Alex Kaliakmanis: Trying very hard not to comment on a program that our family decided to cut ties with.

Donate To GopherHole

I really wish AK the best, he seems like a good kid. He may even go somewhere, and make more NIL money, than Brock Purdy's $870,000 salary with the 49ers.

I am also excited to see who this "Mythical Inbound QB" will be. :)
 

topos said:
Daddy AK has always been outspoken on social media, generally talking favorably about the gophers. I remember when there was speculation last year about "Tanner vs. Athan," he was a class act and acknowledged, "Tanner is the guy, and should be."

The social media commentary on Athan has been brutal since the portal announcement. It's sad how much fans are willing to gang up on a kid who gave it his all.

While pops should keep his mouth closed, I get why he's defensive. His son is getting mocked, and a lot of bad s*** went on with our offense this year that was out of AK's control.

I think it's a good move for both parties to move on, but I believe Athan was hung out to dry a bit with the offensive philosophy and the WR talent.
Click to expand...
I'm not losing sleep over losing AK, but I do question why another quarterback would want to come here when you'll only get to throw the ball when you absolutely have too.
 

60's Guy said:
Guys....not sure why we jump on the Dad when his son and 4 other QB's are unhappy. Suggests to me the coaching is certainly part of the problem.
Click to expand...
Because parents should never do this but often do. And it's the time of year for tough conversations. Not surprising at all regardless of school or coaches.
 



LakevilleBro said:
I really wish AK the best, he seems like a good kid. He may even go somewhere, and make more NIL money, than Brock Purdy's $870,000 salary with the 49ers.

I am also excited to see who this "Mythical Inbound QB" will be. :)
Click to expand...
I'm quite confident nobody is going to shell out nearly a million bucks for Athan.
 

mngolf said:
Just to play along. What were the other 75% of fans doing? And the hundreds of times they cheered?
Click to expand...
Who cares? There are obviously thousands of frustrated fans, not just a dozen gopherholer’s.

But I’ll play along. How many fans were cheering after the meltdown against NW, or the loss to Illinois, or the loss to Wisconsin, or this whole season in general?

My point was, if there are frustrated fans, there are frustrated players.
 

60's Guy said:
Guys....not sure why we jump on the Dad when his son and 4 other QB's are unhappy. Suggests to me the coaching is certainly part of the problem.
Click to expand...

So 5 QB's are unhappy with our coaches?
 




more than one thing can be true at the same time.

AK did not have a great year
Fleck's offense is not necessarily QB-friendly
the coaching from the QB coach may have left something to be desired
a lot of people - players, coaches and fans - are upset after a disappointing season

I don't question AK's effort or commitment to the program. in the end, it didn't work out for him at MN. I hope he can find success somewhere else. and I hope MN can find a decent QB or 2 in the portal so that they don't have to throw Lindsey to the wolves next year as a true FR.
 

mngolf said:
Because parents should never do this but often do. And it's the time of year for tough conversations. Not surprising at all regardless of school or coaches.
Click to expand...
Would be very hard as a dad to not respond to overwhelming negative sentiments about your son on publicly consumed social media. However, I agree he should let it lie after this. It will not help.
 


FlaGopher23 said:
Who cares? There are obviously thousands of frustrated fans, not just a dozen gopherholer’s.

But I’ll play along. How many fans were cheering after the meltdown against NW, or the loss to Illinois, or the loss to Wisconsin, or this whole season in general?

My point was, if there are frustrated fans, there are frustrated players.
Click to expand...
Because no one takes responsibility for their own faults anymore and all want instant gratification. Assuming all qbs leaving is due to coaching, despite it being normal everywhere this time of year is their battle cry. And Why care what a minority of fans say?
 



Gophers1992 said:
We were much closer to beating NW and Illinois than we were to losing to IA and NE if we really want to go down this path. I won't even bother addressing your "kind of waved" comment, or your overlooking the other 2 9 win seasons.
Click to expand...
I don't understand how we were closer to beating NW and Illinois than losing to Iowa and NE. Nebraska couldn't have been any closer - it was way closer to a loss than the other two. Illinois' touchdown catch was wide open with time still on the clock, and it wasn't fourth down. Iowa actually returned the punt for a touchdown, and no matter what those of us with Maroon/Gold colored glasses want to believe, that was extremely fortunate/lucky the ref ruled the way he did. All we had to do was make a simple tackle along the sideline, with at least four players right there with DeJean. That return wasn't luck, the ruling was - our special teams have been bad for years. It never should have come down to that ruling.

Northwestern completely outplayed us in the second half, and Illinois did as well down the stretch.

In the end, we could play these stupid games all day. We were 5-7, not 7-5 or 3-9. 5-7 - that's not good and there are things that need to improve.
 

