hungan1
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I wasn't going to transcribe this. It is way too much. Oh, why not! No Vikings game today.
Narrative started with a whole slew of bad adjectives to describe how poorly the OL played.
Schlueter and Greene got worst as the game progressed.
Game bad in all phases, but particularly Offense and Defense.
This points to an absolute coaching failure. PJ Fleck took responsibility.
Kirk Ciarrocca and Robb Smith got out game planned by their MD counterparts. Ciarrocca was bad. Smith was disgustingly bad.
My personal comment: (I am not going to make excuses for the team and coaching staff, but the death of Nick Connelly had to be burdensome.)
After the Pick Six coming out of the 1st half, it was game over.
Tim Beckman: "The Gophers played pretty well except for five or six plays."
Unfortunately, of the five or six explosive plays three went for TDs.
Overriding expectation this year, is that the Gophers coming out of non-conference with a 2-1 record ought to be pretty good.
Minnesota not a good football team this year.
So at 3-1, they need to find wins to get to 6-6 in the season.
Everyone thought MN would play MD close. Not that badly. MD played extremely well.
This has to be a coaching problem. Execution was miserable. The Offensive Line was horrifically bad all game to the point that MN was getting beat by 3-Man Rushes regularly.
ZA is not 100% Was throwing off back foot, skying certain passes. Deep balls remained challenging.
Encumbent upon the OL to protect a freshman QB who is injured. They weren't doing that. There is no reason that a DL will key in all game.
Negative Thoughts: What specifically about the coaching scheme this week for offense and defense did you find problematic?
No secret that MD likes to run off the edge and use their speed. They really like the Jet Sweep. MN did not have an answer for that.
Admittedly, one of the things that MN have a problem with at MD is the turf which constantly injures Antoine Winfield (was injured twice at MD?), on field adjustments should have happen.
Not saying that Robb Smith's job was easy. Suggesting that miss-tackles were due to players taking bad angles. Seriously alignment problems first hand ahead of time. Which is a film room problem and the way you prepare.
The team was not prepared to be successful this week. They didn't execute either, but definitely not prepared to be successful.
On Offense:
In some sense, the OL right now is not particularly good. So, you are only working with the talent you have. But, come on.
Donnell Greene is not a bad offensive lineman. There are people who believe he has potentially late round NFL aspirations. He got worked all game.
Sam Schlueter currently has no apsirations. Played so badly that they were slotting in TEs to cover for him. And then TEs weren't reading their blocks either.
On two plays, in the second half Annexstad got knocked on the first play and then knocked down on the second play from the exact same guy.
Comment: In defense of MD's turf, it was MN's turf that injured Winfield last year. Admitted he was wrong about that.
Bye Week couldn't have come at a better time for this team.
To get smacked that badly - you take it one of two ways: You have a very young team that admittedly have talent, but raw. A team whose current QB plays injured.
Having a week off to rehab (spoke about Winfield rehab - the season ending diagnosis haven't been done yet).
On offense, Ciarrocca's attempt to attack on bubble screens and jail breaks were not working The WRs' attempts to block MD's defenders was a fast going nowhere situation.
Several series of strange play calls including one where you are down a bunch of points in the first half. You RUTM for a short gain. You run off the edge for nothing. And then you bring in Seth Green 3rd and 11. Things like that.
Ciarrocca has forgotten more about football in the last week than will ever know. Confusing as to why MN's was not attacking MD's defense horizontally in manners other than a jail break screen.
You got quick outs, quick drags, quick curls. There were several times where based on how MD seem to be playing, you have some kind of levels concept, you could have freed up someone in a similar way as you would do the jail break. Get someone in space.
Look at that one pass to Bateman. He got a good gain off it. Those are the things from a preparations standpoint.
When you get your butt kicked 42-13, lots of different things went wrong. Those were immediately obvious. Also, the offensive line remains terrible.
Good news:
Jacob Herbers has clearly gone over the thing he had going on. Knock on wood whatever that it doesn't come back.
