Gopher Football
Since the end of the regular season some of the major personnel changes that have taken place are:
- Terrance Campbell – from LB to SS
- Brandon Owens – from LB to CB
- Mario Reese – from DE to LB
- Keith Lipka – from DT to DE
- Eric Clark – from DE to DT
- Brian Moss – from OT to DE
Notice how all of these changes impact the defense! I don’t think anybody can really predict (right now anyway) how these players will be able to make the adjustment to their new positions. All of these changes, along with the two new defensive coaches will really keep things interesting on the defensive side of the ball this spring. We all know that the Gopher defense has a lot of room to improve, so fans should be hoping that this is an especially productive period for the defensive players and coaches.
On the offensive side of the ball things are much more settled. The offensive line loses two starters but has two experienced reserves ready to step up. The running backs lost Marion Barber, but return two promising fillins with Gary Russell and Amir Pinnix. The wide receivers and the tight ends both return their top three players. All in all the offense returns 8 of 11 starters with very capable replacements ready to fill in at all three. If the quarterback situation can improve this season, the Gophers have the potential to have the best offense in the Big Ten and one of the best in the nation.
Three key position battles to watch
DEFENSIVE END
Players departed: Darrell Reid (graduation), Eric Clark & Mario Reese (position change)
Players battling: Keith Lipka, Brian Moss, Pat McCarthy, Maurice Buchanan, Willie Van DeSteeg, William Brody, Everett Pedescleaux, John Scroggins, Matt DeGeest
GH.com take: About the only words I can come up with in describing the defensive ends’ situation right now is “œfree for all”. By looking at the depth chart from the end of last year, the early favorites to be the starters would be Keith Lipka, Brian Moss or Pat McCarthy. Those three guys plus Darrell Reid made up the final 2-deep for the Gophers at defensive end at the end of last year. Where it gets interesting though, is none of these three returning players has any significant time playing defense. Moss is new to the defensive side of the ball, Lipka was a seldom used defensive tackle reserve last year, and McCarthy is trying to earn playing time after working his way up as a walkon. Maurice Buchanan has been around for three years now, but he too has not gotten meaningful minutes as of yet. If there was ever a time for him to step up, it is now. John Scroggins has not been at defensive line for very long, but running a 4.72 yard forty to with a 6’5″ 230 pound frame will get you in the mix. The “˜X’ factor are the three freshmen: William Brody, Willie Van DeSteeg & Everett Pedescleaux. This group will at some point give the Gophers some good defensive ends, but will it be this year? Only time will tell, but I will predict that at least one those three will step up this spring and end up challenging for a starting spot this fall.
Bottom Line: As has been the case for the previous three years, there are concerns at this position heading into spring. Last year Darrell Reid stepped up and provided some punch at this spot, but in previous years nobody had. With a new defensive line coach, I’m hopeful (and somewhat expecting) that the pot will be mixed up enough so that a couple players will find some untapped potential and rise to the surface. With as many as 8 or 9 different players in the mix I think there’s a good chance this will happen.
SAFETY (FREE & STRONG)
Players departed: Justin Fraley (SS), Jonathan Richmond (FS)
Players battling: Terrance Campbell, John Pawielski, Quentin White, Brandon Owens, Dominique Barber
GH.com take: Along with defensive ends, both of the safety positions are battles that could get really interesting this spring. The developments started before Music City Bowl when Terrance Campbell was moved from linebacker to safety. Terrance was a three year starter at LB so his move to safety caught most fans off guard, but Campbell later admitted that playing linebacker in the Big Ten at 205 pounds takes a toll on your body. Ideally Campbell will have a smooth transition to strong safety, but the big question will be can he master the position fast enough to make an impact this year? If he can’t, look for Dominique Barber or Quentin White to land in the starting spot. At free safety there could be another interesting battle. John Pawielski was having a pretty good season last year until he broke his leg against Iowa. That injury kept him out of the Music City Bowl 6 weeks later so it must have been fairly serious. The good news is that JP is healed and ready to contribute again. The biggest concern I see with JP is can he keep his speed? A lot of times leg injuries will cause you to lose a step or two. If the answer to this is yes, JP will probably find himself as the number one guy at the end of spring. If he can’t, Brandon Owens could make a move back to safety from cornerback and challenge for the starting spot.
Bottom Line: I think there is a very good chance the Gophers could have a pair of great safeties this year. At the very least, they should be solid with Pawielski returning. But with Owens in the mix pushing him, plus the potential of Terrance Campbell over on the strong side, things could turn out very good here. This will be a big spring for this position to establish the starters and start developing chemistry from practicing together.
Other position and depth chart news
QUARTERBACK: Though he had a somewhat disappointing year in his first season as starter, expect Bryan Cupito to hold onto the starting spot this spring. Adam Ernst is out indefinitely from the shoulder injury he suffered last year, so Tony Mortensen enters the spring as the top backup. According to reports, Mortensen was granted a redshirt for 2004, so he still will have four more years to play. It was announced at the end of this past season that John Carlson is switching to safety, so that leaves Mike Maciejowski and Andre Sloan El to battle it out for the third spot.
GUARDS & CENTER: Mike Nicholson is the clear favorite to step in to replace Brandon Harston at right guard. Mike is a capable 5th year senior who has seen a lot of game experience as a reserve. Greg Eslinger will have a lock on the center position for the fourth year in a row. Tyson Swaggert will enter the spring as the top backup for both the center and guard positions, and walkon Tommy Jacobs could step in as the second backup at guard.
