t practice today.”
Williams’ replacement, true freshman Brandon Lingen, has done well but certainly has big shoes to fill.
“Brandon Lingen does a great job of getting in there and doing a lot of the things we ask Maxx to do,” said Limegrover. “But Brandon is not Maxx right now. He’ll get there eventually.”
Two other Gopher mainstays that are battling injury are Marcus Jones and Zac Epping.
“Marcus Jones, broke his hand and he won’t be available,” said Kill. “That’s one that happened on Saturday. Epping came out of it better than he did last week. That’s positive news. That’s kind of where we’re at with recent situations. But Marcus is out, for sure.”
With a number of freshmen playing on the defensive line, the Gophers would like to see Alex Keith return for conference play.
“Alex Keith, we anticipate him doing some stuff in practice today for the first time in almost three and a half weeks,” said Kill. “We’ll know a lot more about his progression as the week goes on. Do I count him out of playing this week? No… Certainly we’re encouraged by him practicing, seeing where he’s at at this particular time.”
Creating Turnovers
Minnesota’s defense has been strong all year and has come up big when it counted, forcing 13 turnovers through four games.
“We keep track of turnovers obviously, but it’s still a game of points, not letting people score,” said Claeys. “But we’re very pleased with it so far with where we’re at. We’ve made big plays in the games.”
The Gopher’s secondary has been one of the strongest positions this season and has been instrumental in orchestrating timely takeaways.
“Again, I think we’ve had great secondary play,” said Kill. “You’re going to have a few guys get beat here and there, that’s part of the secondary. But we’ve been real active there.”
Streveler’s Play
In fall camp, there were questions surrounding Streveler’s ability to throw the ball. These fears may have been compounded for fans after only throwing for seven yards on Saturday.
“There isn’t a concern with how he throws the football,” said Limegrover. “With the way the game went on Saturday and how it progressed, it was a situation where we were going to force them to stop the run game to put us in that situation. We really never felt like we were in that situation.”
Streveler’s ability to run the offense was a big reason for the Gophers’ 380 rushing yards against San Jose State.
“I mean, the thing was, it wasn’t easy either,” said Limegrover. “They were giving us a lot of different looks. They were kind of trying to figure out how to solve that riddle. He did a fantastic job. Everything they threw at him, handled it like a vet, which was great to see.”
If Streveler remains the starter, the Minnesota coaching staff is confident in the redshirt freshman’s ability to lead the Maroon and Gold into Big Ten play.
“I knew coming in here, everybody was going to be, ‘Hey, I don’t know how many passes we threw, we completed one,’ I get that, but Chris did a great job in what we asked him to do on Saturday,” said Limegrover. “I feel like if we had to throw it 20 times, we’re going to do a good job on that.”