The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

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Bob_Loblaw

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Good:
- Wells. He was dynamic tonight. He was steady all night and he added in 3 super star plays. The two ints were great plays and the open field tackle on 2nd and 6 in the 2nd OT was a fantastic play. He was all over the field making plays.
- The entire secondary. They all played pretty well. The Stoud fumble and PI were tough, but he had a nice game. He brought the pressure on the 2nd Wells INT and I also believe he was the corner that made the 1st Wells INT possible. I thought they tackled well and were as good as we all hoped they'd be.
-Gray in the 4th quarter and OT. 7-10 140 yards 2 TDs and 36 yards rushing.
- AJ Barker made a handful of really nice plays.
- Pass Rush: After the 1st Quarter, UNLV essentially gave up dropping back into the pocket and throwing the football. All of their passes were either roll outs or that bubble screen. The fact that we were disrupting the pocket had a lot to do with that.

Bad:
- Gray for the first 3 quarters. He missed a couple easy plays and wasn't really wreaking havoc with the ball in his hand.
- Running Game. I know, we did alright on paper but I just think that our OL should have been pushing them around much more. Kirkwood ran the ball hard and Gillum had a couple decent runs, but all in all, it seemed like our same ole running game.

Ugly:
- PENALTIES - This was the toughest part of this game for me. They all seemed to come at terrible times and they all seemed to be mental. It seemed like we had a false start on every 3rd and 3 or less. We finished with 11 - 86 and that is simply unacceptable.
- Third Down - 3 / 15 - - - GROSS. This goes hand in hand with the penalties to a degree and it partially rests on Gray's feet. We also seemed to not be able to get the tough yards when we needed them.
- Special Teams: 1 shank punt, 1 missed FG under 35 yards, 1 botched punt return.
 

Spot on! BTW Did anyone think that Gray's hands may have been too sweaty on some of those misses?
 

One thing to add to the UGLY category: Never taking a shot at the endzone in the 4th quarter after Wells INT. We had the ball on the 12 yard line and go Run, Run, Run...FG. I think you have to give Gray at least one run pass option there! Other than that I loved what Limegrover and Co. were doing, the plays were there, we just weren't executing.
 

Good thoughts as always, Bob. You are probably a little kinder on Gray than I will be, though he did start to turn it on at the end of the game. His bad passing cost the team at least three, probably four, EASY touchdowns. I'm hoping it was first game jitters and that he will get that out of his system, but he single-handedly took points off the board.

I was actually ok with the running game, as the issues stemmed from UNLV not having to respect the pass as much. The reason those receivers that Gray missed were wide open was because there was no safety help over the top. There was no safety help over the top because UNLV put an extra guy in the box to stop the run. The only way this offense is going to really open things up in the running game is by showing proficiency in the passing game. Some of Gray's misses were inexcusable. It will be interesting to see how he rebounds in the next game.

Kirkwood looked GREAT. He seemed much faster than last year. I love the distribution among the RBs, and the two-back sets were fun to watch also. Great new wrinkle this year.

Can't say enough about the improvement in the defense. Yes, I know it was UNLV, but the improvement is clear as day. They are just plain faster.

WRs will not be the problem this year. Barker is a pleasant surprise, Harbison looked solid, Andre had a step on the DB a couple times, and Maye looks like he will be a player.

Overall, I am very excited about the direction of the team. The increase in speed is evident, and stupid mistakes aside, there is a clear upgrade in talent. The win covers up some of the warts, of course, but this should be a very exciting team to watch over the course of this year and beyond.

1-0!
 

Fruechte was solid too.
He can scoot!!!
 


JPIIGopher said:
One thing to add to the UGLY category: Never taking a shot at the endzone in the 4th quarter after Wells INT. We had the ball on the 12 yard line and go Run, Run, Run...FG. I think you have to give Gray at least one run pass option there! Other than that I loved what Limegrover and Co. were doing, the plays were there, we just weren't executing.
Click to expand...

You watched a different game than I did! Very predictable play calling, thought we showed nearly no trust in gray with how the game was called. Q played poor and I'm fine with that cause we won and he will be the reason we win other games this year, but I hate hearing the bs that "plays we're there, we just didnt execute" that can be said for every single play that didn't work.
 

I agree with lakesgopher. You can't keep running the " read option" when UNLV is bunching their LB's. We did nothing in the way of misdirection/ screens. I thought the play
calling was average at best
 

lakesgopher said:
You watched a different game than I did! Very predictable play calling, thought we showed nearly no trust in gray with how the game was called. Q played poor and I'm fine with that cause we won and he will be the reason we win other games this year, but I hate hearing the bs that "plays we're there, we just didnt execute" that can be said for every single play that didn't work.
Click to expand...
When you have players running wide open downfield and the quarterback misses them, what would you call that except bad execution? This easily could have been a blowout had Q been hitting his targets. I think he'll get a much better rapport with his receivers as the season goes on.

