Post Game Thread: Gophers Lose a Very Winnable Game at Cal

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upnorthkid said:
i think its more, given we had a grand total of 5 runs that went for more than 7 yards, what were you thinking are the odds you convert? We still only averaged 4 yards carry without Lindsey's and Perich's lost yards.

Denaberg is a career 63% FG kicker prior to that and was 3/9 from 40+. Play to win the game not hope you can see a guy break tendencies and hit one from the mid to upper 40s just to tie it up

Edit: we may have differing opinions of gashing as well. the run game went for 6, 1, 2, 5, 8, 3, and -3 yards on that drive
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I can see a definite argument for passing and I can also understand running there. From the LOS it was a 48 yard kick, gain some yards, and you move it down closer to a 40 yarder and ensure you tie the score up.

Throw a pass that falls incomplete and you are still kicking a 48 yarder which would be lower percentage. Hindsight being 20/20 an incomplete would have been better then a TFL but based on how we were moving the ball on the ground it was likely that we would gain some positive yards.

You listed 7 runs above, 6 went for positive yards, a couple of them would have gone for enough yards to put going for it on 4th down in play....none of them went for negative yards until this play when the O-Line messed up the protection and allowed an untouched defender to go right up the middle.

I get why people didn't like the run there but the perception of the play call may have ended up being very different if the line had done its job.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I can see a definite argument for passing and I can also understand running there. From the LOS it was a 48 yard kick, gain some yards, and you move it down closer to a 40 yarder and ensure you tie the score up.

Throw a pass that falls incomplete and you are still kicking a 48 yarder which would be lower percentage. Hindsight being 20/20 an incomplete would have been better then a TFL but based on how we were moving the ball on the ground it was likely that we would gain some positive yards.

You listed 7 runs above, 6 went for positive yards, a couple of them would have gone for enough yards to put going for it on 4th down in play....none of them went for negative yards until this play when the O-Line messed up the protection and allowed an untouched defender to go right up the middle.

I get why people didn't like the run there but the perception of the play call may have ended up being very different if the line had done its job.
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yeah i get you. just view it as no way PJ was going for it so try get the first down. He gets so darn conservative at weird spots coaching like these kids are NFLers (he did this to Dragan numerous times as well) and NFL kickers hit a 45 yarder about 70% of the time with our kicker's tendency being well below that average so even if you get 4, you're really not changing the calculus of the conversion rate. Doesn't make sense from a game theory standpoint.

Maybe it doesn't matter if we don't take a PI and Koi doesn't cough it up at the 8, but at some point show some belief in a really good QB (and you can absolutely call a quick pass that you tell him to throw it away or dirt it if it's not there).
 

MNVCGUY said:
The first two are valid the third one was a whiff on the part of the offensive line which led to that play losing yards. We had been gashing them with our run game, especially in the second half. But on that play the center messed up and let a defender go straight through the middle untouched to blow up the play.
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Wow.
Running on 3rd and 7 is admitting you're terrified of a sack and won't even try to get a first down. They might as well have tried the long field goal on that same 3rd down play.
With a shaky kicker. Who wouldn't significantly benefit from another 3 or 4 yards anyway.
Typical "play not to lose" football.
That the line messed up anyway allowing a 4 yard TFL only makes it worse, but completely misses the actual point.
 

7-5
GoGophersUMN said:
It's early in the season and 9-3 with a solid bowl game still isn't out of the question but it also feels like this could be the game we look back to as the beginning of the end. Play calls were stubborn, cowardly, or plain stupid for most of the night. Fleck tried to turn Koi into Travis Hunter and he showed he doesn't have the capacity to worry about so many things. I have to think if both teams swapped coaching staffs we would have won by at least a touchdownis probably more likely with big ten play. There will be some very tough games with WI, Iowa, Nebraska, MSU along with Oregon and OSU.
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GoGophersUMN said:
It's early in the season and 9-3 with a solid bowl game still isn't out of the question but it also feels like this could be the game we look back to as the beginning of the end. Play calls were stubborn, cowardly, or plain stupid for most of the night. Fleck tried to turn Koi into Travis Hunter and he showed he doesn't have the capacity to worry about so many things. I have to think if both teams swapped coaching staffs we would have won by at least a touchdown.
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7-5 is probably more realistic. In addition to OSU and Oregon, we have some pretty tough games with Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and MSU. We need to improve quickly.
 

