Breaking down San Jose State

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BarnBoy

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So I hear their QB is pretty good.

Anyone worried we are going to get torched? Or do you think our pass D is up to the task?

(Edit: 2012 Highlights)

Seems like the connection between Fales (QB) and Grigsby (WR) is one to watch.
 

Could the situation be similar to Syracuse last year?
 

We better win this one. Has anyone seen a line yet? Everywhere I look it is closed pending news on Nelson.
 

Really wish that BBC was healthy. I think he was emerging as our 2nd best, or even maybe our best corner. Putting pressure on Fales with our D-Line will be really important.
 

I suspect they'll get their yards and points. The key is controlling the ball and keeping it out of their hands.

They played a decent game against Stanford, but its a rivalry game for them so they've always gotten up for
that one. It will be a good test.
 


This and Iowa are THE most important games of the year. Without these two it will be shocking if we get to a bowl game. Unfortunately, SJS doesn't give us a moment to look past them to the Hawkeyes. SJS had a week off to prepare for the Gophers, so I assume their D line has been working real hard on off-tackle runs and the linebackers on 6 yard side line pass plays.

Minnesota, on the other hand, could have an advantage with the extra game. Will be most interesting to see how the injury situation works out for the Gophers. Both QB and RB will be set in the training room as much as the football field this week.
 


Here's his stat line:

Season 45-75 441 yards 60.0% 5.88 PA 3 TD 1 INT 5 sacks 119.9 QR

He doesn't run at all. I mean at all. True pocket type. Stanford sacked him four times. He has not played well so far. Last year, his completion % was 12 points higher and his QR 50 higher. His three favorite receivers are back for 2013, including his favorite, Grigsby. He seems to still be getting the ball to them, but for substantially less YPC.

They have virtually no running game--113th in the nation.

Get pressure, keep the receivers in front and short--and the Gophers will succeed.

He also doesn't do as well in the 1st quarter. A 9:00 AM start won't help him any, either.
 

I wasn't able to watch any of the Stanford game, but I'm hoping our D-line can get a little more pressure on him than what was shown in the clip. If he was sacked four times in their last game I think we can shut them down in the second half, but I'm guessing we get burned once or twice during the game.
 



gophers&guns said:
I wasn't able to watch any of the Stanford game, but I'm hoping our D-line can get a little more pressure on him than what was shown in the clip. If he was sacked four times in their last game I think we can shut them down in the second half, but I'm guessing we get burned once or twice during the game.
Click to expand...

Those highlights are all from last year.

He also has 3 completions over 25 yards, all against Sacramento State. Longest completion against Stanford was 18 yards. Pressure pressure pressure.
 

They have had 2 weeks to prepare for this game.
 


I think their offense plays to our defensive strengths, and I am very excited for this matchup. I hope we can get pressure and cause some turnovers. I have not heard what their run defense is like, but would love to see our Oline have a big game with Cobb and Williams (and maybe even a little Kirkwood) rushing for over 200 yards combined.
 



As of now, Gophers -5 per scoresandodds.com. A bit lower using Sagarin, -3.5 favorites.

Without a mobile QB I'm interested to see how we do getting pressure. It seems we struggle most when the opposing QB shows some creativity, but with a pocket passer (Nassib?) we can do a bit better. Hoping the team comes out fired up, if we get a lead early it could snowball some momentum, particularly on the defensive side.
 

It's going to come down to the trenches. If he has time to sit back in the pocket and pick us apart, we'll lose by 14. If we are able to establish the run and get to the quarterback, we'll win this game.
 

Stanford got pressure on Fales and forced him into a short and intermediate passing attack. If we can stop the run and do the same in the passing game I like our chances. On paper it does seem like this is a good matchup for us defensively.

Offensively I don't expect much to change. Unless we get behind, we'll run the ball 2/3 of the time and try to control the ball. I expect a close game and the team who makes more mistakes will probably lose. Should be a good challenge for us but it's very important we win.
 




