Connor Mayes

[short ornery norwegian]

I will just say this: for a passing game to work, ALL facets of the offense have to work in concert with each other: the line has to protect - the receivers have to run good routes - and the QB has to deliver the pass at the right time to the right location. Also, before blaming the OL for everything, remember - a pass play can go awry if the receiver runs the wrong break - if the QB doesn't read his progressions properly, or simply holds the ball too long.

Would a stronger offensive line help the passing game? Yes, to the extent that the QB would have more time to go through his progressions. But, the best OL in the world will not, in and of themselves, make the QB any more accurate, or make the WR's run better routes.

 

[Indi1006]

Let's look at practice v game. In practice, Nelson hits most of his receivers when no opposition line is present. Reason: everybody is in the correct position. In game experience, less than 50% of passes are successful. Why? The offensive line was not able to defeat the defensive line. Now, I am greatly simplifying this to show that the QB is not responsible for most of the depreciated play of the game. Most is due to other factors. The job of the offensive line and receivers is to defeat those factors. When a known number of plays the receivers are in open positions, we know that missed balls are mostly the fault of the OL not defeating their men. So, we can deduce that a certain number of plays called X are only the responsibility of the OL not defeating and taking it in the chin. That X factor is what has concerned this board for years, including this year. Giving the line a good grade is like giving everybody a trophy for suiting up.

I don't have individual stats in front of me for assignment success in passing plays, but I would bet they were less than stellar compared to better years in the passing department. This years rank in passing in the NCAA was so bad it ranked in the hundred plus rank.

I hope Connor is absolutely stellar at it. But, because we have so few recruits along the line, and because the line takes so long to train, I don't think he, with one other recruit on the line, is going to make a significant difference. We need Ragnow or a Ragnow quality recruit to make long term improvement a remote possibility.

This is good stuff; crazy points of view and a bit harsh but good discussion topics. I thought we may improve as an OL when Olson and Bush stepped in, but that was crazy on my part. We missed Christensen and Bak's play and/or experience and that hurt our overall OL performance. I don't think Campion is a particularly good OT at all and we know that there was a lot of turnover at our other OT spot. The OL certainly can get better, but we have a lot of horses coming up that are going to make it just fine and in my perfect world Pirsig comes in at one tackle and Leuer at the other and they book-end it for the next three years; plus each kid who played a lot this year and last are going to be better next year. Campion can provide depth at tackle and we have tons of depth at the center and guard positions going forward.

Our receivers were young and some of the older guys weren't particularly good and there were games where they didn't get open much. I would say this was true at around the time of Iowa and Michigan. It improved over the course of the year and we had receivers running open.

What didn't improve was the QB play. It actually got worse. We had misses that were epic and they repeated themselves over and over. Nobody was bearing down on Nelson when he missed Williams on the route down the middle where he was wiiide open that could have won a game for us and Nelson air mailed it 15 feet over his head. That was just one example of many, many throws that are inexplicable for a B1G level QB. Our protection and our receivers need to get better, but we have some serious accuracy issues that don't have a thing to do with either. I was a Nelson bobo for a long time, but I couldn't really deal with it any longer particularly after the bowl game. He's got a lot to prove over the spring and through the non-conference part of next year's schedule or I'll take Leidner, fumbling, etc. warts and all. We left hundreds and hundreds of passing yards on the field because of really bad throws and for us to take the next step it has to stop.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

This is all academic since the only column that matters is the win-lose column. Wins are wins regardless of whether they are statistically pleasant to look at. You are too flipping far down in the weeds here, from my perspective. Its a long wait until Sept 2014; try to not wear yourself out.

This.

Different teams (last years Gophers vs this years), different schedules, different game plans. The staff puts together game plans to win games, not rack up statistics. This year, largely the game plans were to shorten the games, reduce risk at the QB position, reduce turnovers, reduce penalties, win more games. Done, done, done, done, and done.

The offensive line still didn't have a Senior that played a majority of the snaps at his position so I think the O-Line had a pretty solid year; they controlled the clock, ran the ball successfully when they needed to, put up a 1,000 yard rusher, and most importantly, paved the way to winning 8 games and going .500 in the conference.

 

[Johnob2]

Just seen this tweet



And having a bit of a panic. If there is any truth to this I'm guessing we lose both Alex and Connor as they seem to be a package; both seem like great kids and firmly committed to the Gophers so hoping it is a false alarm. Anyone got any info?

Sorry, if image poor, it is a tweet from @Mn_sports8 suggesting Alex Mayes is transferring to TCU.

 

[MadtownGopher]

Just seen this tweet

View attachment 2480

And having a bit of a panic. If there is any truth to this I'm guessing we lose both Alex and Connor as they seem to be a package; both seem like great kids and firmly committed to the Gophers so hoping it is a false alarm. Anyone got any info?

Sorry, if image poor, it is a tweet from @Mn_sports8 suggesting Alex Mayes is transferring to TCU.

Seems baseless. Why would Connor paint the U of M on his shoes at the all-american game if there was any chance his brother (and family) were not happy with Minnesota.

 

[Johnob2]

Seems baseless. Why would Connor paint the U of M on his shoes at the all-american game if there was any chance his brother (and family) were not happy with Minnesota.

