Another Brilliant Performance by Offensive Visionary Matt Limegrower

[cncmin]

Before tonight, how many games did you expect the Gophers to win this year?

I had some hope they could compete in at least half of the B1G games, win a couple of those, and compete in a low-end bowl game. The team that took the field tonight wouldn't lose by less than 2 TDs in any of the B1G games on that schedule, and would get beat by 30+ in most of those.

Put it another way: the team that took the field tonight wouldn't win half of their conference games if they were in the MAC.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Yeah, because winning by 3 in 3 OTs on the road against a bad home team while not being able to move the football offensively isn't anything at all like getting blown up on both sides of the football by a one of the most horrendous road teams in the history of CFB for almost a full 60 minutes, not being able to move the football offensively, and relying on huge special teams plays to win by 28 at home. No similarities at all.

If the coaches are as jubilant over that performance as most of you (drunk?) people are and believe that the team that took the field tonight played a good game such that they don't have that much to correct, then there is zero chance to win a single B1G game on that schedule this year. What I saw on the field with the lack of offense and defense rivals some of the worst Gophers teams I've ever seen. I'll give this team, the way it is now, the 4 opening cream puff victories (including a nailbiter or two among those), but it has no chance to win any game in the B1G schedule without a drastic overhaul. The offense sucked. The defense stunk, except for one beautiful INT play. Hawthorne's FGs and XPs were bad. The punting game was bad. The kickoff return game was nice and the FG defense was great. So, building on those strengths, what's the future game plan: hope to score enough points on blocked FGs and kickoff returns to win a bunch of football games?

I know the expectations in Gopher football aren't very high, but when you can't even criticize getting pummeled on both sides of the football by UNLV at home without getting a bunch of nastygrams from blindly jubilant idiots, then perhaps we really never deserve to be the fans of a winner.

I think where people (including myself) disagree with you is that we didn't get "pummeled" on both sides of the ball. We didn't play great at times but it's not like they ran all over us. Why is two turnovers, one returned for a TD, not considered good defense? Defensive coaches stress takeaways all the time.

I've never heard of an offense scoring 30 points and someone saying they were "blown up". Yes it was ugly. Yes there is a lot of things that need to be worked on.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

I think where people (including myself) disagree with you is that we didn't get "pummeled" on both sides of the ball. We didn't play great at times but it's not like they ran all over us. Why is two turnovers, one returned for a TD, not considered good defense? Defensive coaches stress takeaways all the time.

I've never heard of an offense scoring 30 points and someone saying they were "blown up". Yes it was ugly. Yes there is a lot of things that need to be worked on.

Good grief, there is some serious perspective lacking here. Wow.

UNLV ran EIGHTY FIVE OFFENSIVE PLAYS (to just 61 for the Gophers), and managed to put up 23 points; 7 of which came on a 4th and 8 Hail Mary TD bomb.

The Gophers lost three offensive possessions by making those 3 huge D/ST plays for TD's.

I counted (roughly) 24-25 different players that played on defense for the Gophers, and that was before the end of the third quarter. They played a lot of guys, a LOT of guys. Most of the big gains for UNLV came against the back end of the 2-deeps.

No doubt, the offense struggled to run the ball between the tackles, against a team that pretty much sold out to take that away. That's why Nelson was able to get the edge over and over again. Anyone recall how often UNLV had 9-10 guys within a yard of the LOS? It was a LOT.

"Offense Shows Rust in Opening Game" .... someone alert the media, this may have never occurred before in a tackle football game.

 

[cncmin]

I think where people (including myself) disagree with you is that we didn't get "pummeled" on both sides of the ball. We didn't play great at times but it's not like they ran all over us. Why is two turnovers, one returned for a TD, not considered good defense? Defensive coaches stress takeaways all the time.

I've never heard of an offense scoring 30 points and someone saying they were "blown up". Yes it was ugly. Yes there is a lot of things that need to be worked on.

eh, I don't know. You usually have good opinions on things and I tend to agree with you, so maybe I'm being too negative here. Maybe I expected too much, or just underestimated UNLV as a whole, and they're actually not a terrible team. I hope that's the case. If the Gophers show some good signs next week, I promise to relent.

