As the dust settles.

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Schnoodler

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Sometimes it takes awhile for the dust to settle. After enough time has passed you gain perspective, it's always interesting what thoughts remain.

Of course great efforts line Duane Bennett and Joh Hoese stick out. But apart from those the two thoughts that are sticking with me are these.

First, we played a quality opponent that we should be better than and we were actually clearly the best team on the field. We had to have a bad ten minutes to keep it from being a blow out. This is considerably different from the past few years when we leave with a victory but barely.

I knew at the end of that game that we were the decidedly better team. I can't remember the last time I felt that way in a game such as this.

Secondly, We executed a game plan successfully on both sides of the ball!! We have to go all the way back to Gibbs since that has happened, except of course against Mason's cupcakes.

We went in to pound the rock and to contain their Qb forcing him to throw out of the pocket. Check on both. It's so nice to see this and I think it is really going to pay off. We have a foundation now. Instead of trying to patch holes to just execute a game plan we now can focus on improving it.

I like it. In the end it shows tremendous growth in the program.
 

Good efforts on both sides of the ball

Here are the thoughts I had:

1) Offense - MTSU had 8-9 men in the box and we were still able to run. That was amazing line play and the extra effort by Bennett (YAC) was extraordinary. This is the first game that I didn't feel "on the edge" each time Weber took a snap. Everyone knew where the ball was going and we still were able to move it. Very few penalties, no turnovers - I'd say that was the most disciplined game I've seen a very long time. I'm glad Brewster stayed true to the run. I think we'll be seeing a lot of this.

2) Defense - As I watched football this last weekend, the commentators kept talking about defenses that had "only 4 starters back". It was always viewed as a huge handicap to overcome. How about having 0 starters back. We gave up some big plays, but when you're as green as we were, it's to be expected. We'll be much better from here out.

3) The infamous Rap(s) - That was wrong on so many levels.
 

You can draw an infinite number of lines through 1 point

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I'd like to see more data before we start breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back. Let's see if we blow out a team we should dominate this week. One failing of this program is that we never step on people's necks when we have them down on the ground.

You mentioned that we were 10 minutes away from a blowout. When we were up 14-0, punching it in for another score would have probably iced the game. Even making one of those two FG's would have changed the complexion dramatically.

Like you, I was pleasantly surprised by many aspects of our performance. But there were a lot of areas where dramatic improvement is needed, or we're gonna get rolled by USC in two weeks:

Weber - He nutted up when he had to, but most of his passes were terrible. He also took a couple of sacks that were very preventable.

Tackling- If our D takes a quarter off vs. the Trojans like they did against MTSU, we could be down by 3 scores in a hurry

Kicking - Missing two 40 yard FG's in a row is why recruiting a decent PK should be a priority.

Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of positives. You have to go back at least 5-6 years to find a game with running like we saw Thursday night. And like you said, it was nice to see us outcoaching our opponents, which has been lacking in recent years. Sticking with the game plan even when we were down is a sign that maybe Brewster's OJT is paying off. That, plus no idiotic timeouts was a positive.

Time will tell. Two points determine a line, three a plane. By September 19 we'll know where we stand. I noticed that CFN has us ranked #76 this week. Not sure how much we can argue that after 1 game, although I'd like to think we could beat Baylor, Vandy, or Duke.
 

Too Long in the Wasteland said:
I noticed that CFN has us ranked #76 this week.[/URL] Not sure how much we can argue that after 1 game, although I'd like to think we could beat Baylor, Vandy, or Duke.
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And I would agree a few other teams as well.

I also noticed:
46. Connecticut 1-0 Interesting that Connecticut won this game also?
 

Do they really think we're clearly worse than Duke?

Jeepers.
 


CFN is no longer a relevent source of information. Pitt at #43:eek: They were #15 in both the AP and coaches preseason polls and lost by 3 points in a tough road game to the Utes (who will probably be at #25 in this week's AP) and they're #43 - I don't think so.

I like how they have MTSU ranked at #94 after losing to us, when they had received 2 votes in the preseason AP poll. I guess we're so bad that losing to us drops you 50+/- spots?

I don't like the idea of polling before week 4 or 5, but in relation to where CFN has other teams ranked, I would put us somewhere between #45 and #60 based solely on game 1.

CFN is a joke.
 

Too Long in the Wasteland said:
I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I'd like to see more data before we start breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back. Let's see if we blow out a team we should dominate this week. One failing of this program is that we never step on people's necks when we have them down on the ground.

You mentioned that we were 10 minutes away from a blowout. When we were up 14-0, punching it in for another score would have probably iced the game. Even making one of those two FG's would have changed the complexion dramatically.

Like you, I was pleasantly surprised by many aspects of our performance. But there were a lot of areas where dramatic improvement is needed, or we're gonna get rolled by USC in two weeks:

Weber - He nutted up when he had to, but most of his passes were terrible. He also took a couple of sacks that were very preventable.

Tackling- If our D takes a quarter off vs. the Trojans like they did against MTSU, we could be down by 3 scores in a hurry

Kicking - Missing two 40 yard FG's in a row is why recruiting a decent PK should be a priority.

Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of positives. You have to go back at least 5-6 years to find a game with running like we saw Thursday night. And like you said, it was nice to see us outcoaching our opponents, which has been lacking in recent years. Sticking with the game plan even when we were down is a sign that maybe Brewster's OJT is paying off. That, plus no idiotic timeouts was a positive.

Time will tell. Two points determine a line, three a plane. By September 19 we'll know where we stand. I noticed that CFN has us ranked #76 this week. Not sure how much we can argue that after 1 game, although I'd like to think we could beat Baylor, Vandy, or Duke.
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Heaven forbid we see hope.

Brewster told Ellestad upon review of the game film that one of the FGs was clearly good.

From our seats low in the EZ corner, it was difficult to see the path of the ball. The two "officials" did the "I got it, I got it, you got it"--they were both looking at each other as the ball went high over the crossbar. Ref A didn't move, and Ref B wasn't going to signal first. They chattered a little and Ref A flinched. Ref B saw that and did the "no good" and Ref A chimed in. That's what I seemed to see...maybe someone with a DVR can tell me what really happened.

That said, we are a better team than most people believe. We will get better as the season progresses, not worse.
 

Too Long in the Wasteland said:
Let's see if we blow out a team we should dominate this week.
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This is absolutely critical. Brewster's teams have not performed well against FCS opponents. This team needs to keep their eyes off of the USC horizon and blow USD out of the water. Brewster and his colleagues need to coach this team up!
 

highwayman said:
Brewster told Ellestad upon review of the game film that one of the FGs was clearly good.
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I thought the first FG might have been good after watching the replay at home. Obviously from our section, it was impossible to tell.
 



highwayman said:
Heaven forbid we see hope.

Brewster told Ellestad upon review of the game film that one of the FGs was clearly good.

From our seats low in the EZ corner, it was difficult to see the path of the ball. The two "officials" did the "I got it, I got it, you got it"--they were both looking at each other as the ball went high over the crossbar. Ref A didn't move, and Ref B wasn't going to signal first. They chattered a little and Ref A flinched. Ref B saw that and did the "no good" and Ref A chimed in. That's what I seemed to see...maybe someone with a DVR can tell me what really happened.

That said, we are a better team than most people believe. We will get better as the season progresses, not worse.
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Neither FG looked good; both were hooked left.
 

They both looked like a miss to me. The first one was a little closer than the second. It looked like it passed over the upright, perhaps just a tad more out, than in.
 

Actually, he is perfect from everywhere on the field except for 40 yards out on the left hash... so as long as we aren't kicking from there, Im sure he'll make it.

:p :p
 

GIGO

I agree with you that any sort of polling the first month is Garbage In, Garbage Out. At least this one has some science behind it

We're a more respectable #43 here, and we even edge out Duke! USD our next opponent is #183. Based on the Sagarin ratings, we should beat them by 76.6 (our rating) - 46.4 (their rating) + 3 (home field) = about 33 points. Likewise, based on these ratings USC would be favored by about 8 pts if we played them this week.
 



I think two things are fairly clear after the "dust has settled" on this MTSU game, and can be fairly concluded with our small sample size to date:

1) When we have early success running the ball, we stick with it.
-It remains to be seen if Horton will stick with it early and often if we're getting a load of 3 and outs. I think he will, but I'm not fully convinced yet. Even if he doesn't, I don't think he'll replicate Fisch's attempts to throw deep balls in the 1st half when the run in only getting us 2.5 a carry early on.

2) The gameplan vs. MTSU was solid, and executed (for the most part) well. It delivered a win, and we dominated in nearly every category but score.
-the defense had a bad quarter where they were on their heels, but I think the reasons were clear (no-huddle, inexperience in the secondary, no pressure from the front 4). Some of these things can be overcome/improved upon in practice or through scheme.

One positive on the defense (largely thanks to the offense) is that there isn't a whole lot of film on them to watch, 40 plays I think. Hopefully we can keep the defensive scheme vanilla vs. SD, and dominate TOP again, so USC has very little to discern. Then we turn lose some stunts and blitzes on them.
 

Field goals. I can't remember which one, but I thought one of them looked good but it was difficult to tell for sure. It looked like the goal posts at MTSU were REALLY SHORT. Are those allowed to vary from stadium to stadium?
 

year of the gopher said:
Field goals. I can't remember which one, but I thought one of them looked good but it was difficult to tell for sure. It looked like the goal posts at MTSU were REALLY SHORT. Are those allowed to vary from stadium to stadium?
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They started tall, but melted due to the oppressive heat.
 

Yes

year of the gopher said:
Field goals. I can't remember which one, but I thought one of them looked good but it was difficult to tell for sure. It looked like the goal posts at MTSU were REALLY SHORT. Are those allowed to vary from stadium to stadium?
Click to expand...

There is a minimum height requirement, but I don't believe there is a single size that is required. So it is possible that one team's posts would be shorter than what is seen at Big Ten Schools.

