Cole Kramer

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MNVCGUY said:
Because with Morgan in there the defense still has to respect the pass, with Kramer they can focus much more on the run.

That said, if a team can't stop your running game (and Maryland couldn't) we probably could have tossed Kramer in there a little more to add anther rushing option to the mix just for fun.
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we run many heavy formations and the box is usually loaded, defenses do not respect morgan as a passer. With Kramer defenses have to worry about the Q run and pulling the ball on our zone plays.
 

Face The Facts said:
Football expert, Meatsauce, during the Vikings pregame called him "Campbell".

He likes "Campbell and passing from the Wild Cat".

But in real life, Meatsauce is not that stupid they tell us.
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Didn't he also say that Minnesota' best chance came from running Potts a lot?
 

Other than when Annexstad and Morgan were freshman, and both started some games, I can rarely remember PJ retiring a QB late in a game and putting in a second stringer for some experience. The next step would be to let Kramer pass a few times, so we can see that side of his game.
 

HoustonTXGopher said:
Annexstad throws the ball with such ease, his delivery is so much better than Morgan and far better than Kramer. That being said, there's a lot more to playing QB than just, who has the prettiest, most effortless motion. Hopefully Morgan never gets hurt, but if he does, I would hope the offense doesn't change much and Annexstad steps into Morgan's role.
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We all know that tight spirals is the key to a QBs success!
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Other than when Annexstad and Morgan were freshman, and both started some games, I can rarely remember PJ retiring a QB late in a game and putting in a second stringer for some experience. The next step would be to let Kramer pass a few times, so we can see that side of his game.
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Even in '18 Morgan only had a couple garbage time series against NMSU and Miami. Not much different than last year with Clark for one game and this year Annexstad getting one game. Though I do concede the biggest difference is that Morgan attempted 6 passes in '18 vs 1 pass by our backups the last two years.
 





We are forgetting that Morgan got the call when Annexstad went down. ZA was the starter. ZA was out due to injuries. He regains his starting spot in 2019 only to get reinjured. TM was doing great. PJ decided to keep TM at the center. If it was working, he wasn't about to ruin the team chemistry.

Give credit to ZA for being such a team player and a leader himself. We are fortunate to have two great QBs who are very capable and are true leaders. That speaks volumes about RTB Culture.

Should TM go down, without hesitation ZA will take the reins at the center.
 



Fleck was asked today who plays if Morgan can't. via 247.com

How would you evaluate Cole Kramer so far?​


Fleck: "First of all, I appreciate Cole. I think he's a really good football player and he's very selfless. He wants to do whatever he can to help the team get better and he understands his role, accepts his role, and wants to improve inside of his role. Yesterday, he's working with RB coach Burns at practice last night, doing a ton of running back drills, and going through the shoots and understanding pad level and understanding schemes, You're truly coaching him as a quarterback and then you're also coaching to be a tailback and to run like a tailback.
So there's two different skill sets there and two different coaching points of those things, and he knows all that but truly running through it is different. Of getting the feel of the actual run, which that always worries even with the young tailbacks is the feel of the run and the feel of the play. There's a lot of things that go into that so, but I think he's doing a really good job.
Does he have to improve? Yes.
Does he have to be able to lower his pad level? Yes.
Does he have to run within the scheme a little bit more? Yep.
But that those are things that you just improve with every player, every single week. That consistency just has to continue to get there but I think he's played really hard."


Would Cole be the guy if Tanner was sick or something?

Fleck: "We have plans of who would go in and it depends on what kind of game is it and what's happening. What's the flow? He's always going to be an option for us as well as Zack Annexstad. We have options, which is a good thing."
 

BigGopher69 said:
If we're gonna throw the ball 12 times why not play Kramer
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Part of the reason we only had to throw 12 times is because the defense had to respect our passing game. They couldn't respect it much because they couldn't stop the run. But we didn't have to threaten it much, because they couldn't stop the run.

We had a huge lead, we had two FR running backs going, and we threw enough early on to keep the honest.