 

[Cayman]

I know the expectations in Gopher football aren't very high, but when you can't even criticize getting pummeled on both sides of the football by UNLV at home without getting a bunch of nastygrams from blindly jubilant idiots, then perhaps we really never deserve to be the fans of a winner.

Since you are arguing that UNLV was superior on both offense and defense tonight, I'm curious: have you ever watched the Gophers lose a game by 3 touchdowns or more and come away feeling that we were clearly the better team?

 

[thailleagle]

I really hate to bring up Mason... I really do...

But why Limegrover never throws teams off right in the beginning I'll never understand. We're pretty much known now to be a team that wants to run the football down other teams throats... same thing we did when Mason was here *BUT* one thing I did respect about Mason is it was plenty of times where we came out throwing 5-6 plays in a row before we would run the ball... to kinda open up the Defense a little & keep them guessing. It just seems like Limegrover gets comfortable running the ball even if its not working...

I think we could throw a lot of teams off with a little more imagination...

 

[GophersInIowa]

eh, I don't know. You usually have good opinions on things and I tend to agree with you, so maybe I'm being too negative here. Maybe I expected too much, or just underestimated UNLV as a whole, and they're actually not a terrible team. I hope that's the case. If the Gophers show some good signs next week, I promise to relent.

I just felt like there were things that could easily be corrected. For example, I felt if our corners would have been more physical on the line with their WR's, it would have hurt their short passing game. Sure there would be a greater chance of hitting us deep, but UNLV showed no ability to complete passes down field. I'm not sure how many passes they even attempted that were over 12 yards.

 

[tikited]

But why Limegrover never throws teams off right in the beginning I'll never understand. We're pretty much known now to be a team that wants to run the football down other teams throats... same thing we did when Mason was here *
I think we could throw a lot of teams off with a little more imagination...

We went down field the first possession and it resulted in an int.

 

[SonOfTheVarsity]

Yeah, because winning by 3 in 3 OTs on the road against a bad home team while not being able to move the football offensively isn't anything at all like getting blown up on both sides of the football by a one of the most horrendous road teams in the history of CFB for almost a full 60 minutes, not being able to move the football offensively, and relying on huge special teams plays to win by 28 at home. No similarities at all.

If the coaches are as jubilant over that performance as most of you (drunk?) people are and believe that the team that took the field tonight played a good game such that they don't have that much to correct, then there is zero chance to win a single B1G game on that schedule this year. What I saw on the field with the lack of offense and defense rivals some of the worst Gophers teams I've ever seen. I'll give this team, the way it is now, the 4 opening cream puff victories (including a nailbiter or two among those), but it has no chance to win any game in the B1G schedule without a drastic overhaul. The offense sucked. The defense stunk, except for one beautiful INT play. Hawthorne's FGs and XPs were bad. The punting game was bad. The kickoff return game was nice and the FG defense was great. So, building on those strengths, what's the future game plan: hope to score enough points on blocked FGs and kickoff returns to win a bunch of football games?

I know the expectations in Gopher football aren't very high, but when you can't even criticize getting pummeled on both sides of the football by UNLV at home without getting a bunch of nastygrams from blindly jubilant idiots, then perhaps we really never deserve to be the fans of a winner.

UNLV, which averaged 4.9 yards per play, pummeled the Gophers, who averaged 5.3 yards per play, en route to a sterling 28-point defeat. The Gophers really got blown off the ball all night and could barely hang with UNLV over the course of the 28-point win. Really stunning that some people might somewhat disagree with your take on this one.

 

[cncmin]

I just felt like there were things that could easily be corrected. For example, I felt if our corners would have been more physical on the line with their WR's, it would have hurt their short passing game. Sure there would be a greater chance of hitting us deep, but UNLV showed no ability to complete passes down field. I'm not sure how many passes they even attempted that were over 12 yards.

I agree, so then my concern in this case goes to the coaches: why was there so little attempt to adjust? I did notice that more pressure was applied to the UNLV receivers beginning sometime around the 4th quarter; but to me a coaching staff that's on the ball makes that adjustment long before then.

