Brian Ferentz contract restructured. Iowa aiming high.

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RememberMurray said:
Sometimes the opponents' defense plays really well.
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RememberMurray said:
To me, some people fail to see how FleckBall has contributed to the team's general success. The FleckBall offense controls the clock, doesn't turn the ball over, wears down the opponents' defense physically and gives the Gopher defense a chance to rest and make in-game adjustments.
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It's just the darnedest thing .... that every time Fleck has played Iowa, "FleckBall" has failed deliver on this ideology, and our opponent's defense has just happened to play very well.

The darnedest thing ...
 

The final B1G West season will be really interesting especially when discussing offensive philosophy..

Iowa is standing pat with Brian Ferentz and banking on (basically) their same Fry/Ferentz formula.

Wisconsin under Fickell appears to moving toward a more "modern" approach.

Nebraska under Rhule is returning to their roots to play smash-mouth.

Minnesota will have a new QB with a new skillset.
 

Gophers_4life said:
It's just the darnedest thing .... that every time Fleck has played Iowa, "FleckBall" has failed deliver on this ideology, and our opponent's defense has just happened to play very well.

The darnedest thing ...
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Good point!

Watching film of Iowa's defense last season, the obvious way to beat them was to reduce the number of handoffs to Mo Ibrahim and instead have your rookie QB throw at the opportunistic Iowa defense.
 

The one drive we scored a TD against Iowa, was the drive they actually let AK throw the ball.

Take the reigns off. Let the young man play, yes, "modern" football.

And indeed, they did just that for Wisconsin, which is why we won the game.
 

Gophers_4life said:
The one drive we scored a TD against Iowa, was the drive they actually let AK throw the ball.

Take the reigns off. Let the young man play, yes, "modern" football.

And indeed, they did just that for Wisconsin, which is why we won the game.
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Let's see what the offense looks like in 2023 without Mo and with a new QB.
 




RememberMurray said:
I think you and I will have to agree to disagree on offensive football philosophy.
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Take a look at the lines below. They're Mo's rushing stats.

OpponentAttYdsAvgTD
New Mexico State211326.32
Western Illinois231305.72
Colorado232028.83
@Michigan State221034.71
@Illinois151278.51
@Penn State301023.41
Rutgers361594.43
@Nebraska321284.02
Northwestern361784.93
Iowa392636.71
@Wisconsin27702.60
NSyracuse*16714.41


Do you notice that one of the lines doesn't look like the others?


There's nothing for you to disagree with. You've lost the battle.

You can either get onboard, or be an old man shaking your fist at a cloud.
 

Gophers_4life said:
The one drive we scored a TD against Iowa, was the drive they actually let AK throw the ball.

Take the reigns off. Let the young man play, yes, "modern" football.

And indeed, they did just that for Wisconsin, which is why we won the game.
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It's just so dang easy....why can't the coaches figure it out....so simple.....nothing to it....just play modern football, will work everytime and we will never ever lose again..... :)
 



Gophers_4life said:
Take a look at the lines below. They're Mo's rushing stats.

OpponentAttYdsAvgTD
New Mexico State211326.32
Western Illinois231305.72
Colorado232028.83
@Michigan State221034.71
@Illinois151278.51
@Penn State301023.41
Rutgers361594.43
@Nebraska321284.02
Northwestern361784.93
Iowa392636.71
@Wisconsin27702.60
NSyracuse*16714.41


Do you notice that one of the lines doesn't look like the others?


There's nothing for you to disagree with. You've lost the battle.

You can either get onboard, or be an old man shaking your fist at a cloud.
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So is your point that we ran too many times in the game Mo was dominating? Honestly not sure what point you are trying to make here.

For those that are wondering, those are Mo's stats from the season. Took me a little bit to sort out exactly what I was looking. Doesn't factor in other backs or carries.
 

"Do you notice that one of the lines doesn't look like the others?


There's nothing for you to disagree with. You've lost the battle.

You can either get onboard, or be an old man shaking your fist at a cloud."

-------

In 2018, Minnesota beat Wisconsin by 22 points.

We completed a grand total of 9 of 12 passes in that game. Wisconsin — the losing team — attempted 33 passes and threw 3 INTs

Does that one game prove that throwing the football is dumb?
 
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MNVCGUY said:
So is your point that we ran too many times in the game Mo was dominating? Honestly not sure what point you are trying to make here.

For those that are wondering, those are Mo's stats from the season. Took me a little bit to sort out exactly what I was looking. Doesn't factor in other backs or carries.
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Well I said they're Mo's rushing stats, and it should be easy to tell by the opponents and weeks listed that it's this season.