On offense, I'm expecting this game to start out similar to our previous games - a continued attempt to run the ball with 8 or even 9 men in the box, with the hopes that it will pay dividends in the late 3rd and into the 4th quarter. The catch here though is that our defense will have their biggest challenge of the year in holding Fales and Co. down on the scoreboard so that we're in a position to take advantage of a worn down SJSU defense. We're gonna need to pressure Fales regularly. Time for 'Shede to make some more NFL draft highlight footage.
 

highwayman said:
Here's his stat line:

Season 45-75 441 yards 60.0% 5.88 PA 3 TD 1 INT 5 sacks 119.9 QR

He doesn't run at all. I mean at all. True pocket type. Stanford sacked him four times. He has not played well so far. Last year, his completion % was 12 points higher and his QR 50 higher. His three favorite receivers are back for 2013, including his favorite, Grigsby. He seems to still be getting the ball to them, but for substantially less YPC.

They have virtually no running game--113th in the nation.

Get pressure, keep the receivers in front and short--and the Gophers will succeed.

He also doesn't do as well in the 1st quarter. A 9:00 AM start won't help him any, either.
Click to expand...

Their #1 RB averaged nearly 6.5 yards per carry against Sacramento State. Their running game was a no-show against Stanford but might be a little premature to say they have no running game. Given that they have only played 2 games and one of those was against a very good Stanford team it is really tough to get a read on what to expect from the 2013 version of SJSU. The one thing I noticed in the game against Stanford is they appear to have a fair amount of speed at the skill positions, think it is safe to assume this will be the fastest opponent overall that we have faced this season.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Their #1 RB averaged nearly 6.5 yards per carry against Sacramento State. Their running game was a no-show against Stanford but might be a little premature to say they have no running game. Given that they have only played 2 games and one of those was against a very good Stanford team it is really tough to get a read on what to expect from the 2013 version of SJSU. The one thing I noticed in the game against Stanford is they appear to have a fair amount of speed at the skill positions, think it is safe to assume this will be the fastest opponent overall that we have faced this season.
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Are you kidding?! According to AggieVision, NMSU had WAY more team speed than us. Had to be the fastest. :)
 

Gopher Bandanna Guy said:
On offense, I'm expecting this game to start out similar to our previous games - a continued attempt to run the ball with 8 or even 9 men in the box, with the hopes that it will pay dividends in the late 3rd and into the 4th quarter. The catch here though is that our defense will have their biggest challenge of the year in holding Fales and Co. down on the scoreboard so that we're in a position to take advantage of a worn down SJSU defense. We're gonna need to pressure Fales regularly. Time for 'Shede to make some more NFL draft highlight footage.
Click to expand...

I agree for the most part, although I think we'll see for the first time some deviations from the tendencies they've shown up to this point from certain formations. If Mitch actually starts, SJSU may not stack things between the tackles as much as other opponents have for the simple fact that Mitch tends to keep the ball so much more than Nelson, at least early in the game. That could open things up more than we've seen early in the game. If Nelson starts, I fully expect to continue seeing 8 or 9 in the box on defense.

This will be an interesting game, especially early on. I suspect the staff would STILL like to try to run the same vanilla, same-tendency type stuff they've run so far, keeping things tight until the B1G slate but if they get behind and start getting nervous, I would expect to see a number of plays on offense that we haven't seen this year. They'll feel out SJSU early and determine JUST how much they'll have to open things up to win the game.

I would not be surprised at all to see SJSU leading at half, but hopefully not leading the time-of-possession battle. Regardless of halftime score, if the Gophers can have the ball 17-19 minutes or more of the first half, I like how things will be set up for the second half.
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
I agree for the most part, although I think we'll see for the first time some deviations from the tendencies they've shown up to this point from certain formations. If Mitch actually starts, SJSU may not stack things between the tackles as much as other opponents have for the simple fact that Mitch tends to keep the ball so much more than Nelson, at least early in the game. That could open things up more than we've seen early in the game. If Nelson starts, I fully expect to continue seeing 8 or 9 in the box on defense.