Tucker32 said:
I don't understand how we were closer to beating NW and Illinois than losing to Iowa and NE. Nebraska couldn't have been any closer - it was way closer to a loss than the other two. Illinois' touchdown catch was wide open with time still on the clock, and it wasn't fourth down. Iowa actually returned the punt for a touchdown, and no matter what those of us with Maroon/Gold colored glasses want to believe, that was extremely fortunate/lucky the ref ruled the way he did. All we had to do was make a simple tackle along the sideline, with at least four players right there with DeJean. That return wasn't luck, the ruling was - our special teams have been bad for years. It never should have come down to that ruling.

Northwestern completely outplayed us in the second half, and Illinois did as well down the stretch.

In the end, we could play these stupid games all day. We were 5-7, not 7-5 or 3-9. 5-7 - that's not good and there are things that need to improve.
Click to expand...
Are we fortunate when an opponent grabs a player by the facemask and the ref calls it a penalty? Or is it just the correct call?

Regarding your last sentence, literally nobody is disputing that.
 

Speak your mind young man but it has to be 100% accurate.
 




LakevilleBro said:
I really wish AK the best, he seems like a good kid. He may even go somewhere, and make more NIL money, than Brock Purdy's $870,000 salary with the 49ers.

I am also excited to see who this "Mythical Inbound QB" will be. :)
Click to expand...
If someone pays AK 870k I’d be shocked
 

short ornery norwegian said:
more than one thing can be true at the same time.

AK did not have a great year
Fleck's offense is not necessarily QB-friendly
the coaching from the QB coach may have left something to be desired
a lot of people - players, coaches and fans - are upset after a disappointing season

I don't question AK's effort or commitment to the program. in the end, it didn't work out for him at MN. I hope he can find success somewhere else. and I hope MN can find a decent QB or 2 in the portal so that they don't have to throw Lindsey to the wolves next year as a true FR.
Click to expand...
That last play gophs ran from the endzone said a lot to me. Rolling AK to the short side giving him one option as the target while a defender is sprinting unblocked at him. AK waits until the final moment for the receiver to get open, throws the ball and gets drilled.
 


Gophers1992 said:
Are we fortunate when an opponent grabs a player by the facemask and the ref calls it a penalty? Or is it just the correct call?

Regarding your last sentence, literally nobody is disputing that.
Click to expand...
Wow - and no one would argue that. As much as you may want to say that call was black and white, that's not how the rest of the world views it. And, regarding that last sentence, it was you who opened the door to make a dumb statement like we were closer to winning those than losing the others. That's what I was responding to - they were two losses, and two wins. Like it or not, there was some very good fortune in those two wins, and there wasn't a lot of "bad luck" in those two losses - we earned those through pretty poor play.
 

Gophers1992 said:
We were much closer to beating NW and Illinois than we were to losing to IA and NE if we really want to go down this path. I won't even bother addressing your "kind of waved" comment, or your overlooking the other 2 9 win seasons.
Click to expand...
All four of those could have changed outcomes based on one play, I think we were as close to losing IA and NE as we were to winning NW and Illinois. That's always the problem with logic built around "if we got to keep all the breaks that went our way, and reverse a hand picked set of the critical ones that didn't, our record looks pretty good."
 



Tucker32 said:
Wow - and no one would argue that. As much as you may want to say that call was black and white, that's not how the rest of the world views it. And, regarding that last sentence, it was you who opened the door to make a dumb statement like we were closer to winning those than losing the others. That's what I was responding to - they were two losses, and two wins. Like it or not, there was some very good fortune in those two wins, and there wasn't a lot of "bad luck" in those two losses - we earned those through pretty poor play.
Click to expand...
The call on the fair catch against IA was 100% correct. It is objective, and the only people who say otherwise either don't understand or don't like the rule. So we were not "lucky" to get that call.

If the underlying point is we very easily good have lost against Iowa, that is still true. Not going to go back and look it up, but if memory serves, they didn't need to go very fair after the return that wasn't got called back to set up a potential game winning field goal. As I said in my other post though, if you are going to play that game, one key tackle also probably flips NW or Illinois. We don't have to apologize for winning a close one, just like we don't get points for almost losing a close one. It's the nature of the sport that one score games could have flipped based on a single play. It's what makes the games worth watching.
 


gopherdudepart2 said:
I could see Bielema taking a shot on Athon Kaliakmanis. He is an Illinois guy and Illinois head coach probably thinks he can play for him at home. That coach probably thinks he can fix him and it would be a good fit.
Click to expand...
Athan is no where near as good as any of the three QBs that have played the last 2 seasons IMO

He would be a really good backup for them though
 

DarrenTheGreek said:
So 5 QB's are unhappy with our coaches?
Click to expand...
Well, it could be a coincidence but Knuth transferred, AK8 and Viotto say they are in the portal.
Kramer walked with the seniors indicating he didn't intend to return to Gopher football. The highly rated QB recruit from Atlanta? (maybe) was all Gophers until a couple weeks later he wasn't.
That leaves us with a freshman walk-on who hasn't spoken about his contentment, that I've heard.
I'd say where there is smoke there is fire...I'm speculating...why do you think 5 guys all in a few months don't want to play QB for the Gophers?
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom