John Shipley: Gophers’ defense remains unsightly

BleedGopher

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per Shipley:

Minnesota did a lot of good things on Thursday, taking a 21-17 lead in the third quarter and rushing for more than 200 yards on what is traditionally one college football’s best defenses. But by the fourth quarter, the bad far outweighed the good. Ohio State was scoring too easily, and tailback Mo Ibrahim was in the locker room with what appeared to be a serious leg injury.

Worse, Minnesota’s defense isn’t good. Maybe it will be at some point this season, but last year’s crew was among the worst in big school football and after one game it still is. It’s not so much that Ohio State put up 45 points on the Gophers, it’s the way they did it — more big plays than a backyard game on a 15-yard lawn.


Go Gophers!!
 


per Shipley:

Minnesota did a lot of good things on Thursday, taking a 21-17 lead in the third quarter and rushing for more than 200 yards on what is traditionally one college football’s best defenses. But by the fourth quarter, the bad far outweighed the good. Ohio State was scoring too easily, and tailback Mo Ibrahim was in the locker room with what appeared to be a serious leg injury.

Worse, Minnesota’s defense isn’t good. Maybe it will be at some point this season, but last year’s crew was among the worst in big school football and after one game it still is. It’s not so much that Ohio State put up 45 points on the Gophers, it’s the way they did it — more big plays than a backyard game on a 15-yard lawn.


Go Gophers!!
I have a feeling that Shipley doesn't watch many Ohio State football games...
 




Interesting stat from last night that is alarming.

tOSU had 83 tackles and 52% were solo meaning a lot of team tackles.
MN has 40 tackles and 75% were solo. Guys out of position and lack of guys around the ball.
 

In that game, the Gophs were lucky to have an offense that ground out both yards and time. Otherwise, OSU could have scored 80.
 

Captain obvious - if you take away OSU's huge plays that went for TDs ...

I think the rest looks about as reasonably well as any Big Ten defense has played against OSU in the last handful of years.
 

Interesting stat from last night that is alarming.

tOSU had 83 tackles and 52% were solo meaning a lot of team tackles.
MN has 40 tackles and 75% were solo. Guys out of position and lack of guys around the ball.
Good stat pull here. Interesting
 



per Shipley:

Minnesota did a lot of good things on Thursday, taking a 21-17 lead in the third quarter and rushing for more than 200 yards on what is traditionally one college football’s best defenses. But by the fourth quarter, the bad far outweighed the good. Ohio State was scoring too easily, and tailback Mo Ibrahim was in the locker room with what appeared to be a serious leg injury.

Worse, Minnesota’s defense isn’t good. Maybe it will be at some point this season, but last year’s crew was among the worst in big school football and after one game it still is. It’s not so much that Ohio State put up 45 points on the Gophers, it’s the way they did it — more big plays than a backyard game on a 15-yard lawn.


Go Gophers!!
per Shipley:

Minnesota did a lot of good things on Thursday, taking a 21-17 lead in the third quarter and rushing for more than 200 yards on what is traditionally one college football’s best defenses. But by the fourth quarter, the bad far outweighed the good. Ohio State was scoring too easily, and tailback Mo Ibrahim was in the locker room with what appeared to be a serious leg injury.

Worse, Minnesota’s defense isn’t good. Maybe it will be at some point this season, but last year’s crew was among the worst in big school football and after one game it still is. It’s not so much that Ohio State put up 45 points on the Gophers, it’s the way they did it — more big plays than a backyard game on a 15-yard lawn.


Go Gophers!!
Petty, I know, but wasn't it 45 to 31?
 

Good defenses are gap sound, assignment sound, do your job, trust your teammate to do their job defenses. That's not MN last night. It doesn't take much to cause an over-reaction pileup, and a huge play on a weak side throwback. Practice assignment sound, do your job defense. The 2nd half was full of hero defense, trying to make a play even though that play is not my job. Needs to tighten up significantly. At least there's plenty of film to watch as a unit.
 