Why not play Kramer? He did play, quite a bit. Why not start Kramer? Because our game plan just dominated Maryland and beat Nebraska soundly. Making teams, at least, feign concern over the passing game helps the running game.
 

hungan1 said:
We are forgetting that Morgan got the call when Annexstad went down. ZA was the starter. ZA was out due to injuries. He regains his starting spot in 2019 only to get reinjured. TM was doing great. PJ decided to keep TM at the center. If it was working, he wasn't about to ruin the team chemistry.

Give credit to ZA for being such a team player and a leader himself. We are fortunate to have two great QBs who are very capable and are true leaders. That speaks volumes about RTB Culture.

Should TM go down, without hesitation ZA will take the reins at the center.
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I agree with your post, but ZA regained his spot? I think it was an alleged camp battle, but I don't think ZA had a very good chance of beating out Morgan in 2019. I might be misremembering though.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I agree with your post, but ZA regained his spot? I think it was an alleged camp battle, but I don't think ZA had a very good chance of beating out Morgan in 2019. I might be misremembering though.
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I hadn't heard that before either. Today in his presser Fleck said that who would come in to the game Annexstad/Kramer would be dependent on the situation at hand. He did not mention Clark at all. Additionally he mentioned that Kramer was working with Coach Burns on his running techniques.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
I agree with your post, but ZA regained his spot? I think it was an alleged camp battle, but I don't think ZA had a very good chance of beating out Morgan in 2019. I might be misremembering though.
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Zack played seven games in 2018 before injuries sidelined him the rest of the season. He then was poised to be the starter, but again he suffered another season-ending injury in practice. Speaking of tough break, and an opportunity for the next man up. We saw this scenario with Donnell Kirkwood's injury giving David Cobb an opportunity.

Tanner Morgan is an RS Senior. ZA is an RS Junior.

gophersports.com

Zack Annexstad Out Indefinitely With Injury - University of Minnesota Athletics

Sophomore quarterback Zack Annexstad suffered a foot injury in practice on Aug. 2 and will be out indefinitely.
gophersports.com gophersports.com
 

hungan1 said:
Zack played seven games in 2018 before injuries sidelined him the rest of the season. He then was poised to be the starter, but again he suffered another season-ending injury in practice. Speaking of tough break, and an opportunity for the next man up. We saw this scenario with Donnell Kirkwood's injury giving David Cobb an opportunity.

Tanner Morgan is an RS Senior. ZA is an RS Junior.

gophersports.com

Zack Annexstad Out Indefinitely With Injury - University of Minnesota Athletics

Sophomore quarterback Zack Annexstad suffered a foot injury in practice on Aug. 2 and will be out indefinitely.
gophersports.com gophersports.com
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Per the linked article, "Injuries are an unfortunate part of the game, and we feel terrible for Zack," Fleck said. "He worked extremely hard in the spring and summer to put himself in position to compete for the starting job . . .". Speaking as someone who would love to see a healthy Zack quarterback our team I don't see anything that says he was poised, merely competing.
 

noamfromm said:
Per the linked article, "Injuries are an unfortunate part of the game, and we feel terrible for Zack," Fleck said. "He worked extremely hard in the spring and summer to put himself in position to compete for the starting job . . .". Speaking as someone who would love to see a healthy Zack quarterback our team I don't see anything that says he was poised, merely competing.
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noamfromm said:
Per the linked article, "Injuries are an unfortunate part of the game, and we feel terrible for Zack," Fleck said. "He worked extremely hard in the spring and summer to put himself in position to compete for the starting job . . .". Speaking as someone who would love to see a healthy Zack quarterback our team I don't see anything that says he was poised, merely competing.
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You are so right:

Good friends, fierce competitors: Morgan, Annexstad each wants to be Gophers’ starting QB
 


noamfromm said:
Thank you for the acknowledgement, though I don't follow what the article you linked to has to do with ZA5 having regained the starting job or being poised to be the starter that fall camp.
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We will never know who would have won out because Zack was injured. It is Tanner Morgan's team now. We have a very capable backup in ZA, a total team guy. The Gophers are lucky to have a good spare at the center in ZA. Kramer is the second spare.
 