The Good:
The Uni's looked awesome, at least on TV, and I'm not a big fan of white on white.
We won. Played well in the clutch. I'll take a poor start over fumbling the game away at the end any day.
Some semblence of a pass rush, though we'll see what that looks like once we have to face a good O-line.
The Bad:
Run defense. If we play like this against B1G teams it will be a long season.
Gray's performance in the first three quarters.
The Ugly:
Special teams and penalties. The 11 for 85 doesn't even describe how bad the penalities were, as so many of them came on 3rd down. I'm sure Kill will use this as a teaching moment and we'll see a much more disciplined team next Saturday.

SKI-U-MAH
 

I can sugar coat as well as anyone but I won't.

For the first 3 and a half quarters MG stunk up the place. Sr QB and supposedly your best player. No excuse. Even his running was not impressive. Looked slower and not as quick as in the past. I wonder if the extra weight has slowed him down.

This game should have been over at half time.
 



Jeshurun said:
When you have players running wide open downfield and the quarterback misses them, what would you call that except bad execution? This easily could have been a blowout had Q been hitting his targets. I think he'll get a much better rapport with his receivers as the season goes on.

The Good:
The Uni's looked awesome, at least on TV, and I'm not a big fan of white on white.
We won. Played well in the clutch. I'll take a poor start over fumbling the game away at the end any day.
Some semblence of a pass rush, though we'll see what that looks like once we have to face a good O-line.
The Bad:
Run defense. If we play like this against B1G teams it will be a long season.
Gray's performance in the first three quarters.
The Ugly:
Special teams and penalties. The 11 for 85 doesn't even describe how bad the penalities were, as so many of them came on 3rd down. I'm sure Kill will use this as a teaching moment and we'll see a much more disciplined team next Saturday.

SKI-U-MAH
Click to expand...

Every play we had should have been a touchdown but we had poor execution! I can do it too! We played bad and if I see another 3rd and short with a 250lb qb in a shot gun formation I'm going to just cut ties with the football program. Get under center and push the pile and get a first down. Our game calling was terrible because we didnt trust our qb
 

lakesgopher said:
Every play we had should have been a touchdown but we had poor execution! I can do it too! We played bad and if I see another 3rd and short with a 250lb qb in a shot gun formation I'm going to just cut ties with the football program. Get under center and push the pile and get a first down. Our game calling was terrible because we didnt trust our qb
Click to expand...

Agreed and rightly so.
 

The only issue I had with play calling was not milking more of the running plays that worked. Limegrover had a good night all in all calling the game, but went your QB has no pressure and misses players it is not the play callers fault.

The biggest Good I take from this game is that in 40 pages of Game thread and since on this site, no one has mentioned the OL. That is just how O-linemen prefer it.

We took a team with 12 seniors on the road and won for the 1st time under Kill. You players stepped up, tons of players played, they played through the ups and downs and again won a game on the road that was played from 10pm-2am.
 

lakesgopher said:
Every play we had should have been a touchdown but we had poor execution! I can do it too! We played bad and if I see another 3rd and short with a 250lb qb in a shot gun formation I'm going to just cut ties with the football program. Get under center and push the pile and get a first down. Our game calling was terrible because we didnt trust our qb
Click to expand...
Problems with reading comprehension? Or can't you simply understand that 3 or 4 big plays that Q missed on could have radically altered this game? When you have a WR running uncovered toward the end zone, and then the ball is over or underthrown, that is not poor play calling.
 



Aside from the obvious uglies already touched on, I thought Mike Rallis stood out in a very, very bad way. Terrible game.
 

Nope same game ;-) Well what can I say, we had guys running wide open on a number of plays and for that I give credit to the coaches in the box. Of course there were plays that didn't work, but some of those serve to set up the bigger strikes later on.
On predictable play calling, I'm pretty sure on game 1 against UNLV we are going to keep things a bit vanilla, especially when we had so many opportunities for TD's that just weren't clicking. If the big plays are there just keep it simple and stroke the post occasionally.
 