AND, without the strip sack TD it’s a very different game.
PJ said all the big plays were on defensive calls that failed. Blitzed…didn’t get there and short people in coverage. Things like that. Couldn’t just play base defense all night or they’d dominate. Had to try to keep Ohio St off balance.
Makes sense.
Ohio St is pretty good. Our defense has the guys to be effective. We knew we needed 35 plus points to win going in!
 

The one play, I think their second huge TD play, the route took like 4+ seconds to develop.

Justus Harris dropped back into the zone, and he almost was in a position to try to make a play on the ball ... but it was just a bit too long and there was no one after that.


You have to get to the QB on that play. You can't give him that much time.
 



Good defenses are gap sound, assignment sound, do your job, trust your teammate to do their job defenses. That's not MN last night. It doesn't take much to cause an over-reaction pileup, and a huge play on a weak side throwback. Practice assignment sound, do your job defense. The 2nd half was full of hero defense, trying to make a play even though that play is not my job. Needs to tighten up significantly. At least there's plenty of film to watch as a unit.
The best thing about playing a really good team like OSU is they will let you know what you need to work on after the game is over. They are very good at exploiting your weaknesses and l imagine the game film study should be quite interesting as they point out mistake after mistake made during the game. The Gophers can learn a lot from a game like this.
 

Good defenses are gap sound, assignment sound, do your job, trust your teammate to do their job defenses. That's not MN last night. It doesn't take much to cause an over-reaction pileup, and a huge play on a weak side throwback. Practice assignment sound, do your job defense. The 2nd half was full of hero defense, trying to make a play even though that play is not my job. Needs to tighten up significantly. At least there's plenty of film to watch as a unit.
I think losing howden hurt alot. Also MSM was awful again last night vs such a fast team. Gap integrity was lost.
 

I think losing howden hurt alot. Also MSM was awful again last night vs such a fast team. Gap integrity was lost.
What is the Howden injury outlook? I didn't even see what happened there.
 

What is the Howden injury outlook? I didn't even see what happened there.
Dont know but docs pulled him. I bet he ll be back soon. You knew things were bad when swenson was in. Fleck should have called time out on the TD pass where we had swenson in the slot vs wilson... need dixon healthy asap
 

Dont know but docs pulled him. I bet he ll be back soon. You knew things were bad when swenson was in. Fleck should have called time out on the TD pass where we had swenson in the slot vs wilson... need dixon healthy asap
Yeah, I don’t mind Swenson at times, he is decent vs the run, but clearly was exploited in pass coverage when he had to man up on a wr.
 

Dont know but docs pulled him. I bet he ll be back soon. You knew things were bad when swenson was in. Fleck should have called time out on the TD pass where we had swenson in the slot vs wilson... need dixon healthy asap
Yeah he had Zero chance on that
 

Yeah, I don’t mind Swenson at times, he is decent vs the run, but clearly was exploited in pass coverage when he had to man up on a wr.
Uhhh, he got flat juked out of his shoes on one play where he came up to try to make the tackle. That was plastered all over the big screen.
 


Uhhh, he got flat juked out of his shoes on one play where he came up to try to make the tackle. That was plastered all over the big screen.
Not all former walk-ons become stars, but he does the best he can. Crazy thing on the long TD he got beat on was that #55 took himself 20 yards from any player on the field. I understand possibly playing zone, but he was covering nothing.
 

Gibbons and Sori Marin were bumping shoulders on the interior on that first long OSU run. It’s not a foot speed issue, I just don’t think the LBs are reading the plays that great and trusting their help.
 

It's concerning after last season, but I'm going to hope they fix things and other teams won't have ol negate or DL and nfl Wrs that torched us.
 

Gibbons and Sori Marin were bumping shoulders on the interior on that first long OSU run. It’s not a foot speed issue, I just don’t think the LBs are reading the plays that great and trusting their help.
On that play, it was student body left and the ball carrier shot back out to the right.

Nubin badly lost leverage and then whiffed on the tackle. Agree that it ideally should never come down to a one-on-one.
 




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