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

That's the most important part of what went wrong with the offense this year. An offense built around running the ball was depending on a walk, way down the depth chart to keep it afloat.

How many of the teams getting in the Championship Round, all are gonna be passing based, would have got there with their 4th of 5th string QB running the show? Depth is on the recruiting of the coaching staff. The disappearing running game could well be on injuries.

Part of the issue with the running game was that defense could run blitz at will knowing they had little chance of getting burned by the quick-hit play action pass. Once again, this gets back to the QB.
 

@RememberMurray you're attributing the entire 2022 season to Morgan? That's just plain dishonest
Even in 2022 Morgan was a lot better than AK. Do you think Ak would ever go 23/26 on the road in the big ten against any opponent. Ak is an in accurate qb. 18 games was long enough. I wish he would have stayed and competed but he was pretty bad here.
 

First of all, those first down stats alone don't equate to AK getting more favorable chances.

Secondly, the biggest factor was Tanner was handing the ball off to Mo, who almost always put them in a favorable 2nd or 3rd down situation and converted more 3rd-and-mid range plays than anyone in school history. The philosophy of handing off on 2nd and 3rd down continued with AK at the helm despite not having Mo. In fact, it got worse as the season went on with a fifth-string walk-on at RB. Athan was behind the sticks the entire month of November.
First of all, Morgan didn’t have Mo in 2021.

Secondly, the observation about more favorable chances on first and ten was in response to the (correct) general comment that passing on first down gives your QB their best opportunities statistically. The coaches threw more on first down this year and the QB was less effective. That’s simply true. Nothing in my comment touches on AK’s play on second or third down.
 

I'm afraid you and I will have to agree to disagree on this.

For the attributes I listed, a player like Tanner Morgan or Zach Terrell fits the bill pretty well.
Two guys ascended to NFL tryouts....that's uncommon.
 

I wanna bring up offensive line. I thought, the beauty of a good O line was that you built it over years, always had a good mix of underclassmen and upper classmen and had a "system" for recruiting and coaching them up. I thought we were there with our O line, or was it more of Mo Ibrahim making it look good? Some have said our O Line under-performed this year - and I scratched my head, because I thought we had that part of our offense solved. And O Line is an area you don't necessarily need to recruit 4-5 star blue chippers. You get the big, smart, coachable guys and plug them into your system. It's a part of the team that even Minnesota can recruit to, right?

Thoughts or comments on this?
I think our O-Line coach is very good. Could we recruit better? Absolutely, but the fellas grade out pretty well that we have.
No question, 100% MO made our O-Line look better. He had a unique ability to gain yardage consistently no matter the blocking.
I'm in the camp that says the offense made our O-line look bad (play calling, QB play, depleted RB's) versus the one that says our offense was bad because of the o-line.
 



Late to the party on this but….Wow, fragility thy name is Kaliakmanis. Fleeing from the very threat of competition? What’s this kid gonna do when he actually has competent competition for the starting spot at his next school ? Mental toughness is part of being a starting QB. Apparently he has little.
 

Late to the party on this but….Wow, fragility thy name is Kaliakmanis. Fleeing from the very threat of competition? What’s this kid gonna do when he actually has competent competition for the starting spot at his next school ? Mental toughness is part of being a starting QB. Apparently he has little.
Shades of Philip Nelson.
 

Late to the party on this but….Wow, fragility thy name is Kaliakmanis. Fleeing from the very threat of competition? What’s this kid gonna do when he actually has competent competition for the starting spot at his next school ? Mental toughness is part of being a starting QB. Apparently he has little.

Yeah he hasn’t displayed a lot of mental toughness but it’s also possible the coaching, system, teammates let him down. All things can be true. I’d guess that’s what his dad wants to say, but would set off an even bigger s***storm if he just comes out and says it. So some of us will say it.
 




Yeah the first four games of 22 including a putrid Colorado team and a terrible MSU team, made his stats look nice. He also had a good day coming back to play against Rutgers, forgot about that.

But he was 18-33 0TD 3int against Purdue in homecoming, without Mo. And then 4-12 against Illinois NFL defense before getting helmet punched.

Should’ve been 1 TD and 1 int and a win vs Purdue if MBS doesn’t doink the catch.
 