Good
* Secondary - They were blanketing receivers the 1st Wells INT ex: where Baltazar was draped all over the WR comes to mind
* Donnell Kirkwood - Was outstanding - ran behind his pads and picked up the blitz nicely
* ALL WR's/TE's - I don't remember a dropped ball!
* Pass Rush - changed the game - if it weren't for some terrible penalties they wouldn't have moved the ball at all.
* Freshman - We have something to look forward too in J. Harbison, KJ Maye and A McDonald. Although Harbison didn't play in the second half and had his shoulder pads off (injury???)
* Beal - I thought he played his gaps nicely and was around the ball a ton
* WE WON, period!!!!


BAD
* Senior Studs (??) - We were let down by those we were counting most on i.e. Gray, Stoudemire, Hill, Green and Rallis (especially in the 1st half)
* Penalties - Must I say more
* Offensive Play Calling - Questionable at best - but I don't blame Limegrover not trusting Gray (he couldn't throw a spiral in the 1st half and obviously was missing receivers all over the place). Thought we should have ran left more and keep pounding the ball with Kirkwood.

It's a good thing that this was the first game and we learned how to win a close game on the road!!

I wonder if the elevation had anything to do with the ball floating on Gray?!? I don't want to make excuses for him just a thought.

Nerves were evident, I expect a much stronger performance next week.

Ski U Mah
 

Jeshurun said:
Special teams and penalties. The 11 for 85 doesn't even describe how bad the penalities were, as so many of them came on 3rd down. I'm sure Kill will use this as a teaching moment and we'll see a much more disciplined team next Saturday.
Click to expand...
This team was terribly undisciplined last year and came out last night and was still terribly undisciplined. At a certain point that should poke some holes in the image that has been built of Kill as a master of fundamentals. It was the first game, so we'll see.
 

Also, I echo the Donnell Kirkwood praise. I mentioned how happy I was to hear that he would be getting a lot of carries last week, and I'm glad to see he came through. That kid is a little bowling ball. He's got some Ray Rice in him.
 


Gray hits the passes he's supposed to, we would have won by two or three touchdowns and everyone would be thinking we are on our way to an 7+ win season.

I love the complaining about the read/option play calling, you have a beast of a mobile quarterback paired with a few running backs that were really playing well against a UNLV defense that was stacking the box and consistently run blitzing a linebacker or two. Why on earth would you run a "misdirection/counter" play that would take two or three seconds to develop and allow the linebackers to get in our backfield? Running the read option freezes the ends and linebackers slowing up their rush, allowing Gray to find the weak spot in the line. It's the proper play to run in the situations we were given last night. Sometimes the monday morning quarterbacking is a little much on this website.

Yes you can blame execution, heck on one of the passes Gray had the defender fell down, all he needed to do was loft one to the receiver and we would have had six. His throwing motion did look a lot better and I'm hopeful he will get it figured out. It takes time.
 


Maroon said:
Aside from the obvious uglies already touched on, I thought Mike Rallis stood out in a very, very bad way. Terrible game.
Click to expand...

He was was unable to get off the block on the power play. Its the basic Oklahoma drill. When you heard the announcers say he is running down hill there. Rallis was no where insight. Then there was a hit I think in the second quarter, the announcer gave it to a lineman but Beal laid the wood. After that the first quarter UNLV running game slowed. But Rallis was back in there for the remained of the second quarter and continued to be ineffective.
 

The defense was incredible. The first 10 points they gave up were due to Gray's interception and Stoudemire's fumbled punt and questionable interference call. You could make the case they only gave up 3 points completely on their own in regulation. I don't fault them too much in OT, it was the first game of the year, super hot, and they were worn out.

As for the offense, it's funny how throughout all August people were asking if we had receivers who were going to be able to step up and make plays for Gray. After last night, I'm asking myself do we have a QB who can get our dynamic playmakers the ball.
 

My Good, Bad, UGLY:

Good-
Wells was a beast.
Kirkwood was good when he got the ball.
Barker was great.
Crawford-Tufts showed me something last night to think he could be pretty good.
Rabe of course with the two big catches.
Pass Rush on the DL was good.

Bad-
Stoudmire's two big screw ups.
OL in general.


Ugly:
Gray, missed probably 4 easy TD passes maybe more.
Run defense was turrible.
Linebackers almost invisible.
Special teams as a whole, particularly punting.


IMO, we had 5-7 good individual efforts and the rest was bad or worse.
 

John Galt said:
The defense was incredible. The first 10 points they gave up were due to Gray's interception and Stoudemire's fumbled punt and questionable interference call. You could make the case they only gave up 3 points completely on their own in regulation. I don't fault them too much in OT, it was the first game of the year, super hot, and they were worn out.

As for the offense, it's funny how throughout all August people were asking if we had receivers who were going to be able to step up and make plays for Gray. After last night, I'm asking myself do we have a QB who can get our dynamic playmakers the ball.
Click to expand...

