Gopher Football
Quarterbacks
Bryan Cupito had one of his poorer performances of this season, completing just 8 of 22 passes for 156 yards, 1TD and no interceptions. In his defense, Cupito was throwing against a very good secondary and there were times where just had no one to throw to. But on the other hand, there were a couple of potentially game changing opportunities that he missed when he overthrew open receivers on deep routes. Early in the game, Minnesota had a lot of success throwing shorter route passes. There were a couple to Ellerson and one to Wheelwright that were for respectable gain. But as the game wore on, Cupito seemed content on airing the ball out too much and neglecting the shorter routes. (Also of note is that the Gopher never really established a consistent running game, and a lot of the success Cuptio has enjoyed off play action fakes wasn’t there this game.) It’s kind of hard to question audibles, but there were several occasions where Michigan was cheating a safety up to the line and Minnesota went ahead and ran right into him anyway. You have to wonder that as Cuptio continues to gain experience, if he can check into a better play in those situations.
Grade: C-
Running Backs
The Gopher running backs faced their stiffest test of the year, going up against the #1 rushing defense in the nation. Once again, Laurence Maroney provided the big play. In what is starting to become routine, Maroney broke off another big touchdown run, this time for 80 yards (nearly matching his career long 81 yard run against Illinois State). That run helped Maroney get over 100 yards again, something he has accomplished in every game this season. For the day Laurence 19 carries for 145 yards and 1 TD. However, outside of two long runs, Maroney really did not do too much. Maroney’s running mate Marion Barber had a long day. Marion did have a nice 19 yard TD run, but outside of that the going was tough for him. In fact, if you take away the 80 yard run by Maroney, the Gopher backs averaged less than 3 yards per carry. The Michigan rush defense was smothering all day, and there were several times where the backs just had nowhere to go. All in all, it really wasn’t a bad effort to get 189 yards against Michigan when you consider they were allowing just 47 rushing yards per game coming in.
Grade: B+
Wide Receivers/Tight End
The most disappointing aspect of this game was Matt Spaeth being a non-factor once again. After lighting it up against Colorado State and Northwestern, the big tight end has been a non-factor the past two games. His presence was badly missed. I don’t have the benefit of watching film, but the announcer did comment at least once that Spaeth was open and Cupito just didn’t get the ball to him. The wide receivers had a pretty quiet game, although it wasn’t always their fault. Jared Ellerson turned in a nice performance with 6 catches for 73 yards and a TD in which he badly burned the Michigan defensive back. The disappointing number for Jared is the he had only 2 catches in the last 3 ½ quarters. He had his 4th reception at the 7:30 mark of the first quarter. Ernie Wheelwright proved that he is for real by torching the Michigan defensive backs twice on long passes. Ernie had chance for another big play when he beat a Michigan receiver down the middle, but the ball went off the end of his finger tips. Perhaps next time we will see Wheelwright laying out for that one. Besides Ellerson and Wheelwright, no other wide receiver, or any player for that matter had a reception. Michigan does have a great secondary, but the other receivers need to find a way to make their presence known.
Grade: B-
Offensive Line
Unfortunately for Minnesota things didn’t go as well for the offensive line in this game. They got off to a nice start, springing the running game for over 150 yards in the first half. But after halftime Michigan made some adjustments and the Gopher offensive line could never counter those adjustments. Those changes resulted in the Gophers running for only around 20 yards in the 2nd half. The pass blocking wasn’t the greatest either. The line seemed to have a little trouble figuring out blocking assignments when the Wolverines brought the heat, perhaps because of Michigan’s 3-4 defensive alignments. But in the big scheme of things, Michigan’s front 7 is almost as good as any in the nation. It was disappointing to see the line struggle in the second half, but they did have a huge task in front of them.
Grade: C
Offense Overall
I have mixed emotions about the offensive side of this game. Things started out so well. The run was working, the passing was effective enough, and Gophers put together a couple of long drives against a very good Wolverine defense. But as the game went on, Michigan’s “˜D’ toughened up, and the Gophers had no answer. There are a couple of things that left me a bit frustrated about the offense in the second half. One was the lack of creativity. There came a point in the second half where the Gopher ran left on first down about four times in a row, and each time Michigan stuffed it. When the running game proved ineffective, the only answer the Gophers could muster in the passing game was a bomb, a pass which we hit on only about 3 of 10 times. Where was the Tight End? Where were the passes over the middle to the running back? Besides Ellerson and Wheelwright, where were the receivers? I was particularly disappointed that we could not take advantage of Michigan’s free safety Shazor being our backfield all day. The other really disappointing thing was the offensive performance after we recovered Michigan fumbled punt return. We go the ball on the 8 yard line, and promptly ran the ball for no gain after Michigan had been stuffing our run for the previous several series. All in all there were a lot of “œwhat if’s”, but you do have to keep in mind that Michigan has a great defense, and we did manage to put 3 TD’s up on them.