As is clear from the context of the discussion I was having with Murray, it is quite clear that Mo was a minor part of the offense for the Wisconsin game.
 




Gophers_4life said:
....?? SO?

What does that have to do with 2023, when Mo will be gone and AK will be the new star of the offense??
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You're pointing to the 2022 Iowa and Wisconsin games, and claiming that the outcomes of those two games proves your point.

I pointed to one single game (Wisconsin, 2018) as an example of my point that throwing more often isn't always the answer.
 

Gophers_4life said:
That said, how about the last 40 games? Does that work for ya?

RqT5Y2a.png
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The 83 season doesn't count as far as I'm concerned!
 

To me, the Iowa vs Minnesota history is now all about the Fleck era.

In my mind, there's no question that we should be beating Iowa around half the time under Fleck, going forward. That's my expectation, anyway.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Well I said they're Mo's rushing stats, and it should be easy to tell by the opponents and weeks listed that it's this season.

As is clear from the context of the discussion I was having with Murray, it is quite clear that Mo was a minor part of the offense for the Wisconsin game.
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27 carries is minor? His yardage wasn't as good as usual, probably because Wisconsin sold out to stop the run, but he was still a big part of the offense in that game. Wasn't like we went to an air raid attack that day.

Our passing game was more effective in that game than it had been in most of the rest and that was a good thing because our running game struggled more than usual.
 

Gophers_4life said:
It's just the darnedest thing .... that every time Fleck has played Iowa, "FleckBall" has failed deliver on this ideology, and our opponent's defense has just happened to play very well.

The darnedest thing ...
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We had the Iowa game wrapped up last year as Mo was gashing them all the way down the field towards the end. Then he had one of the most Minnesota fumbles of all time and it turned the game on its head, which resulted in a loss after a late AK turnover. Fleckball and a stingy defense are why we've been so successful the past four years, I'm good with opening up the offense but if we've got a good line and an RB with vision and power/speed, don't stray too far away from it. I'm of the opinion that you don't change a winning formula.
 

Pointing to one or two games as proof that run-first or pass-first is a better offensive philosophy is plain silly. It is too small of a sample size to stand as proof.

We lost the Purdue game and the Iowa game. The Purdue game was impacted in a huge way by a sure TD pass that ended up as a deflected INT. The Iowa game wasn't lost because we didn't "open up the offense"; on the contrary, our offensive game plan was extremely effective that day. We lost because of a very uncharacteristic fumble by Ibrahim and an untimely INT.

Overall, FleckBall has been pretty successful. Check out the record, and compare it to past Minnesota coaches; you can go all the way back to Warmath. We're winning more consistently than we have done in a long, long time.

We do, however, need to beat Iowa pretty soon.

AND... I think the offense will look pretty different with Kaliakmanis at QB and with Mo gone. This 2023 team will have players in those two key positions who have different skill sets from Tanner and Mo. However, I'd be shocked if Fleck gets away drastically from the main tenets of FleckBall. He'll still want to eat the clock and control the ball, I believe.
 
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RememberMurray said:
The final B1G West season will be really interesting especially when discussing offensive philosophy..

Iowa is standing pat with Brian Ferentz and banking on (basically) their same Fry/Ferentz formula.

Wisconsin under Fickell appears to moving toward a more "modern" approach.

Nebraska under Rhule is returning to their roots to play smash-mouth.

Minnesota will have a new QB with a new skillset.
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And a new OC!!
 

MNVCGUY said:
I wouldn't include 2019 in that. 2019 offense was very good. They might not have had their best games in the two loses but the offense was not the problem that year at all.
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The 2019 Iowa game the gophers had over 300 passing and over 400 yards against one of the best defenses in the country and a legit top 15 team.

The problem with 2019 Iowa was the same as 2021 Iowa and 2022 Iowa…the defense didn’t show up in the first quarter.
 

RememberMurray said:
You're pointing to the 2022 Iowa and Wisconsin games, and claiming that the outcomes of those two games proves your point.
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No, I only pointed to the 2022 Wisconsin game, when asked what the 2023 offense will look like.

That's what it will look like. Which is an exciting prospect! :)
 

MNVCGUY said:
27 carries is minor? His yardage wasn't as good as usual, probably because Wisconsin sold out to stop the run, but he was still a big part of the offense in that game. Wasn't like we went to an air raid attack that day.
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You're correct. I wasn't careful enough in what I wrote.