SamSquatch said:
The timing thing is what it is but this is a completely beatable OOC team on the schedule and the Gophs lost again. Lost out east against UNC, lost out west against Cal - these are teams you need to beat at least sometimes to be taken seriously as a program at the national level.

Outside of beating an historically bad CO team in Boulder a few years back, when was the last time this team beat a non-con P4 program? Each time they go up against even mediocre same-level teams, they lose.

It’s a damning program history of pathetic results against teams that are mid-level squads in their respective conferences.
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Other than winning bowl games against these teams.
 


Cal is who they are and certainly deserved the W. They were the better team Saturday night
This team lacks upper tier BIG type offense talent. Take away DT, name one. And at this point no one of D has shown all BIG first team play but they have been better than the offense.

The pre-season concerns of myself and others seem to have manifested themselves thus far. An inexperienced but seemingly talented QB, a lack of quality WR recruits as well as the OL and maybe even the RB's and TE's. An untested and inexperienced BIG OL Fame certainly shows promise and Roy can be a force. WR Smith has a long ways to go and the right side of the OL is a cuase for concern. At this point, it seems as if the transfers have earned lots of PT over Flecks recruits but the results have been less than impressive. What does that say about Flecks offensive recruits? Some one prove me wrong!
And we can say with some certainty about the ST transfers as they have been close to adequate to this point.
On D, PJ's recruits have worked their way onto the field and the tranfers are backups other than #17.
PJ talks about the program being a development one. But I think it lacks BIG talent potential especially on offense. And the transfers to date have basically been a bust.
Can PJ eventually bring in enough talent to be a top 1/3 BIG tier team? I know there are other factors such as NIL. I have given up hope. After being a Gopher ST for over 40 years, Minnesota is what it is. A middling BIG program.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
Yep. And what's worse, sticking with a bad spot or trying to change again?

I remember a few coaches at 'bama before Saban came along. Texas kept shuffling til they got Sark.

Queue the responses about WI not being those teams. Point is, if it's not working, change, and change again if need be.
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We're 3 games in. For all we know the plan was to try these now and other stuff later. Seems pretty early to draw conclusions. Need more data points.
 

Bayfield Gopher said:
Cal is who they are and certainly deserved the W. They were the better team Saturday night
This team lacks upper tier BIG type offense talent. Take away DT, name one. And at this point no one of D has shown all BIG first team play but they have been better than the offense.

The pre-season concerns of myself and others seem to have manifested themselves thus far. An inexperienced but seemingly talented QB, a lack of quality WR recruits as well as the OL and maybe even the RB's and TE's. An untested and inexperienced BIG OL Fame certainly shows promise and Roy can be a force. WR Smith has a long ways to go and the right side of the OL is a cuase for concern. At this point, it seems as if the transfers have earned lots of PT over Flecks recruits but the results have been less than impressive. What does that say about Flecks offensive recruits? Some one prove me wrong!
And we can say with some certainty about the ST transfers as they have been close to adequate to this point.
On D, PJ's recruits have worked their way onto the field and the tranfers are backups other than #17.
PJ talks about the program being a development one. But I think it lacks BIG talent potential especially on offense. And the transfers to date have basically been a bust.
Can PJ eventually bring in enough talent to be a top 1/3 BIG tier team? I know there are other factors such as NIL. I have given up hope. After being a Gopher ST for over 40 years, Minnesota is what it is. A middling BIG program.
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Way too soon to be labeling transfers as busts and way too soon to be bailing on the season. This was one game, a frustrating one to be sure, but there is a lot of season left.

Top 1/3 of the conference is still within reach this season. Last i checked our conference record was still 0-0 for the season and we only have 2 games on our conference schedule that feel like pretty sure loses (@OSU, @Oregon), the rest are all winnable if we play well.
 

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