The Gophers’ Big Ten opener was the chance to measure a young team’s progress.
There were specific areas of concern many people kept in the back of their minds as Minnesota’s inexperienced roster adjusted to high-caliber competition.
Entering the season, the Gophers’ run defense, physicality on the edge and pass protection were areas to watch closely. These categories were issues last year, but didn’t appear until after non-conference play. Again, the Gophers lost battles up front and struggled to maintain defensive discipline in a 42-13 loss to Maryland.
Minnesota has one of the least experienced rosters in the country and handling the strength component at the Big Ten level was a major concern. Now, the question shifts to how they patch some of these holes in 2018.
Run fits, alignments and Maryland’s use of motion
The Terrapins used plenty of motion action, such as jet sweeps to confuse the Gophers’ defense. Minnesota’s linebackers struggled to maintain discipline and execute reads at a high level. Linebackers were misaligned and it resulted in big plays, especially considering Maryland’s offense featured so much dynamic athleticism. If one player was positioned out of a run fit, the end result was an explosive play. The Gophers surrendered seven plays of 20-plus yards, including three over 50. A handful of these were the result of poor linebacker alignments, but several occurred because backend players missed tackles or were in the wrong spot. It was clear true freshman walk-on Jordan Howden was adjusting to the next level as he played an extremely important role on defense. He entered following an injury to Gophers’ star defensive back Antoine Winfield Jr. This hurt the Minnesota defense in every possible way.
With Winfield Jr. missing the entire season due to a foot injury, the entire landscape of Minnesota’s defense changes significantly. They will likely turn to both Howden and true freshman Benjamin Sapp Jr. to fill an important position.
As a whole, if the Gophers eliminated the explosive plays, the game would have likely been much different. When Maryland managed to gain so much yardage off chunk plays, the Gophers simply had no answer. Alignments, tackling and discipline allowed Maryland to gash Minnesota via 315 yards on the ground.
The strength component in Big Ten play
Not only that, but one other area of emphasis entering the season was the Gophers’ ability to hold up with mass and physicality on the edge. The sample size is small, but it appears this could be a theme again in 2018. Minnesota needs to continue recruiting five-technique defensive ends with improved strength profiles. They have several options developing such as Esezi Otomewo, but they still need time to improve physicality. The strength component is one of the most important aspects to competing in upper-echelon conferences like the Big Ten. Teams might be able to sneak by with younger players on the edge against smaller competition, but it’s less common against top-tier programs. Last year was the perfect example as teams schemed to exploit this weakness. In 2017, Big Ten conference opponents rushed for 6.39 yards per carry in Big Ten play versus 3.26 yards in non-conference action.
I’m not ready to say this will be a reoccurring theme because linebacker alignment was one of the major problems in last week’s loss. However, there are still reps where you see the defensive line struggling to handle physicality. This will be patched through future recruiting and player development, but for now, they’ll just need to scrape by with the current personnel.
MORE: http://www.1500espn.com/gophers-2/2018/09/assessing-gophers-critical-areas-concern/