What I should have said is: "it is quite clear that Mo was a minor part of the offensive production for the Wisconsin game".

Clearly he was still a major part of the offense, as you pointed out the number of carries. But he didn't produce anywhere near like he did for every other game that season.

Thankfully, AK and our receivers won the game for us. That excites me! I'm very much looking forward to seeing more of that in 2023! :)
 
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mngg11 said:
We had the Iowa game wrapped up last year as Mo was gashing them all the way down the field towards the end. Then he had one of the most Minnesota fumbles of all time and it turned the game on its head,
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Agree

mngg11 said:
which resulted in a loss after a late AK turnover.
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Corrected version goes like this:

which resulted in a loss after AK was suddenly asked to throw the ball on 3rd & long after not having thrown a pass on the entire drive, he threw to the "wrong" receiver (nice of Fleck to throw his young QB under the bus like that), though the receiver was perfectly capable of making a play on the ball, but then one of the most Minnesota things of all time happens and the ball gets tipped up ..... just perfectly so it lands in the hands of their LB.

Can't make it up.

mngg11 said:
Fleckball and a stingy defense are why we've been so successful the past four years, I'm good with opening up the offense but if we've got a good line and an RB with vision and power/speed, don't stray too far away from it. I'm of the opinion that you don't change a winning formula.
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This sounds fine on paper, but here's what I think is a better formula:

do the thing which the personnel you have on the team is best able to do.


Mo is leaving and we have a QB and receivers that can win the game. I like that formula! :)
 

RememberMurray said:
I think the offense will look pretty different with Kaliakmanis at QB and with Mo gone. This 2023 team will have players in those two key positions who have different skill sets from Tanner and Mo. However, I'd be shocked if Fleck gets away drastically from the main tenets of FleckBall. He'll still want to eat the clock and control the ball, I believe.
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If you had just said this from the beginning, you would've been correct and no need for the arguments at all. :)
 

Gophers_4life said:
This sounds fine on paper, but here's what I think is a better formula:

do the thing which the personnel you have on the team is best able to do.
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I think they did that. The personnel on offense were accustomed to executing a high volume of rushes and that's what we were successful at, at an above average to excellent rate over the course of the season. Kalikmanis had shown no signs of being the next Drew Brees at that point and you don't flip a generally successful formula 11 games into the season in a major rivalry game against a gangbusters defensive backfield on the hope that you can catch them snoozing and steal a win. You do what you do best. We did running the ball best in 2022.

You can reference how great Kaliakmanis did in the Wisconsin game all you want in trying to express that we should've put more on his plate, but the sample size leading up to the Badger game was not exactly impressive. We also torched Iowa on the ground. They ran some gadget plays that caught us off guard in the first half and we had some very Minnesota turnovers and the rest was history. We also missed a field goal that would've fundamentally altered the way the game ended up. Iowa didn't beat us, we beat ourselves. And it wasn't because of the playcalling. The playcalling was enough to get us the win and that's all you can ask for.
 

mngg11 said:
I think they did that. The personnel on offense were accustomed to executing a high volume of rushes and that's what we were successful at, at an above average to excellent rate over the course of the season. Kalikmanis had shown no signs of being the next Drew Brees at that point and you don't flip a generally successful formula 11 games into the season in a major rivalry game against a gangbusters defensive backfield on the hope that you can catch them snoozing and steal a win. You do what you do best. We did running the ball best in 2022.

You can reference how great Kaliakmanis did in the Wisconsin game all you want in trying to express that we should've put more on his plate, but the sample size leading up to the Badger game was not exactly impressive. We also torched Iowa on the ground. They ran some gadget plays that caught us off guard in the first half and we had some very Minnesota turnovers and the rest was history. We also missed a field goal that would've fundamentally altered the way the game ended up. Iowa didn't beat us, we beat ourselves. And it wasn't because of the playcalling. The playcalling was enough to get us the win and that's all you can ask for.
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Well said!
 

mngg11 said:
We did running the ball best in 2022.
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The discussion was about what the offense will look in 2023. I've correctly stated multiple times now that it will look like the Wisconsin game. And that is a good thing.

mngg11 said:
We also torched Iowa on the ground.
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The only drive we scored a TD on was the only drive we threw the ball.

The decision to run the ball as we did, cost us the game. Just that simple.


I look forward to beating Iowa in 2023, by throwing the ball. :)
 

If Brain F has to average 25 pts. for the season, I can guarantee you, Iowa will rack up 70+ against Western Michigan. #2’s won’t see the field in that game.
 

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