Wisconsin Position Grades

The Golden Gophers season seems all but over at this point, as they dropped their second straight game. This time it was to the hated Badgers of Wisconsin, a team which few expected the Gophers to upset but which shouldn’t have punished Minnesota as bad as they did. Early season seems far away now, with the defense as porous as any in the Big Ten and a quarterback still struggling to grasp the offense.

Quarterbacks

Bryan Cupito put up some good numbers on Saturday; he finished the game 17 of 33 (52%) for 258 yards and a touchdown. He took advantage of some breakdowns in a great Badger defense and made a few decent plays, finding Justin Valentine for a big gain and Paris Hamilton for 46 yards. What the numbers don’t show, however, is how many times Cupito failed to make a crucial pass or unsuccessfully threw the ball over his receivers head. After the Toledo game, one would have said that our downfield passing game was in good shape. That isn’t the case anymore, as Cupito often overthrew his targets downfield by 5 or 10 yards. Part of this can be blamed on the coaching, but much of it can be placed on Cupito. If the Gophers hope to get anywhere but Detroit, he needs to improve his game by a lot this weekend against a stingy Iowa defense, otherwise Gopher fans will be forced into looking to “˜next year’ yet again.

Grade: D+

Running Backs

This position is very difficult to grade; usually, the Gophers are dominant on the ground, making this the strongest aspect of their attack. Against Wisconsin, however, the ground game never had a chance to get off the ground after Minnesota found themselves in a 31 point first half deficit. For what it’s worth, each feature back had some good numbers for the amount of time they had the ball; Laurence Maroney rushed the ball 8 times for 57 yards, a 7.1 yard average, and Marion Barber III ran 7 times for 34 yards, a 4.9 yard average. Unfortunately what this game proves to Gopher fans is that this is not a team built to come from behind. When losing big, the team is forced to abandon their biggest weapons even though they may be having a good day running the ball. Not much can be taken from this performance, therefore:

Grade: Incomplete

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

Time and time again, Ernie Wheelwright is proving to be the go-to guy for this Minnesota passing attack. At this point in the season, he has surpassed Jared Ellerson as the number one receiver on the team (from a performance standpoint), and is giving Gopher fans a lot of hope for the next few years. Wheelwright registered another 6 catches for 83 yards this Saturday, and had one of the Gophers’ two touchdowns. Ellerson had a decent day as well, grabbing 4 catches. Unfortunately for this receiving corps, their quarterback is still rattled in these big game situations and isn’t getting the ball to them as well as he should. This is, in my opinion, one of the best groups of receivers in the Big Ten. If and when Cupito settles down, they could be very dangerous.

Grade: B-

Offensive Line

First, the good news. The Minnesota offensive line allowed only one sack on Saturday, which is impressive when one considers the Gophers dropped back to pass 34 times in the game. The bad news, however, is that the offensive line made too many mistakes, getting whistled for false starts and holding calls nearly all game. For such a talented group, their mental mistakes sometimes seem to take over. Unfortunately for Minnesota, with one game left, they have little time left to prove their supposed dominance.

Grade: B

Offense Overall

This was not the type of game which the Gophers can win. They were put in the type of situation (down big, early in the game) which their offense cannot overcome. All the pressure was put on Cupito to perform well, and simply put, he didn’t. When a team is trying to play catch-up and the quarterback isn’t on, the offense won’t click. We saw this in the Michigan State game, and this is exactly what happened Saturday, as the Gophs finished with 331 yards of offense and scored just 14 points. Simply put, the situation the Gophers put themselves in during the first quarter left them with about as much chance to win the game as Carrot Top has to win an Oscar. It just wasn’t going to happen.

Grade Overall: C

Defensive Line

Wisconsin ran over, around, and through the Gopher offensive line for 228 yards. Sure, Wisconsin’s offensive line is very good “¦ but still, the defensive line should be ashamed after their performance on Saturday. Four of the Badgers 5 touchdowns were scored on the ground and Anthony Davis, a player many believed could challenge for the Heisman at the beginning of the season, looked the part on Saturday going for 128 yards and 2 touchdowns. Again the Gophers had trouble defending a mobile quarterback; Wisconsin quarterback John Stocco seemed to be able to find gaping holes up the middle when he couldn’t find an open receiver, and was often able to get 8 or 9 yards before anyone came close to him. The lone bright spot, Darrell Reid, registered a sack and 7 tackles for the day.

Grade: D

Linebackers

Yet again, the Gopher linebackers seem to be the weak point of the defense. We keep hearing that speed makes up for lack of size amongst these players, however we have yet to see that in action. Often times on Saturday, linebackers were beat over the middle by a crossing tight end or receiver, or were drawn by a receiver away from the middle of the field, leaving tons of room for Davis and Stocco to roam. If the linebackers were speedy and had the field awareness to pick up on these issues, the defense would be much better off. However, a lack of overall talent coupled with poor defensive schemes often leaves the Gopher linebackers out to dry. This is not saying that the linebackers don’t try hard; on the contrary, often times I see them playing the hardest of any players on the field. However, the coaches are expecting to see Brian Urlacher out there, and they’re never going to get it from this group.

Grade: D

Secondary

John Stocco wasn’t supposed to be a good quarterback. He’s the type that tries not to lose the game for his team. Against a porous Minnesota secondary, however, Stocco looked like a world-beater, throwing for nearly 300 yards. He missed on only 7 of his 26 passes and threw for 1 touchdown in his best outing of the year. For the Gophers, costly penalties were again the name of the game, as Ukee Dozier was called for several infractions throughout the game. Trumaine Banks was whistled for a pass interference call as well, another costly mistake. Against an average group of Wisconsin receivers, the Gopher secondary looked completely overmatched. One of the few decent performances was put out by John Pawielski; he had another good game as far as tackles are concerned, gathering 13 total.

Grade: D

Defense Overall

When will it be the year that the defense steps it up? It was supposed to be this year, but the team has made even average offenses (such as Wisconsin’s) look like well oiled machines. This game should be a wake-up call to the coaching staff; they should take a good look at their schemes and realize that whatever they’re trying to do isn’t working. The players are being overmatched time and time again and can’t keep up with the pace of the other teams. Coach Mason needs to realize that this is the problem with the Gophers; for example, if the Gophers stop Wisconsin on two of their first three series, the defense isn’t as tired and Minnesota probably goes into halftime down by one of two scores, not four.

Grade Overall: D