Offense Grade: C+
Defensive Line
After turning in two consecutive solid games, the Gopher defensive line didn’t look real sharp against Michigan. While there were a few exceptions, the front four provided very little pass rush on their own. Even Darrell Reid, who has consistently applied pressure through the year, was held in check. The run defense wasn’t much better, but it wasn’t entirely their fault. Michigan’s freshman running back ran for a career high 160 yards on 35 carries, much of those yards in the second half. The line started out ok in defending the run, but Michigan held a huge time of possession edge in this game and as the second half wore on the defensive line looked as though they were just running out of gas. I do think if the offense had done a better job at sustaining drives it would’ve helped the defense stay fresh. What is of concern again is the vulnerability of the Gophers to be run on right up the middle. As has been the case in several games now, there were several holes up the middle that Hart was able to burst though rather easily, and he was 5-8 yards downfield before anybody could put a body on him. On the positive side though, led by Anthony Montgomery, the defensive line continues to do a nice job at stringing out rushes to the outside.
Grade: C
Linebackers
The good news is the screen pass didn’t burn the linebackers like it did last year, so that in itself deserves a pat on the back. The bad news is not a whole lot else went right. On the bright side though, Brandon Owens had what may have been his best game as a Gopher. During his limited time in the game he was able to pressure Henne a couple times on some blitzes, and also made a nice runback after his first career interception. Also of note was Kyle McKenzie was very effective in shutting down the run at times. Other than that not a whole lot of other things went right for the linebackers. There were a lot of bad pursuit angles, slow reaction times, missed tackles and missed coverage assignments that when all combined was just enough to let Michigan’s offense drive down the field and win the game. In the future, the linebackers definitely need to play a smarter game and eliminate some of the mistakes.
Grade: C-
Secondary
For the most part, I thought the secondary did a nice job in defending the great Michigan wide receivers, especially when you consider they got very little help from the pass rush. One of the keys I mentioned in my preview for this game was to limit the effectiveness of Braylon Edwards. Though he did end up with 7 catches for 98 yards and one TD, I thought the secondary did a relatively good job with him. On Edwards TD catch, Ukee Dozier had great coverage, but just forgot to turn around and look for the ball. Had he done that, he might have been able to slap the ball away before Edwards caught it. Michigan tried to go deep to their receivers a few times, but both cornerbacks Trumaine Banks and Dozier did a nice job in defending these plays. There were a couple areas of concern from the secondary though. First were the WR screen passes. The Wolverines ran this play about four times, but I don’t think it ever went for less than 9 or 10 yards. I was disappointed at our inability to adjust to and cover this play. The other area I didn’t like was the final drive. You knew Michigan was going to come out passing, but nonetheless there were some gaping holes in the zone that Michigan was able to exploit rather easily. On the last play of the winning touchdown drive for Michigan, Mike Wojciechowski took a horrible angle in chasing down the Michigan TE. Because of this he wasn’t able to even get close to a tackle, and there were no other defenders behind him to help out. Wojo has to do a better job next time of containing that play, especially when he is the last line of defense.
Grade: B
Defense Overall
Oh, what could have been. The thing that stands out to me were the little mistakes, when all added up, turned out to be just enough for Michigan to win. In one particular situation, the Gophers rushed 3 and blitzed 2. They had the Michigan OL beat and the pressure was definitely coming onto Henne. But for some reason, Trumaine Banks was playing 10 yards off of Braylon Edwards, which in turn gave Henne an easy safety outlet. So instead of sacking Henne or forcing him into a hurried throw to a covered receiver, Henne was able to make an easy throw to Edwards, who then juked around Banks for a 9 yard gain. It was the little things like that that killed the Gophers. Never the less, the Gophers were still in a position to win this game. Though the offense definitely had their share of struggles during crunch time, the defense had a chance to step up and stop Michigan on the final drive to secure the victory. Not only did that not happen, it didn’t happen really fast! Michigan went over 85 yards in just over a minute, and on the winning touchdown pass there were two mistakes by Gopher defender that let the Tight End trot 34 yards into the end zone. The Gophers are improved defensively from last year; make no mistake about it. But in order for the team to take the next step up, the Gophers will have to play a more mentally sound brand of defense.
Defense Grade: C
Special Teams
About the only thing to really be happy about in this game was the rebound of the Gopher special teams. Kicker/Punter Rhys Lloyd was 3-3 on extra points, and 1-1 on FG’s (24). Rhys also turned in a decent day punting the ball, going 8 times for an average of 45 yards. The return game continues to struggle mightily. Marion Barber had 2 punt returns for just 9 yards, and 3 kickoff returns averaged just 18 yards. The Gopher kick coverage was pretty good, with the exception of a 40 yard Steve Breaston kickoff return. The punt coverage team made an alert play by jumping on a fumbled Michigan punt at the 8 yard line, but unfortunately the offense could only muster a field goal.
Grade: B
Overall Team Grade
It was pretty clear from watching this game that the Gophers are still a step away from becoming a national contender. The defense has some things to overcome and the offense needs to find a way to adjust to a great defense. The Gophers did a great job in putting themselves in a position to win the game, but as we’ve seen so many times this year they lacked the killer instinct to put the nail in the coffin. With that said, the Gophers did nearly pull off an upset in place that is extremely difficult to play. You get the idea the Gophers may have been one experienced QB or one impact player on defense away from winning the game. Going forward, there is a lot to build on, but also a lot of mistakes to correct. Task #1 will be avoiding the emotional letdown the plagued the Gophers last year after the tough Michigan loss. This will be a great opportunity for Mason and the coaching staff to get the guys fired up for what is sure to be a fired up Michigan State team.
Overall Team Grade: C+