Croft Question

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Sparlimb said:
We all wanted to see him at the time, but it was a mistake. However, if we are able to get quality depth at the position (still a big question mark) then it won't matter.
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*ahem*

I did not
 

John Galt said:
Quit stressing out over the Demry Croft burnt red-shirt. For all you know Poljan comes in and beat him out and Croft never starts a game...:banghead:
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GopherWeatherGuy said:
I agree with both of these. Plus coaches like to stagger their best QBs by two years. Preferably that would include redshirting, but it now applies to this case. Once Leidner graduates, Croft will be in line to start as a Junior, with Polijan the backup as a RS FR.
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Agree completely. Sure is a lot of concern some people seem to have right NOW over who might be the starting QB in 2019. Good grief. It was absolutely the right decision at the time, given all the information available. One more thing; if he's needed to come in and be productive AT ALL in the next 2 weeks, with the possibility of still being bowl eligible on the line, it was WITHOUT QUESTION the right thing to do.

The style of offense and existing condition/health of the Offensive Line translates into one sure thing; Mitch takes a pretty damn good beating every week. They HAD to have a QB that could step in if need be.

Still holding out hope for being bowl eligible. Win two games. Period. An extra month of practice, some more TV exposure, it would all be major for things moving forward.
 

The reason I started this thread wasn't because I was stressing about the red shirt.
I was just trying to figure out the reason on why they did it. Before the season, all we heard was about he ( Croft ) needed to stronger & develop.
It just seemed weird to me that they burn the red shirt, when they had 2 other QB's they could have put in for that series.
IMO, I would think it would be more valuable to get work in the NC schedule for next year.
I was curious on what the thought of others are.
 


swgopherdog said:
How do we know that?
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Got invited to the OD bowl and did extremely well (12-15, 210 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs), could have gone to Penn State, made greater strides between Jr and Sr year than Poljan, was the highest ranked 3 star QB in the country on Scout (you can take that fwiw). I know it's hard to prove it at this point but I at least think he is slightly better.

I do like Poljan though.
 


Iceland12 said:
True. However, the Coaching Staff belated admitted that Mitch was hurt for a number of games early in the year. They needed to have someone play QB if he couldn't. Streveler at least in games, couldn't throw. He was so bad that when he came in on the Wildcat, nobody on the Defense or in the stadium worried about him even trying to throw the ball. Probably up until the Nebraska game maybe even the Michigan game, they were concerned that Leidner wouldn't be able to hang in there much longer.

There was still about half the season to go, they had 4 wins and they had no back-up QB that they trusted to play, if they had to play him.

They then choose Croft.

Mitch has gotten healthy. He's played very well since that Nebraska game. Only would say that it's pointed out the major failure of this staff.

Even if Mitch had stayed healthy, 5 years in and they had nobody on the bench that was capable of replacing a beaten-up QB for even half a game. Heck, maybe this season was a blessing in disguise. No decent High School QB would want to go to a school where the vast majority of time all he was able to do was turnaround and hand the ball off.

This year we've heard from some recruits that they've been told that the Gophers were indeed gonna "open things up". Some people that are now begrudgingly praising Leidner, were then screaming "No! Never! We only need to run the ball to win!" This year, with a guy at QB who has been more often than not, awful in his College Career, those High School kids have watched him direct an Offense that, "threw" the air at least, shredded 3 of the best Defenses in the country.

The Gophers better not want for a back-up QB again. Maybe even one who can not only throw the ball, but be able to take off an run when those Linebackers get out of the damn box and have to drop back into coverage.

That would open up all kinds of things wouldn't it. :cool:
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Croft IMHO will transfer because of the blunder this staff made and if he did, I wouldn't blame him.
 

MNGopher3409 said:
Croft IMHO will transfer because of the blunder this staff made and if he did, I wouldn't blame him.
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This is another factor. Once you redshirt a player you have him for the next four years. No one wants to burn a year of eligibility. Not a huge factor but something to think about.

Having Shortell and Nelson (minus the headkicking incident) would have made for much better QB depth. the Gophers have to build enough depth that using a true freshman QB is not even an option.

As for Croft this year, they probably felt they had to. Too bad Perra is apparently nowhere near as good as his Gopherhole boosters thought last off-season.
 

20/20 hindsight. Nothing is guaranteed. What happened happened.
 

metrolax said:
20/20 hindsight. Nothing is guaranteed. What happened happened.
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Burn a QB's red shirt for 4 plays?? "What happened happened". Really!! How would you rate a staff that did that? QB's are money if you haven't figured that out yet.
 





MaxyJR1 said:
I wonder if Croft playing was a Kill thing, like Nelson was? Wonder if Claeys will have a different perspective going forward on red-shirting. They still traveled 4 QB's to Iowa on Saturday. (Leidner, Croft, Perra, Rhoda)

At the end of the day, you play to win the game and your best players. They (or Kill) thought Croft was the answer there at #2 QB. It will be wide open for #2 going into next year. We just all need to hope we can get #2 on the field in the first four games next year.

I believe that you don't red-shirt someone that you think will play significantly or start in year #2. Get them some game experience. You red-shirt guys that you want to develop and contribute in years 3-5. Just an opinion.
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I think you are right Maxy. Kill wanted the team to "arrive" ahead of schedule so he pulled quite a few redshirts. It was his team and he's a good coach, so I defer to him, but there is a difference between winning in the short term and building a program for the long term and I wonder if pulling the redshirts hasn't compromised the future a bit. Again, one can't really argue with the results and Kill believed getting to bowl game as soon as possible was a bigger help than long-term depth. It probably isn't that big a deal.
 

Time to start listing him on the injury report. Should have weeks ago.
 



MNGopher3409 said:
Burn a QB's red shirt for 4 plays?? "What happened happened". Really!! How would you rate a staff that did that? QB's are money if you haven't figured that out yet.
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Not that it changes your argument a whole lot, but he has played more than 4 plays. It's been about 30.
 

I wonder if when Kill made comments about his medications that he said were not allowing him to think straight had any effect on his decisions with Croft and possibly a couple other players. Maybe a stretch and I would like to think that his staff had input on those decisions, but might explain some of his decisions.
 

HoustonTXGopher said:
I wonder if when Kill made comments about his medications that he said were not allowing him to think straight had any effect on his decisions with Croft and possibly a couple other players. Maybe a stretch and I would like to think that his staff had input on those decisions, but might explain some of his decisions.
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Nice post, Jim.
 

MNGopher3409 said:
Burn a QB's red shirt for 4 plays?? "What happened happened". Really!! How would you rate a staff that did that? QB's are money if you haven't figured that out yet.
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As it has been pointed out he has played well more than 4 plays, has 17 pass attempts to go along with whatever running plays he has been in on. At the time it made sense to play him because it was looking very likely that we were going to need a backup QB and clearly the coaches feel he is the best option of what they have. Based on some of the shots he has taken it is amazing that Mitch is still upright at this point so in hind sight it maybe would have been nice to play one of the other guys and save the redshirt. But at the time it made sense to put him in there since he was the backup.

Hopefully game situations (see comfortable lead) will allow us to get him some time over the next 2 or 3 games.
 

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