If the Gophers were playing well, Herbers will do his job to make sure that the Gophers flipped the field so that the defense could make stops. Even an anemic offense could have better field position. Unfortunately, there were not that many stops. And when there were stops, MD's punter is also good.
MN never really got anything going on offense.
On the other side, Carpenter when called upon continued to be very consistent. Special teams kickers even when everything is going wrong is not going to get overlooked.
Emmit Carpenter and Jacob Herbers are Nektons of the week.
For Race To Maturity - gave it to Chris Autman Bell who had quite a second half finished with 4 receptions for 17 yards. Almost 5 of a 100 (?) unfortunately dropped a ball that ZA threw on down into double coverage that couldn't quite get it. Possible that a MD defender was on his back.
MD was quite physical all game was getting called for holding and pass interference. Nektons of the week also go to officiating crew who totally did a good job calling everything on both sides of the ball.
Good to know officiating was nice to you even in a 42-13 spanking. MD had 10 penalties for 118 yards. FOr extended part of the game, more yardage than MN had thrown through the air.
There were trade offs because there were defensive pass interference penalties.
Positives:
Other than Special Teams.
It is over. They don't have to go back to College Park.
You get to see mistakes on defense. You get to put things on film. You get to adjust. This team still has talent.
Stealing a game at College Park before the Iowa game - not going to happen.
It is difficult to figure out which games remaining on the schedule are stealable. The margin is already slim. And that is a bummer.
Suppose you get some game film out of it, you get to see things that were wrong. The team team has a lot of internal resilience. They are very close.
It is quite possible that they go into a rivalry game and do what MD did versus coming off that Temple lost the previous week.
Hard to look at particular stats of this game and say you've got 263 yards of total offense. Annexstad went 14-32. The WRs dropped 2 to 4 balls. There were 4 balls tipped at the line.
That (yards) potentially should be a little higher. YPP is 5.3. Two interceptions. One was obvious bad. One was excusable because it was thrown late and the OT was getting ZA killed.
Team rushed 2.3 YPC involved sacks. Admittedly a very bad offensive production.
They only had one penalty. I guess that's good. It's un-sports man like conduct penalty. Not great. Loved Coughlin trying to explain to Fleck (on the sideline).
One positive - that drive at the end of the first half. If you want to be optimistic as to how the team can play. That is how the team can play.
Will they play like that very often? Not if the Offensive Line keeps playing like they do. That was a momentary bright spot followed by a Pick Six to start the (second) half.
Give credit to MD. MD played quite well their defense played excellent in the game. They clearly had speed and they used their speed and they were using it effectively. Don't think MD will light up the conference. There aren't too many good teams in the Big Ten.
It wasn't like MN put up this game against Miami of Ohio. It is more that coming off 3-0 and thinking that oh, MD played pretty bad. You get to be 4-0, and know you have to only find two games in the schedule to win. And might be able to find two winnable games in the schedule to win.
Think bowl eligibility this season is very important especially for recruiting momentum going forward.
Fleck and Ciarrocca are good recruiters. It is hard to do consistently on below .500 football. If they had won this game the likelihood is maybe they could win seven games this year, 7-5 is better than 6-6.
But, it isn't like they lost to Miami of Ohio. They lost to a decent team. It is unfortunate they lost badly to a decent team. Maryland is talented. Was hoping they continue to played poorly (after Temple).
Minnesota right now does not have an explosive playbook yet.
They do not have one for a couple of reasons. Zack Annexstad remains somewhat weak on deep throws. Not a weapon yet in the Gopher playbook. With the lost of Rodney Smith, Mo Ibrahim and Bryce Williams are serviceable, but they are not top Big Ten backs. So, they don't have the offensive playmaker yet on offense.
You'd do what Maryland does in this game - give the ball to Anthony McFarland or Ty Johnson and they are just gone. Minnesota does not yet have that player.
At the same time, you have three turnovers. You can't turn the ball three times and expect to win. You can't particularly turn the ball when you are not a tremendously good football team.
And on that note - Go Gophers! Ski-U-Mah! Row the Boat!
https://soundcloud.com/the-daily-gopher/great-takes-less-filling-204-hey-so-about-that-maryland-game
Narrative started with a whole slew of bad adjectives to describe how poorly the OL played.
