After watching Saturday's game, I thought I was as perplexed as anyone regarding the true nature of this Gopher football team. Now, after re-watching the first half (multiple times), I can say with assurance that I truly am as perplexed as anyone.
As I said elsewhere, I'm not sure if this is a team that actually refuses to lose, or a team that can barely hold its own against the second tier.
The same can be said of the OL. There have been times, on occasion, when the OL has shown a glimmer of competence. There have been more occasions when we'd have to rally to look indifferent.
I suspect the top priority of the offense -- and in turn, the OL -- has not necessarily been efficiency. In the opener, we obviously kept things particularly vanilla against SDSU. We've opened the playbook a little more the last two weeks, but I don't get the impression we've really been going for the jugular. I suspect the plan has been to see what works and what doesn't, with the focus on getting the machine running smoothly by the time the B1G season rolls around. I think the OC -- and hopefully, the OL coach -- now have a pretty good idea of where we're at and what we're capable of. I think we'll start seeing more emphasis on efficiency, which will hopefully lead to a slight uptick in productivity, particularly where the run game is concerned.
Although you'll find little evidence to support this in the stats, our run blocking hasn't been atrocious. Un-good at times, certainly. Much of the time, we seem a bit hesitant, as if we're thinking instead of doing. Other times, players inexplicably fail to execute proper techniques, which often leads to unfortunate results. In short, we've looked inexperienced, which to a fairly large extent we are.
Personally, I have about two games worth of patience left.
Not a lot to pick apart in the first half, although I may highlight a couple plays at the end of the thread. Here are the RERs:
First half
Schlueter: 93.8% run, 85.7% pass
Andries: 89.6% run, 92.9% pass
Olson: 87.5% run, 88.1% pass
Dunlap: 85.4% run, 83.3% pass
Faalele: 95.8% run, 92.9% pass
• Schlueter continues to look good on running plays.
• The normally rock-steady Andries and Olson both struggled at times.
• Dunlap is not looking like a starter ... yet.
• The first half was probably Faalele's best of the year, so far.
JTG
As I said elsewhere, I'm not sure if this is a team that actually refuses to lose, or a team that can barely hold its own against the second tier.
The same can be said of the OL. There have been times, on occasion, when the OL has shown a glimmer of competence. There have been more occasions when we'd have to rally to look indifferent.
I suspect the top priority of the offense -- and in turn, the OL -- has not necessarily been efficiency. In the opener, we obviously kept things particularly vanilla against SDSU. We've opened the playbook a little more the last two weeks, but I don't get the impression we've really been going for the jugular. I suspect the plan has been to see what works and what doesn't, with the focus on getting the machine running smoothly by the time the B1G season rolls around. I think the OC -- and hopefully, the OL coach -- now have a pretty good idea of where we're at and what we're capable of. I think we'll start seeing more emphasis on efficiency, which will hopefully lead to a slight uptick in productivity, particularly where the run game is concerned.
Although you'll find little evidence to support this in the stats, our run blocking hasn't been atrocious. Un-good at times, certainly. Much of the time, we seem a bit hesitant, as if we're thinking instead of doing. Other times, players inexplicably fail to execute proper techniques, which often leads to unfortunate results. In short, we've looked inexperienced, which to a fairly large extent we are.
Personally, I have about two games worth of patience left.
Not a lot to pick apart in the first half, although I may highlight a couple plays at the end of the thread. Here are the RERs:
First half
Schlueter: 93.8% run, 85.7% pass
Andries: 89.6% run, 92.9% pass
Olson: 87.5% run, 88.1% pass
Dunlap: 85.4% run, 83.3% pass
Faalele: 95.8% run, 92.9% pass
• Schlueter continues to look good on running plays.
• The normally rock-steady Andries and Olson both struggled at times.
• Dunlap is not looking like a starter ... yet.
• The first half was probably Faalele's best of the year, so far.
JTG