On the basketball board we all lit on Tubby Smith for his gross failures to make adjustments, and deservedly so. It's not clear to me why we are letting Jerry's crew get a pass here. Is it just because these guys are only beginning their 3rd year here, while it took over 4 years for fans to largely begin to criticize Tubby?

I will say this much, Claeys put out a quality product on defense last year, so I do have confidence that he'll correct this. At this point I'm more concerned with Limegrover.

 

[Halsey Hall]

The original subject was play calling. It was horrible. When we had the ball on our own one, I thought Leslie Frasier was in charge, or Brad the Genius Chilly. Run, run, pass. It ever fails that running the ball from your own one will get stuffed. You have to pass on lst down. That usually succeeds. We ran no reverses. As usual, no quick slants across the middle. ONE pass to Maxx. ONE!!!!!!

 

[SonOfTheVarsity]

I agree, so then my concern in this case goes to the coaches: why was there so little attempt to adjust? I did notice that more pressure was applied to the UNLV receivers beginning sometime around the 4th quarter; but to me a coaching staff that's on the ball makes that adjustment long before then.

On the basketball board we all lit on Tubby Smith for his gross failures to make adjustments, and deservedly so. It's not clear to me why we are letting Jerry's crew get a pass here. Is it just because these guys are only beginning their 3rd year here, while it took over 4 years for fans to largely begin to criticize Tubby?

I will say this much, Claeys put out a quality product on defense last year, so I do have confidence that he'll correct this. At this point I'm more concerned with Limegrover.

Like you and GII and lots of fans, I was frustrated with the cushion given to receivers on their first drive. So I watched the DBs pretty closely the rest of the game. They began jamming UNLV the next drive. The jammed them pretty frequently throughout the game. Not as frequently as they should have, given the UNLV never really tried anything downfield. But to say they didn't adjust until the 4th simply isn't accurate.

 

[cncmin]

UNLV, which averaged 4.9 yards per play, pummeled the Gophers, who averaged 5.3 yards per play, en route to a sterling 28-point defeat. The Gophers really got blown off the ball all night and could barely hang with UNLV over the course of the 28-point win. Really stunning that some people might somewhat disagree with your take on this one.

We'll see how everyone feels if the same level of play continues into B1G season. I'm betting the giddiness will be tempered more than a little.

By the way, to be fair you probably shouldn't include garbage-time stats. Prior to the Gophers' last garbage-time drive they had been outgained for the game by about 200 yards.

 

[cncmin]

Like you and GII and lots of fans, I was frustrated with the cushion given to receivers on their first drive. So I watched the DBs pretty closely the rest of the game. They began jamming UNLV the next drive. The jammed them pretty frequently throughout the game. Not as frequently as they should have, given the UNLV never really tried anything downfield. But to say they didn't adjust until the 4th simply isn't accurate.

Well then they need to learn how to "jam" a lot better and play as a team to disrupt the short passing game. If you're right that they actually "adjusted" immediately and continued to fail, isn't that almost worse for the team's 2013 prospects than not adjusting at all? At least the latter would give one some hope that a correction could occur. The former suggests that the defense will never be able to stop a quality short passing game.

 

[Unregistered User]

I did notice that more pressure was applied to the UNLV receivers beginning sometime around the 4th quarter;

Just looking at the replay now. On the first two plays from scrimmage, the D-backs are playing way off (run for 1 yard, pass for 12 yards). 3rd play from scrimmage, the outside D-backs are playing press, while the slot receiver is still being played off. The slot receiver moves into the backfield flat, catches the pass and is stopped for a 2 yard loss by Vereen. This is a scheme where no film exists. I'll trust Claeys, and his ability to make adjustments over the course of the game. I have seen it be effective the last two years, and I have confidence that he will continue to make good adjustments through year 3.

 

[GophersInIowa]

I agree, so then my concern in this case goes to the coaches: why was there so little attempt to adjust? I did notice that more pressure was applied to the UNLV receivers beginning sometime around the 4th quarter; but to me a coaching staff that's on the ball makes that adjustment long before then.

On the basketball board we all lit on Tubby Smith for his gross failures to make adjustments, and deservedly so. It's not clear to me why we are letting Jerry's crew get a pass here. Is it just because these guys are only beginning their 3rd year here, while it took over 4 years for fans to largely begin to criticize Tubby?