Schlueter and Greene got worst as the game progressed.
Game bad in all phases, but particularly Offense and Defense.
This points to an absolute coaching failure. PJ Fleck took responsibility.
Kirk Ciarrocca and Robb Smith got out game planned by their MD counterparts. Ciarrocca was bad. Smith was disgustingly bad.
My personal comment: (I am not going to make excuses for the team and coaching staff, but the death of Nick Connelly had to be burdensome.)
After the Pick Six coming out of the 1st half, it was game over.
Tim Beckman: "The Gophers played pretty well except for five or six plays."
Unfortunately, of the five or six explosive plays three went for TDs.
Overriding expectation this year, is that the Gophers coming out of non-conference with a 2-1 record ought to be pretty good.
Minnesota not a good football team this year.
So at 3-1, they need to find wins to get to 6-6 in the season.
Everyone thought MN would play MD close. Not that badly. MD played extremely well.
This has to be a coaching problem. Execution was miserable. The Offensive Line was horrifically bad all game to the point that MN was getting beat by 3-Man Rushes regularly.
ZA is not 100% Was throwing off back foot, skying certain passes. Deep balls remained challenging.
Encumbent upon the OL to protect a freshman QB who is injured. They weren't doing that. There is no reason that a DL will key in all game.
Negative Thoughts: What specifically about the coaching scheme this week for offense and defense did you find problematic?
No secret that MD likes to run off the edge and use their speed. They really like the Jet Sweep. MN did not have an answer for that.
Admittedly, one of the things that MN have a problem with at MD is the turf which constantly injures Antoine Winfield (was injured twice at MD?), on field adjustments should have happen.
Not saying that Robb Smith's job was easy. Suggesting that miss-tackles were due to players taking bad angles. Seriously alignment problems first hand ahead of time. Which is a film room problem and the way you prepare.
The team was not prepared to be successful this week. They didn't execute either, but definitely not prepared to be successful.
On Offense:
In some sense, the OL right now is not particularly good. So, you are only working with the talent you have. But, come on.
Donnell Greene is not a bad offensive lineman. There are people who believe he has potentially late round NFL aspirations. He got worked all game.
Sam Schlueter currently has no apsirations. Played so badly that they were slotting in TEs to cover for him. And then TEs weren't reading their blocks either.
On two plays, in the second half Annexstad got knocked on the first play and then knocked down on the second play from the exact same guy.
Comment: In defense of MD's turf, it was MN's turf that injured Winfield last year. Admitted he was wrong about that.
Bye Week couldn't have come at a better time for this team.
To get smacked that badly - you take it one of two ways: You have a very young team that admittedly have talent, but raw. A team whose current QB plays injured.
Having a week off to rehab (spoke about Winfield rehab - the season ending diagnosis haven't been done yet).
On offense, Ciarrocca's attempt to attack on bubble screens and jail breaks were not working The WRs' attempts to block MD's defenders was a fast going nowhere situation.
Several series of strange play calls including one where you are down a bunch of points in the first half. You RUTM for a short gain. You run off the edge for nothing. And then you bring in Seth Green 3rd and 11. Things like that.
Ciarrocca has forgotten more about football in the last week than will ever know. Confusing as to why MN's was not attacking MD's defense horizontally in manners other than a jail break screen.
You got quick outs, quick drags, quick curls. There were several times where based on how MD seem to be playing, you have some kind of levels concept, you could have freed up someone in a similar way as you would do the jail break. Get someone in space.
Look at that one pass to Bateman. He got a good gain off it. Those are the things from a preparations standpoint.
When you get your butt kicked 42-13, lots of different things went wrong. Those were immediately obvious. Also, the offensive line remains terrible.
Good news:
Jacob Herbers has clearly gone over the thing he had going on. Knock on wood whatever that it doesn't come back.
If the Gophers were playing well, Herbers will do his job to make sure that the Gophers flipped the field so that the defense could make stops. Even an anemic offense could have better field position. Unfortunately, there were not that many stops. And when there were stops, MD's punter is also good.