So giving up 150+ rushing yards to a team like UNLV is "incredible"? Pass defense as a whole may have been good but it's easy to look good against a team on the level on UNLV with a first year starting QB in there.
 

definitely concerns with run defense when we were playing 8 in the box all night. Needs to improve before we play the power running games.
 

mcrow said:
My Good, Bad, UGLY:

Good-
Wells was a beast.
Kirkwood was good when he got the ball.
Barker was great.
Crawford-Tufts showed me something last night to think he could be pretty good.
Rabe of course with the two big catches.
Pass Rush on the DL was good.

Bad-
Stoudmire's two big screw ups.
OL in general.


Ugly:
Gray, missed probably 4 easy TD passes maybe more.
Run defense was turrible.
Linebackers almost invisible.
Special teams as a whole, particularly punting.


IMO, we had 5-7 good individual efforts and the rest was bad or worse.
Click to expand...

Seniors
 


The run defense was good for 3 quarters. Most of UNLV's rushing yards came in the 4th quarter and OT.
 

The good,the bad and the rambling.

The good news, the Gophers won the game, found a way to overcome adversity from mistakes and poor execution and still pulled out a victory.
There were many mental mistakes and errors that were correctable, and a lot of feeling out of position groups and groups of players playing that I suspect
were due to the heat conditions. We are still learning how to win football games and building, so for the Gophers to win on the road was big and we needed the Victory for confidence
purposes. Our conditioning, talent and physical abillities were not problems last evening. This will pay off as the season rolls along.

The bad: Lack of execution on offense, to many stalled out drives, play calling with the zone read by the QB became very predictable at times, and obviously
the QB had execution and accuracy issues all night with his throwing. We played down to our opponent and it was more about what we were doing poorly then what they were doing well as to why this was a close football game.
On defensive side of the ball, the run defense at defensive end, and linebacker play was severely undisciplined at times(not seeing what is in front of you or reacting and had
players getting out of sorts making mental mistakes and poor plays at times. Need to cut down on the numbers and amount of players playing here I suspect.
Defensive end was giving up outside containment with inside stunts on pass rushing, without paying any attention to the ball carrier or who had the football. I know we want to get off the blocks and be agressive and pass rush well, but we need guy's that can rush and recognize when to break off and maintain outside contain and flow down the line, or force the play to a linebacker or safety.
Were not talking about things that are not correctable but there were people trying to do other peoples jobs at times and getting out of control in how they were attacking there blocks, releasing containment, and not forcing the ball carrier to the correct player. I can think of at least 2 or 3 plays in the linebacking group where #26, #51 and #57 all played off the wrong shoulder, were trying to make the play from the outside shoulder, should have been attacking there blocks head on and forcing them into the RB or attacking the inside shoulder of the blocker to get off the block and flow the offensive player to a teamate. We have to get better at working in groups and team defense. You can tell we are young at defensive end, as when the grouping of the true freshman got in there on the tieing field goal try we were severly out of whack not in just position but getting blown off the ball really bad.

The Ugly: Mental mistakes, poor execution by Special teams, and penalties by Seniors and most experienced players at times. This was dissapointing and had to be frustrating for them and the offenders.
This is where we need a mental cleansing and flushing of the loser mentality of the past.
We need to find a way to free ourselves of the mentality that causes us to make these types of errors and be done with it. "WOE is us" or OH NO here we go gain, I screwed up again, loser mentality of mental errors. We are so indoctrinated into making these types of errors and mistakes that we expect it, and it in my belief manifests itself on the football field because of holding onto the past errors, losses and mistakes. In order to learn how to win, keep winning, we have to let go of the past and move on from it. The coaches can only drill this so much, it is up to the PLAYERS TO LET GO OF THERE CRAP and baggage. We have to see guys let go of this stuff, players and staff, start trusting each other and what the coaches are telling them and start having belief that it "bad" will not happen. It takes more success to do that, and sometimes wins beget winning but it was really an important step to win that football game last night. I'm sure it was hot and the players were feeling stressed and tired but they played through and won the game and that is what matters most. We are still working on the "belief" part, as fans, the program everyone. Winning is as they say contagious.
Better days are ahead Gophers fans, the talent, tools, teaching and building are all in place. Winning a poorly at times played game should signal to the players that they can and will do better. This should signal to the coaches that they can start trusting what they are teaching is starting to sink in incrementally.
SKI-U-Mah and Go Gophers.
We need to get a little lucky this year and win a game or two were not supposed to, then we will know the turn is happening.
 

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