I will say this much, Claeys put out a quality product on defense last year, so I do have confidence that he'll correct this. At this point I'm more concerned with Limegrover.

Not sure. Maybe the gameplan was to be pretty conservative on defense, not give up big plays, and wait for them to make mistakes. Their first two TDs were more breakdowns than anything if you ask me. Someone screwed up on the first TD. And on the 4th down TD, 10 guys played good defense while the 11th wasn't paying attention.

As for the Tubby comparison, I know for me it is different because I feel like Kill and coaches have made some very good adjustments in the past where I didn't see it as much with Tubby. Therefore I do give Kill & Co. a little more of a pass.

 

[atsgopher]

I'm traveling for work and only caught a portion of the fourth quarter. However, seems to me that the game plan worked just fine.

We weren't playing a Big Ten game. They have no relevance here, nor should the prospect of playing big ten games distract us from doing what beats UNLV.

Who gives a rip about creative. Anything and everything in sports, should be done in the simplest manner possible. But then again, maybe creativity was masked via simplicity.

Frankly, after reading the thread, it appears as if Limegrover was brilliant in his simplicity. In the first half, we wore the other team down. We pounded them, while systematically deploying fresh troops. Then, we returned for the second half, where our investment paid off. UNLV was left with tired athletes ripe for mental mistakes; which they did in abundance, the entire second half. The Gophers, then walked all over them on both special teams and offense while amassing 35 points.

Given what we know about UNLV; they are from a dry heat and thus not conditioned for the climate (yet hopefully fooled by the thermometer). They likely were prepared to play tough for the first half. Perhaps too tough, leaving them vulnerable. Could that be a weakness? Could the creativity reside within the overall strategy? Could the level of conditioning be employed strategically, to increase chances for victory? I know of a local Hockey coach that did just that Circa 1980 vs the best team in the world. Pretty sure it worked too.

Sure one could chuck the ball all day. Chucking the ball can lead to big gains, but it also increases risk. Increasing risk opens the possibility for an upstart team to take advantage of said risk and win. Instead, it appears as if the Gophers chose patience. Methodically wearing them down, decreasing their chances of victory. In the second half they kept their foot on the jugular, until it snapped. I like that, beat em by 28, it's sorta got a nice ring to it.

Or then again, maybe, we just got lucky scoring over 50 points... The last time we were that lucky was 9 seasons ago.

 

[skauma]

We are a conservative offense, nothing new. There is nothing wrong with conservative offenses when they are executed. 10-22 made the offense look bad, not the play calling. Execute, and all is fine.

 

[doctor j]

WRs

Exactly. We have no threat at wr. I see a few 13 point games again this year against the better competition. Our wr could hardly get any separation against UNLV. Wait until we play some real teams.

Our wide receivers got separation last year and did a credible job. The entire offense was miserable last night and it started with an offensive line that was completely outplayed by the UNLV defensive line. Inability to run led to an inability to pass. It appears that our "bigger and stronger" offensive line is not better. I'm not at all concerned about our receivers; I am v concerned about the offensive line and what last night's performance tells us abt the quality of this team.

 

[John Galt]

You aren't very smart. Why bring-up Barber and Maroney? All that we know about the offense is that the offense struggled. Why don't you get that?

Nice, I'm not very intelligent. That's real creative.

What I'm asking is who on here claimed that the offense was good tonight? The answer is no one. People on here are excited because the Gophers, a team that has been a dumpster fire and one of the worst college football teams over the last 5 years, just won 51-23. Two years ago they couldn't have beaten St. John's by that much. If that doesn't get you excited and show that the program is improving, it's probably best to move on in life because you will never be satisfied with anything. I've seen plenty of good teams, LSU comes to mind immediately, that have had bad offenses that still won games by large margins due to defense and special teams. For the last time, no one needs to apologize for winning a football game 51-23.

 

[SonOfTheVarsity]

We'll see how everyone feels if the same level of play continues into B1G season. I'm betting the giddiness will be tempered more than a little.

By the way, to be fair you probably shouldn't include garbage-time stats. Prior to the Gophers' last garbage-time drive they had been outgained for the game by about 200 yards.