Who cares, time to move on from the AK family. By the way AK sucked.
 




Shades of Philip Nelson.
not really. Nelson was relatively effective, had just recently stomped on big bad Nebraska, could run, and got benched for a low-level QB. Nelson was right to be miffed about that. I still have no idea what Jerry Kill was doing there. Kill basically said passing game? yeah i don’t need that at all.
 

not really. Nelson was relatively effective, had just recently stomped on big bad Nebraska, could run, and got benched for a low-level QB. Nelson was right to be miffed about that. I still have no idea what Jerry Kill was doing there. Kill basically said passing game? yeah i don’t need that at all.
Wasn't he benched because he was struggling in the bowl game against Syracuse? Although, you're right, Nelson could make some plays.
 

not really. Nelson was relatively effective, had just recently stomped on big bad Nebraska, could run, and got benched for a low-level QB. Nelson was right to be miffed about that. I still have no idea what Jerry Kill was doing there. Kill basically said passing game? yeah i don’t need that at all.
I basically agree. The only similarity is that both Nelson and Kaliakmanis had mixed post-season reviews from the coaching staff and decided to transfer. I don't know if Nelson got a raw deal or not, but I have to believe he would have done better than Leidner if allowed to fully display his talents. I always thought that there had to be more to the story because Leidner threw the ball 407 times in 2015, the season when Kill stepped down mid-year and Claeys took over.
 

Alex we appreciate it, but we cooled on Athen and our chili boiling hot on Max now. Ok buh bye now
 


Late to the party on this but….Wow, fragility thy name is Kaliakmanis. Fleeing from the very threat of competition? What’s this kid gonna do when he actually has competent competition for the starting spot at his next school ? Mental toughness is part of being a starting QB. Apparently he has little.
It’s Greek to him 🥴
 

I basically agree. The only similarity is that both Nelson and Kaliakmanis had mixed post-season reviews from the coaching staff and decided to transfer. I don't know if Nelson got a raw deal or not, but I have to believe he would have done better than Leidner if allowed to fully display his talents. I always thought that there had to be more to the story because Leidner threw the ball 407 times in 2015, the season when Kill stepped down mid-year and Claeys took over.
The team also played harder for Leidner than Nelson, and he didn’t want to compete in the spring for the starting job.
 

Yeah the first four games of 22 including a putrid Colorado team and a terrible MSU team, made his stats look nice. He also had a good day coming back to play against Rutgers, forgot about that.

But he was 18-33 0TD 3int against Purdue in homecoming, without Mo. And then 4-12 against Illinois NFL defense before getting helmet punched.

Did Tanner have some bad games? Yes. But his receivers did him no favors in 2022 (ie MBS dropped TD which turned into an INT). He was also the winningest QB in our history, had the best statistical season in Gopher QB history, broke numerous school records, and rarely ever played bad enough to lose a game. I simply do not understand how much hate our best QB ever on paper gets just because he wasn't an NFL talent.
 



Did Tanner have some bad games? Yes. But his receivers did him no favors in 2022 (ie MBS dropped TD which turned into an INT). He was also the winningest QB in our history, had the best statistical season in Gopher QB history, broke numerous school records, and rarely ever played bad enough to lose a game. I simply do not understand how much hate our best QB ever on paper gets just because he wasn't an NFL talent.
Agreed best qb in my lifetime. Weber had better stats but those were some bad teams.
 

We need a stadium song called Dinkytown delight. We have any rap / country artist that can collaborate on Dinkytown Delight? Doesn't have to rip off Alabama. Needs to reference Hsting the Iowa Hawkeyes and the F Wisconsin cheer.
 


Who cares, time to move on from the AK family. By the way AK sucked.
Just wait for the next one. Until Fleck figures out a balanced attack and how to coach a QB, every qb that takes a snap will suck.
 

Did Tanner have some bad games? Yes. But his receivers did him no favors in 2022 (ie MBS dropped TD which turned into an INT). He was also the winningest QB in our history, had the best statistical season in Gopher QB history, broke numerous school records, and rarely ever played bad enough to lose a game. I simply do not understand how much hate our best QB ever on paper gets just because he wasn't an NFL talent.
Tanner signed with the Vikings, twice so far (and the season isn't done yet).
 





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