That is what I am hoping, thanks for reassurance, I get a little paranoid in the lead up to National Signing Day!

 

[Word]

Just seen this tweet

View attachment 2480

And having a bit of a panic. If there is any truth to this I'm guessing we lose both Alex and Connor as they seem to be a package; both seem like great kids and firmly committed to the Gophers so hoping it is a false alarm. Anyone got any info?

Sorry, if image poor, it is a tweet from @Mn_sports8 suggesting Alex Mayes is transferring to TCU.

Why does the tweet say the date is sept. 1, 2014????

 

[Johnob2]

Why does the tweet say the date is sept. 1, 2014????

LOL - It is because I am in England, my IPad puts the date the British way around - it is 9th January.

 

[Grant]

The rumor is that Alex is transferring back home to TCU and Connor will decomitt from the Gophers to join the Horned Frogs as well. Hopefully it is bogus and just standard Gopher panic.

 

[MadtownGopher]

The rumor is that Alex is transferring back home to TCU and Connor will decomitt from the Gophers to join the Horned Frogs as well. Hopefully it is bogus and just standard Gopher panic.

So where did you hear this rumor? That random person's tweet?

Not to mention this rumor doesn't really make sense since TCU didn't even offer Alex when he was in high school.

 

[Gophfan22]

As stated at GI, there's absolutely no truth to the rumor. Both the Mayes brothers love it here

 

[MinneStoa]

Alex Mayes is fairly active on reddit.com/r/CFB, where he has said nothing but great things about the Gophers, Kill, and the program; as recently as like 10 days ago. If he's considering transferring, it'd be a shock to me.

 

[Deleted_User]

I can't ban you, but can block you. Done.

BTW - when you discover that everyone else in a room disagrees with you it is polite to just stop. Likely you are wrong, but even if you aren't it makes you look silly to continue spewing. I dropped my DCT posts months ago for the same reason. Let it go.

Thanks for the block. Now if only the line can do the same.

 

[Deleted_User]

It only took a peeing contest to set that line up.

 

[bemidjigopher]

This is a bald faced lie. I cherry picked nothing. Instead of refuting the stats, you picked to attack the messenger. Nice try. Big fail on your part. Instead of waiting for my retort, why didn't you just give the litany of reasons why I was wrong. Let's be academic about this and put it into the form of a hypothesis. Is this line empirically better Brewsters first year line? I'll sit back and read. If my hypothesis is wrong, it should become self evident. Fire away big guy.

This year's team won 8 games, year one of brewball won one and his best team won 7, what's your point. You don't go from the bottom to the top in one day, takes time

 

[Halsey Hall]

I think the proper English is..."I done just seen this tweet"

Just seen this tweet

View attachment 2480

And having a bit of a panic. If there is any truth to this I'm guessing we lose both Alex and Connor as they seem to be a package; both seem like great kids and firmly committed to the Gophers so hoping it is a false alarm. Anyone got any info?

Sorry, if image poor, it is a tweet from @Mn_sports8 suggesting Alex Mayes is transferring to TCU.

 

[Johnob2]

I think the proper English is..."I done just seen this tweet"

Misusing the past tense is a common colloquialism in my local area, my wife's family are funnier though as the tendency in Cardiff is to mix up first, second and third person. When our kids were little and needed a nappy (diaper?) change they used to say, "Oh! Shat myself have you?"

Back on topic. Glad the rumours about the Mayes boys seem misplaced. Connor is the recruit I most want this year because I think he will really help us develop our identity as a grind it out/time of possession football team.

Nate Andrews was the player I wanted most last year and I was gutted when he flipped to FSU after being seemingly solid on the Gophers - probably why I am a bit 'jumpy' about recruiting. Glad it worked out pretty much all around though - our secondary depth was the most pleasant surprise for me this past season and I'm also happy for Nate in getting to be a national champion. Eroding the perception of SEC invincibility has to help the chances of other conferences in snagging some of the best talent. Linking this back to Connor, I can't emphasise enough how much I feel it speaks for the integrity and skill of our coaches that an All American from Texas sees Minnesota as his preferred destination.

Go Gophers!

 

[Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0]

Misusing the past tense is a common colloquialism in my local area, my wife's family are funnier though as the tendency in Cardiff is to mix up first, second and third person. When our kids were little and needed a nappy (diaper?) change they used to say, "Oh! Shat myself have you?"

Back on topic. Glad the rumours about the Mayes boys seem misplaced. Connor is the recruit I most want this year because I think he will really help us develop our identity as a grind it out/time of possession football team.

Nate Andrews was the player I wanted most last year and I was gutted when he flipped to FSU after being seemingly solid on the Gophers - probably why I am a bit 'jumpy' about recruiting. Glad it worked out pretty much all around though - our secondary depth was the most pleasant surprise for me this past season and I'm also happy for Nate in getting to be a national champion. Eroding the perception of SEC invincibility has to help the chances of other conferences in snagging some of the best talent. Linking this back to Connor, I can't emphasise enough how much I feel it speaks for the integrity and skill of our coaches that an All American from Texas sees Minnesota as his preferred destination.

Go Gophers!

These two words remove any doubt that you are in jolly ole' England.

I agree Connor is an essential brick in this programs development. If the QB play improves and can plug in some key departures, we'll be in the thick of the conference championship talk next year.