So can we also then toss out their last long garbage time TD drive? The two drives were essentially the same. Ours was 6 plays for 86 yards. Theirs was 6 plays for 75. So, we won't include them, and we still outgain them on a per play average.

 

[John Galt]

I had some hope they could compete in at least half of the B1G games, win a couple of those, and compete in a low-end bowl game. The team that took the field tonight wouldn't lose by less than 2 TDs in any of the B1G games on that schedule, and would get beat by 30+ in most of those.

Put it another way: the team that took the field tonight wouldn't win half of their conference games if they were in the MAC.

So how many games is that? This team will do everything you just asked for. The Gophers will compete in half their Big Ten games (Gophers win or lose by 10 or less), will win 2 Big Ten games, and will make it to a bowl.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

It's not the QB that concerns me at all, nor the RBs (though they didn't show much today)...the WRs don't get much separation, that doesn't help, but what has me concerned is the offensive line is porous and is getting knocked backward. With all of the recruiting that has been going on with the OL over the past half decade or so, you would think the OL would be the team's strength. It looked overmatched today, and that was against a mediocre defense. Is there something in the OL schemes that is not clicking?

From where I was sitting, I felt like there were a handful of times where there were wide open receivers way down field, and Nelson didn't pull the trigger (either threw a shorter pass into coverage or tucked and ran).

 

[John Galt]

Good grief, there is some serious perspective lacking here. Wow.

UNLV ran EIGHTY FIVE OFFENSIVE PLAYS (to just 61 for the Gophers), and managed to put up 23 points; 7 of which came on a 4th and 8 Hail Mary TD bomb.QUOTE]

And the last touchdown came in garbage time when UNLV still had their first team offense in and we had defensive players who had never seen game action before. Timms, Legania (who did play once last year against UNH), Rallis, and Travis were just a few of the guys that we had in when they had the long run.

 

[t-docious]

Yes, the offensive short comings were obvious. BUT one area of the O line that was a HUGE...let me repeat, HUGE improvement was no false starts in short yardage situations. How many times in the last few years have we shot ourselves in the foot that way. Not once tonight!

I would argue that a fumble on the doorstep was a "shoot ourselves in the foot" moment.
Its the first game. Of course you would love to come out crisp and execute well, but that's why we practice; to get better.

We haven't opened the playbook yet; everyone chill.

 

[everybody knows my name]

Not concerned about "bland". Concerned that we couldn't move the ball against a mediocre D. If bland works, use it. If you need your special teams and defense on the field to score against UNLV, I'm sorry but that's a huge problem.

Bland worked. Don't forget, last year it took the Gophers three OTs to beat this team, and UNLV has improved since then too. This year our offense outscored the opponent in regulation, even without all the extra teams and defensive heroics.

 

[Governor Sibley]

This thread has gone off in a different direction than I intended.

I never said UNLV deserved to win.

I said Limegrower's playcalling was typically bad. It has ever been thus.

 

[50PoundHead]

My only observation (which could be totally off-base) is that Claeys seems to have adjusted to the level of competition better than Limegrover.

 

[John Galt]

This thread has gone off in a different direction than I intended.

I never said UNLV deserved to win.

I said Limegrower's playcalling was typically bad. It has ever been thus.

What did you think of his playcalling against Texas Tech? It seemed pretty creative to me during that game.

Playcalling will appear to be good or bad depending on execution and what works.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

Studwell is completely correct. It's quite possible this is the first time in the modern age of tackle football that a BCS conference team called a conservative and vanilla game on the offensive side of the ball against an inferior NC opponent. It was despicable.

I thought both sides of the ball, both Limegrover and Claeys, ran their schemes with the same end result in mind; use our depth to wear down a visiting team that is not nearly as deep and dominate the second half, while at the same time not showing a lot of the playbook.

One thing is for sure, in these first 4 NC games, there are going to be 23-25 guys getting a lot of minutes on defense. Holy sh!t, did they play a lot of guys on defense last night, and it seemed almost every big play for UNLV came against someone fairly down on the 2-deep roster. It's maddening to watch at times, but there's no doubt these guys are setting up for the long haul.