MN never really got anything going on offense.
On the other side, Carpenter when called upon continued to be very consistent. Special teams kickers even when everything is going wrong is not going to get overlooked.
Emmit Carpenter and Jacob Herbers are Nektons of the week.
For Race To Maturity - gave it to Chris Autman Bell who had quite a second half finished with 4 receptions for 17 yards. Almost 5 of a 100 (?) unfortunately dropped a ball that ZA threw on down into double coverage that couldn't quite get it. Possible that a MD defender was on his back.
MD was quite physical all game was getting called for holding and pass interference. Nektons of the week also go to officiating crew who totally did a good job calling everything on both sides of the ball.
Good to know officiating was nice to you even in a 42-13 spanking. MD had 10 penalties for 118 yards. FOr extended part of the game, more yardage than MN had thrown through the air.
There were trade offs because there were defensive pass interference penalties.
Positives:
Other than Special Teams.
It is over. They don't have to go back to College Park.
You get to see mistakes on defense. You get to put things on film. You get to adjust. This team still has talent.
Stealing a game at College Park before the Iowa game - not going to happen.
It is difficult to figure out which games remaining on the schedule are stealable. The margin is already slim. And that is a bummer.
Suppose you get some game film out of it, you get to see things that were wrong. The team team has a lot of internal resilience. They are very close.
It is quite possible that they go into a rivalry game and do what MD did versus coming off that Temple lost the previous week.
Hard to look at particular stats of this game and say you've got 263 yards of total offense. Annexstad went 14-32. The WRs dropped 2 to 4 balls. There were 4 balls tipped at the line.
That (yards) potentially should be a little higher. YPP is 5.3. Two interceptions. One was obvious bad. One was excusable because it was thrown late and the OT was getting ZA killed.
Team rushed 2.3 YPC involved sacks. Admittedly a very bad offensive production.
They only had one penalty. I guess that's good. It's un-sports man like conduct penalty. Not great. Loved Coughlin trying to explain to Fleck (on the sideline).
One positive - that drive at the end of the first half. If you want to be optimistic as to how the team can play. That is how the team can play.
Will they play like that very often? Not if the Offensive Line keeps playing like they do. That was a momentary bright spot followed by a Pick Six to start the (second) half.
Give credit to MD. MD played quite well their defense played excellent in the game. They clearly had speed and they used their speed and they were using it effectively. Don't think MD will light up the conference. There aren't too many good teams in the Big Ten.
It wasn't like MN put up this game against Miami of Ohio. It is more that coming off 3-0 and thinking that oh, MD played pretty bad. You get to be 4-0, and know you have to only find two games in the schedule to win. And might be able to find two winnable games in the schedule to win.
Think bowl eligibility this season is very important especially for recruiting momentum going forward.
Fleck and Ciarrocca are good recruiters. It is hard to do consistently on below .500 football. If they had won this game the likelihood is maybe they could win seven games this year, 7-5 is better than 6-6.
But, it isn't like they lost to Miami of Ohio. They lost to a decent team. It is unfortunate they lost badly to a decent team. Maryland is talented. Was hoping they continue to played poorly (after Temple).
Minnesota right now does not have an explosive playbook yet.
They do not have one for a couple of reasons. Zack Annexstad remains somewhat weak on deep throws. Not a weapon yet in the Gopher playbook. With the lost of Rodney Smith, Mo Ibrahim and Bryce Williams are serviceable, but they are not top Big Ten backs. So, they don't have the offensive playmaker yet on offense.
You'd do what Maryland does in this game - give the ball to Anthony McFarland or Ty Johnson and they are just gone. Minnesota does not yet have that player.
At the same time, you have three turnovers. You can't turn the ball three times and expect to win. You can't particularly turn the ball when you are not a tremendously good football team.
And on that note - Go Gophers! Ski-U-Mah! Row the Boat!
https://soundcloud.com/the-daily-gopher/great-takes-less-filling-204-hey-so-about-that-maryland-game
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