It has been a while since I've paged an NCAA rule book though.
 


To me, the biggest positive was Duane Bennett.

But a close second to that was the profound lack of sideline blunders from the coaching staff. No wasted time-outs. No stupid challenges. And the plays were in to Weber lightning-fast so we didn't have any time-outs or delays of game because of that either. That has to be a first. Hopefully it's a sign that Brewster finally has his act together in the game management department.
 

Sitting in the off end zone seats we had, I was able to keep my eye on the clock nearly the entire game. I don't remember seing a single down when we broke huddle with less than 15 seconds. Clearly a major improvement in execution from last year. We can guess a lot of reasons but it was a beautiful thing!
 

Offensive plays came in quickly, but the defensive calls were way too late. Lee can't yell at the DBs and make defensive changes at the same time. They need to adjust something there.
 

I'm critical of the Gophers when I feel it's warranted, but I'll boil it down:

The preseason predictions are basically based on the premise that the Gophers are worse than last year. There is NOTHING in the victory against MTSU that suggests the Gophers are worse than last year. If anything, you gotta coming away thinking the offense is more effective. They have a lot to prove, especially on defense, but that game was absolutely a counter to the notion that they are worse this year. I am not ecstatic, but I am definitely hopeful, and they deserve credit for a methodical victory.

Go Gophers!
 

tato2001 said:
I'm critical of the Gophers when I feel it's warranted, but I'll boil it down:

The preseason predictions are basically based on the premise that the Gophers are worse than last year. There is NOTHING in the victory against MTSU that suggests the Gophers are worse than last year. If anything, you gotta coming away thinking the offense is more effective. They have a lot to prove, especially on defense, but that game was absolutely a counter to the notion that they are worse this year. I am not ecstatic, but I am definitely hopeful, and they deserve credit for a methodical victory.

Go Gophers!
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Great post. Well stated.
 

From CFN talking about the game with MTSU:

Middle Tennessee doesn’t have any offensive punch without QB Dwight Dasher, but it was able to run well on the Gopher defense and did a great job against the defensive front

That's a big assumption they make. They assume that MTSU had no offense without Dasher, so the fact that MTSU did OK on offense means that the Gophers defense was bad? They leave out the possibility that Kilgore might not be such a bad QB. I know they had to put some reason in there for USD to have a chance, but that's too big an assumption.
 

RodentRampage said:
From CFN talking about the game with MTSU:

Middle Tennessee doesn’t have any offensive punch without QB Dwight Dasher, but it was able to run well on the Gopher defense and did a great job against the defensive front

That's a big assumption they make. They assume that MTSU had no offense without Dasher, so the fact that MTSU did OK on offense means that the Gophers defense was bad? They leave out the possibility that Kilgore might not be such a bad QB. I know they had to put some reason in there for USD to have a chance, but that's too big an assumption.
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What silly analysis, so basically they looked at the box score, saw 17 points, combined with no sacks and wrote that. CFN is absolutely not a reliable source of analysis, read NOTHING into what they print.

Things that stand out after the dust settled for me:
Not much hand showed offensively, I think Weber said they only used 30% of a pared down playbook. Alot of counters, flips, end arounds can be built off of the basic dives/traps/and tosses we saw.

Very few mistakes or penalties. A funny moment was when a timeout was called in the middle of one of our drives, my buddy, assuming it was one of the many "offensive WTF confusion timeouts" we saw last year, yells at Brewster(TV), turns out MTSU was confused on D and needed a timeout :cool:

Interested to see whether the D was scheming to contain the QB(my theory on the lack of pressure), or if they simply were not getting there. I think they saw Kilgore throwing well on the run and took that away.

Here's to a nice comfy 40 point injury free blowout that I can enjoy without any blood pressure spikes and that my caribbean jerk ribs are tender, my bloody mary is spicy and my beer is cold on Saturday.
 

If most of Weber's passes were terrible, and completed 10 out of 17, then the receivers must have been making some heroic efforts to catch those terrible passes. There were a couple drops that should have been caught, so they must have been really heroic on the rest of them.
 

The game sounded a lot like the MN WI game of last year. Close on the scoreboard but the bigger Oline just kept pushing and pushing until the other squad was drained.
I wonder if dance4theraiders is out on the Austin Peay blog spot?
 

I miss her already. It was fun to have some females active on the site for a week or so. Speaking of, where has gophergrrl been?
 

Schnoodler said:
I miss her already. It was fun to have some females active on the site for a week or so. Speaking of, where has gophergrrl been?
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You're not a girl? I bet the underdog thinking I was buying lunch for a chick!
 

Sumtimegophs said:
This is absolutely critical. Brewster's teams have not performed well against FCS opponents. This team needs to keep their eyes off of the USC horizon and blow USD out of the water. Brewster and his colleagues need to coach this team up!
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I agree 100 percent. Three short seasons ago, South Dakota was a Division II school. The program is still in the provisional stage of its transformation to D-I. There is NO reason not to win this game by 3-4 touchdowns. I will honestly be very disappointed if the Gophers don't score more than 40 points.
 

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