hungan1 said:
We will never know who would have won out because Zack was injured. It is Tanner Morgan's team now. We have a very capable backup in ZA, a total team guy. The Gophers are lucky to have a good spare at the center in ZA. Kramer is the second spare.
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Agreed!
 

hungan1 said:
We will never know who would have won out because Zack was injured. It is Tanner Morgan's team now. We have a very capable backup in ZA, a total team guy. The Gophers are lucky to have a good spare at the center in ZA. Kramer is the second spare.
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The type of unselfishness and leadership that the backups exemplify is RTB Culture.
 



My guess is that if TM is out and we need to rely on our passing game to get back in a game or maintain our lead, ZA is the guy. If we are cruising with our ground game with minimal passing needed, CK is likely it. CK offers the running dynamic to the offense but is a big step back in the passing game.
 

46Gophers said:
My guess is that if TM is out and we need to rely on our passing game to get back in a game or maintain our lead, ZA is the guy. If we are cruising with our ground game with minimal passing needed, CK is likely it. CK offers the running dynamic to the offense but is a big step back in the passing game.
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We don't know that.
 

hungan1 said:
Zack played seven games in 2018 before injuries sidelined him the rest of the season. He then was poised to be the starter, but again he suffered another season-ending injury in practice. Speaking of tough break, and an opportunity for the next man up. We saw this scenario with Donnell Kirkwood's injury giving David Cobb an opportunity.

Tanner Morgan is an RS Senior. ZA is an RS Junior.

gophersports.com

Zack Annexstad Out Indefinitely With Injury - University of Minnesota Athletics

Sophomore quarterback Zack Annexstad suffered a foot injury in practice on Aug. 2 and will be out indefinitely.
gophersports.com gophersports.com
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Yeah, I just never thought ZA was going to win the job in 2019. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying I hadn't heard that.
 


Dakota2 said:
We don't know that.
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Zack wasn't that much worse than Morgan passing the ball from our sample in '18. We do know that they've only let Cole throw the ball once. I get you're super high on Kramer but we've got him working with the running backs coach to improve the area of the game he's a value add for us. Fleck confirmed you were right that who'd come in the game for Morgan would depend on the situation which means that Kramer has to be a step back from Zack passing because he's a statute that doesn't add anything other than his arm.
 
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noamfromm said:
Zack wasn't that much worse than Morgan passing the ball from our sample in '18. We do know that they've only let Cole throw the ball once. I get you're super high on Kramer but we've got him working with the running backs coach to improve the area of the game he's a value add for us. Fleck confirmed you were right that who'd come in the game for Morgan would depend on the situation which means that Kramer has to be a step back from Zack passing because he's a statute that doesn't add anything other than his arm.
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No doubt Cole's highest value right now is the role he is playing which primarily features him running the ball. But also feel he is good enough all around for them to want to continue to expand the options and variations when he is in.

Coach seems to confirm that, as you noted, by saying who might take over depends on game situation.
 

Just adding on the Zack steam. In 2019 before he got hurt, "whispers" were that ZA was winning the job. He was healthy and he's got a better arm than Tanner. But it was by no means an easy decision and the coaches avoided having to have that difficult conversation.

Zack I think was thought of to be more mobile than Tanner. (although Tanner's improved there). I don't think anything written stated that Zack was winning the job but if he were healthy and there was money to be put down on it, I know where I would have placed mine. I think this is also why Tanner likely won't be back after this season. There are too many other QB's who should have higher ceilings than Tanner who need to get playing time after this year. (Although having Tanner back another year would hardly be a horrible thing).

Others who have watched practices have referred to Zack's arm as a howitzer, so any discussion about Kramer having a better arm I think is likely flat out wrong. I haven't seen the practices, but in my head, the best arms on the team just for velocity and strength are probably ZA and AK.
 

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