OFFENSIVE TACKLE: It is expected that right tackle Joe Ainslie will move over to the left side to replace the graduated Rian Melander. Then look for sophomore Tony Brinkhaus to become the starter on the right hand side. This is the move that the coaches made during the season when Melander was injured, so unless top backup Steve Shidell can overtake one of them, I’d expect that this is what we will see this year.
TIGHT END: Matt Spaeth will hold onto starting spot this spring, and Jared Posthumus will likely hold onto to his backup role. The real battle will be at number three, where Jack Simmons, Tommy Leavitt and Sam Scroggins will all be coming off their redshirt year. Simmons as billed as a Utecht-like receiving threat, Scroggins is the blocking-type, and Leavitt looks to be somewhere in between.
RUNNING BACK: Things should be pretty calm on the running back front this spring. Laurence Maroney is the clear cut starter; there is no question about that. Both Gary Russell and Amir Pinnix will compete to be Maroney’s backup, but there is a good chance all three backs will see a lot of carries this year. The fullback situation also appears to be stable, with Justin Valentine listed as the starter with Jason Lamers as his backup.
WIDE RECEIVER: Minnesota returns their top 3 WR’s from last year in Ernie Wheelright, Jared Ellerson & Jakari Wallace, so there aren’t expected to be any major surprises this spring. The biggest battle should be for the fourth receiver spot to replace Paris Hamilton. Micah Rucker, Logan Payne and Mark Jundt will be battling it out for that spot.
DEFENSIVE TACKLE: The top two starters return at defensive tackle, seniors Anthony Montgomery & Mark Losli. What will be a hot battle is both backup spots here. Neel Allen & Nhemi Theodore are the two that I predict backups. Eric Clark and Stephon Hopkins will also be in the mix.
LINEBACKER: Two spots seem set going into spring. Senior Kyle McKenzie has been starting for the better part of the past three seasons, and sophomore John Shevlin returns after being promoted to starter for the Music City Bowl. Most of the hype from last year was all about Leland Jones, so I would consider him to be the favorite win the last starting spot. Mario Reese (who has been moved back to linebacker from defensive end) and Mike Sherels figure to be top backups.
Five goals for the spring
- Discover a passing game. Whether you want to blame the quarterback or the receivers for the largely ineffective passing game last year, you probably will admit that both positions have plenty of room to grow. Bryan Cupito needs to regain the swagger and confidence he displayed against Toledo, and the receivers needs to figure out how to run better routes and hang onto the ball.
- Find a replacement for Darrell Reid. Developing a pass rush was one of, if not THE top priority of the spring last year. Moving Reid over to defensive end certainly filled that void, but unfortunately that fix was only good for a year. This year the defense is back at square one in the QB pressuring department. Perhaps the new defensive line coach will find some hidden talent in a veteran, but my gut feeling tells me that one of the three freshmen will step up and turn some heads. As it did last year, getting guys on the field who can apply consistent pressure on the quarterback will go a long ways to solving the problems of the Gopher defense.
- Improve special teams. Of the four main areas of special teams, the Gophers need improvement or stability on three of them. First are the return games. In one of the surprises of 2004, the Gopher return games (both kickoff and punt) struggled pretty badly. Punt returner Marion Barber is gone so priority number one will be to find someone to replace him. There seems to be a lot of potential in the kickoff return game with Gary Russell and Laurence Maroney, but for some reason this unit just never clicked last season. The other two areas are of course the kicker and punter. Redshirt freshmen kicker Jason Giannini and punter Justin Kucek are the heavy favorites to win the battles, so both of those guys need to have a solid spring and start building confidence for the fall.
- Terrance Campbell needs to establish himself. In my opinion, one of the biggest variables to the success of the Gopher defense in 2005 is if Terrance Campbell can step in and do the job at safety. Terrance is a good football player, but he just didn’t fit the mold of a Big Ten linebacker. If Campbell can make the transition to safety, the Gopher secondary will have themselves a smart, hard hitting, experienced football player who can make a difference. If you add Campbell at safety opposite of John Pawielski or even Brandon Owens, the Gophers would have one of the hardest hitting group of safeties in the nation.
- Allow the new coaches to work their magic. When you ask most teams what they key to winning is, they will tell you “œRun the football and stop the run”. Well, running the football is obviously something the Gophers haven’t had problems with the past few years, so you know there are serious problems elsewhere on the team. The first step to correcting those problems was replacing the coaches, and this spring practice is the first chance these coaches will have to spend a lot of time working directly with the players. If the Gophers can improve just a little bit in these areas (linebacker, defensive line, wide receivers), it should be a great first step in improving the quality of the team overall. There is a LOT of experience around the field to work with, so hopefully for these new coaches can set these players in a direction that has not been found the past few seasons.
Summary
Even though the Big Ten is tougher and the schedule stiffens up this year, this season certainly has the potential to be the best season for Minnesota in quite some time. Nobody would argue that this season appears to be a peak when looking at a timeline of the program, but how high that peak rises probably will depend a lot on the defense. Minnesota has a lot of starters returning on both sides of the ball, and a lot of them have at least two years of starting experience already under their belt. The difference between the offense and defense is that the offense has already proven itself. With the exception of a position here or there, we likely already know what the starting offense will look like at the end of the spring. The defense on the hand is not so clear cut. With all of the position changes I noted earlier, there will be a lot of things to figure out over the next few weeks. Ideally, guys like Terrance Campbell, Brandon Owens and Keith Lipka will become comfortable in their new positions and be well established by the spring game. If they can be, it will make it all the more likely that the defense will be better heading into the fall, and that’s the key to generating more wins.