I believe the logic is Tresselball pure and simple. Minimize risk everywhere you can. Additionally it was Indiana who led the nation -- they averaged 2 per game.
I'm sure the defensive staff shares your sentiment here and gives him blame as well. So what I said (100%...) is wrong.
Agree. I hope this changes. Is this a typical slow start that gets better as the year goes on?...Seems to be the Gophers M.O. under PJ Fleck....at least that's what I'm going with.
Indiana is overrated and have tons of work to do to be a consistently good program. Iowa is good defensively like they are most years, Iowa’s offense is not special at all.
Iowa did win 6 straight to close 2020 and then came out and rolled a top 25 Indiana team that most think is going to be pretty good.
Fair catching punts is smart, unless the receiver has lots of room on a low trajectory punt. Fair catching every kickoff that isn't in the end zone is probably smart against Ohio State, which has its excess 5* and high 4* players on special teams. But fair catching kick offs against every team, meaning every KO drive must go 75 yards, means you lack confidence in you special team's personnel and/or its ability to avoid penalties on kick offs.
Iowa's defense is for real. I heard somewhere that they haven't given up more than some ridiculously low number (24 points) in the last three years. Haven't double-checked. Almost shocking if true. That will win you a lot of games even with a middling offense. But Indiana and Penix might be overrated. Pulling for Iowa State (which just snuck by its MAC opponent last week).
I'm not saying I necessarily disagree with you, but we were killed blitzing against Ohio State too.
Yeah, given what Ohio State can do to stress a defense anywhere on the field (at multiple places, simultaneously), maybe our defensive strategy was the best. But I hope that against lesser offenses--meaning everybody else we play in the regular season, including IA and WI--we try to cause the other team some similar stress by blitzing and DL stunts.
Even against Ohio St Potts can catch the ball moving forward from the 10-12 yard line and trot past the 25. We gave up 50 - 100 yards of field position by ignoring OSU's only weakness -- short kickoffs.
We need every B1G West team to lose as many games as possible.
Honestly, I don't even know what I would do. Not bringing people was a problem and our blitzes weren't landing. I do agree with your take though about other teams.
Our special teams screw up more than advance past the 25
The disappointing part is most of the guys screwing up were upper classmen.
Should be on the field longer, because we won't have Mo turning 5 yard gains into 15 and 15 yard gains into 35.