This will be an interesting game, especially early on. I suspect the staff would STILL like to try to run the same vanilla, same-tendency type stuff they've run so far, keeping things tight until the B1G slate but if they get behind and start getting nervous, I would expect to see a number of plays on offense that we haven't seen this year. They'll feel out SJSU early and determine JUST how much they'll have to open things up to win the game.

I would not be surprised at all to see SJSU leading at half, but hopefully not leading the time-of-possession battle. Regardless of halftime score, if the Gophers can have the ball 17-19 minutes or more of the first half, I like how things will be set up for the second half.
Click to expand...

I've started to have the same feeling, Mr. Oglethorpe. It may only be a matter of time before that playbook has to start to crack open a bit more in this game. Hopefully, any offensive deficiencies we have during the game can be made up with our special teams units again, in the form of good returns and punting SJSU into Gopher-favorable field postion.
 

Coach Kill said Nelson is 75% to 80% and limping around right now. Sounds like Mitch is going to get the start on Saturday and that Strevlar is going to get some back up reps this week. Hopefully Nelson heals up quickly as we are likely going to need both Nelson and Leidner as the season wears on. Good news to from todays press conference in it sounds like both Berkely Edwards and Donnell Kirkwood are going to be back this week in the running back corps so we will have more backs to work with on Saturday. Gophers need to do a better job of sustaining offensive drives on Saturday and less 3 and out's we need more time of possesion and more sustained drives from the offense this Saturday. I really like how the offensive line play steadily progressed when Lauer got in there,
Ben Lauer is a player that was not a highly heralded recruit someone we could have lost to NDSU in the Brewster days but Kill snatched him up with a late scholarship offer. Lauer is a going to be a good one when it is all said and done.
 

How does everyone think the carries will get broken out? I really like what we have been seeing from Cobb and Williams (especially the explosiveness of Cobb). As much as I like Kirkwood's personality and approach, I think his game is very similar to Williams, but he might not have busted that 35 yard td run off in the second half against W. Illinois.
 

nokomismod said:
How does everyone think the carries will get broken out? I really like what we have been seeing from Cobb and Williams (especially the explosiveness of Cobb). As much as I like Kirkwood's personality and approach, I think his game is very similar to Williams, but he might probably would not have busted that 35 yard td run off in the second half against W. Illinois.
Click to expand...

Not sure Williams or Cobb has shown enough to remove a healthy Kirkwood from the starter role. That being said it would not surprise me to see them be cautious with Kirkwood this weekend if they don't feel he is back close to 100%. As for Edwards I would think if the main 3 are healthy they would be hesitant to use him unless they truly feel he would be too much of a potential difference maker right now to leave on the bench.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Their #1 RB averaged nearly 6.5 yards per carry against Sacramento State. Their running game was a no-show against Stanford but might be a little premature to say they have no running game. Given that they have only played 2 games and one of those was against a very good Stanford team it is really tough to get a read on what to expect from the 2013 version of SJSU. The one thing I noticed in the game against Stanford is they appear to have a fair amount of speed at the skill positions, think it is safe to assume this will be the fastest opponent overall that we have faced this season.
Click to expand...

Maybe so. He got 55 on one run. 9 of his 21 carries against Sac St. he got 1 or 2 yards. Maybe that's a typical day running the ball.

He's gotten 104 yards on his longest 8 carries, including the 55. He's got 74 yards on his other 24 carries. Again, maybe that's a typical day running the ball.

Just doesn't seem like much to me.
 

strictly a pocket passer? uh oh they better double team shede' this is his dream QB.. they won't see a Defensive Lineman like him all year.. including Stanford
 

Football Gameplan's breakdown of San Jose St. vs Minnesota.
 

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