Analysis of Minnesota’s chances against Ohio State

[MNVCGUY]

Yeah, I’ll be avoiding the in game thread for sure.

I usually limit my visits to the in game thread to pregame and sometimes halftime depending on how things are going. Outside of that I steer well clear of that thread on principal.

 

[MNVCGUY]

There have been a lot of upsets this year in college football. The Gopher have a chance but I wouldn’t bet on it. How will Drake react with a 105,000 screaming Bucknuts drowning out his audibles. Arch Manning had trouble with that. OState uses a lot of defensive alignments with last second switches. Confusing for a young QB.

I am really curious to see how Drake handles things on Saturday night. Won't find many tougher road environments and although it isn't his first road game it will be the first one in those kind of conditions.

 

[Schnauzer]

So many things stacked up against the Gophers in this one...

• huge talent gap
• OSU is a national title contender
• OSU fans hungry for a night game - and this is a night game
• first conference road game
• Gopher defense has been a bit suspect against the pass, up against the game's top receiver
• Recent (2023) history of Fleck "mailing it in" with ultra conservative game plan at OSU
• Gophers have a promising QB but are banged up at RB and early indications are this appears to be a rebuilding season. As in, rebuilding toward 9-3 or 8-4.

I can't help but be a bit worried and pessimistic about this one. If this somehow ends up in the win column it will instantly replace 2019 Penn State game as my favorite within the Fleck era. In reality it feels a lot more like the 2023 games with Michigan or Ohio State (two of the only Fleck-era games where the Gophers were just overwhelmed and were not competitive).

I will never go into a game thinking there is no chance however. Ohio State QB is young and what if there are some funny ball bounces early, or he throws an overconfident pass that ends up at pick six, fluky special teams play, etc. etc. All unlikely, but at the very least we will get a first row view of whatever the gap is right now between these current Gophers and a serious national championship contender.

 

[SeaBee_Gopher]

I don't think it would take 40 points to beat them because they've been pretty low scoring for such an elite team so far this year. The biggest problem has been scoring any appreciable amount of points against them. If you take out their game against an FCS team (a shutout against Grambling), they've given up a total of 22 points against 3 FBS teams, a 7.3 average. Two of those opponents were power conference teams and the third (Ohio) likely is the best MAC team. So, we would look pretty good in comparison if we scored two touchdowns but they surely would score more than that against us.

Ohio State hasn't scored much this year MOSTLY because they're playing it safe and haven't been forced to put the pedal down. They have punted TWICE in their last THREE games (0.67 punts/game)! One of those punts was to Grambling when they were up 63-0 so I think it's fair to say their starters were no longer out there so let's call it more realistically 0.33 punts/game. If the game is close, they will likely air it out and I don't think we can stop them. We would need to hope for turnovers & mistakes to keep the score down, but hope is not a strategy.

I don't think they score 40 points on us this Saturday, but I think it's because they don't have to for a comfortable win. I HOPE I'm wrong!

 

[Schnauzer]

I made a separate post about rewatching the Rutgers game. As I did that and soaked in the things I mentioned in that post, I also kept thinking how much worse the Gopher defense would/could look against OSU.

It's obviously a tall mountain to climb. If feels like the game result will more likely be worse than the spread than better. Night game, OSU fans in hyper excitement mode, etc.

But for a moment at least, there is reason for hope. The Gophers are a better team than the Ohio Bobcats, and are probably as good as the Washington Huskies.

OSU was well into the second half before they had separation from those two teams. What if... what if the Gophers hang around as long as Ohio and Washington but instead of having that moment when the Ohio State talent takes over and the bottom falls out in the second half, it is a weird turnover or pick-6 for the Gophers instead and suddenly the Ohio State nerves wear thin and a crazy upset vibe takes over instead?

Certainly unlikely. My mental image of the game is more like what we saw in 2023, or something bad happens early and the avalanche comes early. But until that happens, I'll hold out some hope that what if...

 

[Gopherchase]

We have no one, and I mean no one that can cover their wide outs really no chance in this game. Hopefully PJ recognizes this and runs the ball 60 times to save Lindsay.

Dumb

 

[GophersInIowa]

Dumb

The funniest part of that is if we end up running the ball 60 times, that means we're moving the ball and likely scoring on most possessions.

 

[Gopherchase]

So many things stacked up against the Gophers in this one...

• huge talent gap
• OSU is a national title contender
• OSU fans hungry for a night game - and this is a night game
• first conference road game
• Gopher defense has been a bit suspect against the pass, up against the game's top receiver
• Recent (2023) history of Fleck "mailing it in" with ultra conservative game plan at OSU
• Gophers have a promising QB but are banged up at RB and early indications are this appears to be a rebuilding season. As in, rebuilding toward 9-3 or 8-4.

I can't help but be a bit worried and pessimistic about this one. If this somehow ends up in the win column it will instantly replace 2019 Penn State game as my favorite within the Fleck era. In reality it feels a lot more like the 2023 games with Michigan or Ohio State (two of the only Fleck-era games where the Gophers were just overwhelmed and were not competitive).

I will never go into a game thinking there is no chance however. Ohio State QB is young and what if there are some funny ball bounces early, or he throws an overconfident pass that ends up at pick six, fluky special teams play, etc. etc. All unlikely, but at the very least we will get a first row view of whatever the gap is right now between these current Gophers and a serious national championship contender.

I don’t know about overall huge talent gap we have some high-end players. The OL will have to run block better and our injury prone RB will need to return at full speed and our LB crew will need to hold up. I think our schemes have killed our pass defense more than talent. I hope we go with the three safety look including Green instead of Gousby. More than anything, the coaches will need to change their best. Not sure if they are capable and or willing PJ certainly has mailed it in against the Buckeyes and the Wolverines in the past I can’t imagine him doing that again, but who knows.