Demry Croft: Burn the 'shirt??

Demry Croft: Burn the 'shirt?

  • Total voters
    173
  • Poll closed .
Donate To GopherHole
Hollinsanity

Hollinsanity

Active member
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
1,108
Reaction score
11
Points
38
Do people think it's time to burn Croft's redshirt in order to see what he can do in a game?
 

my gut tells me Croft does not play this year - unless Leidner is out with a significant injury. If Leidner is out for 1 game, I think they would try to get by with Streveler. But if Leidner was going to be out for 2-3 weeks or more, then Croft might wind up getting snaps.

Despite all the complaining about Leidner, as others have posted, he hit 21 of his last 36 attempts, and led the team on an 80-yd drive for the go-ahead score late in regulation. Yes, the inconsistency is maddening, but he seems to have a knack for coming up with big plays at key times.

We have no idea how Croft or Perra would fare in a similar situation. They might be fine, or they might c**p their pants. If Croft went in and fumbled or threw an INT, the "play Croft now" chorus would quickly turn to "he's not ready."
 

I think Leidner CAN play well. He didn't for most of today. He is the most bipolar QB I've ever seen.

I have zero qualms about pulling him for Streveler or Perra when he's struggling, and go back to him the following week. We were really lucky today. It's a tough situation. Do you ride him out and hope he pulls his shirt together by the end of the game every week?

Not excited to put a true Freshmen out there unless he's way above average in a lot of areas. Then again, never say never.
 

No - When the coaches feel Croft is the best QB on the roster they will play him. And while I don't stress about redshirts the way some fans do you don't burn a guys redshirt unless you plan to play him extensively over the remainder of the season. You certainly wouldn't do it just to take a look at him.
 

"Judas priest" as my Grandpa would say. I'm the first to say I am excited to see Demry play. I am, really. I would much rather see Leidner run the team for the rest of the season and next year however. You must be cray/crazy/whatever else the cool kids are saying these days. I get it. Leidner is not a great qb, and I don't think he ever will be (did y'all see how verbose those previous sentences were). Burning Demry's redshirt means we lose an entire year of development, an entire year of learning the system, and an entire year of learning his receivers. I want to see him play as bad as the next, but I think it would benefit gophernation (are we really that cliche) to wait until he is actually ready to take the reigns
 


ForecastingAWin said:
"Judas priest" as my Grandpa would say. I'm the first to say I am excited to see Demry play. I am, really. I would much rather see Leidner run the team for the rest of the season and next year however. You must be cray/crazy/whatever else the cool kids are saying these days. I get it. Leidner is not a great qb, and I don't think he ever will be (did y'all see how verbose those previous sentences were). Burning Demry's redshirt means we lose an entire year of development, an entire year of learning the system, and an entire year of learning his receivers. I want to see him play as bad as the next, but I think it would benefit gopher nation (are we really that cliche) to wait until he is actually ready to take the reigns
Click to expand...


You make sense, but is that enough? Gophers burned Philip Nelson redshirt on the road in Wisconsin if my memory serves me correctly. If Kill thinks Demry can help I believe he would burn the redshirt, but not just to "take a look". Go Gophers!
 

I fully trust coach kill and staff. Leidner is starting because they think he gives us the best chance to win, and if they think so that is good enough for me. If later in the season they think putting a true freshman in there gives us a better chance to win then I will trust them to do so. I would assume as forecasting did that redshirting him will benefit us down the line. He is still practicing and learning the system. Very few QBs are good enough to start and succeed as true freshman. Yes they exist, and I mean this in no offense to kill and staff but MN isn't exactly able to attract and sign that type of talent (for QB anyway).
 

Can we add a third option:

"I have no idea because I don't see him in practice every day, and do not attend meetings with the team"
 

GophersInIowa said:
Can we add a third option:

"I have no idea because I don't see him in practice every day, and do not attend meetings with the team"
Click to expand...

You should be banned indefinitely for being so logical/rational.
 



Will our receivers drop DC's passes, too? Will he get blindsided by opponent's RDE? Will he throw an errant pick or cough up an untimely fumble? Mitch has not been superb the first two weeks, but he's a gutty leader and I think that TD pass will spark his confidence. He certainly has missed some passes and some reads, and at times is a bit frustrating to watch, but I still believe he's our best option.
 

Let's be honest dudes. Who cares about the redshirt. When croft is the starter we are gonna have an awesome freshman we want to play over him anyways.
 

Winasota Gopher said:
Let's be honest dudes. Who cares about the redshirt. When croft is the starter we are gonna have an awesome freshman we want to play over him anyways.
Click to expand...

So you are assuming Poljan will be better?
 

I think Croft is talented, but I don't think we should burn his redshirt yet. I have not seen him in practice either, but he really needs a redshirt year to gain weight. Imagine a 6 6 190 pound freshmen qb behind our current offensive line.
 



I voted "yes". When you have an offense that goes 3 and out for their first 5 (or so) possessions, w hen you come off and opposing punt and your seasoned qb doesn't know what play to call and you have to burn a timeout, when your have a key 3rd down play and you miss a WIDE open receiver who is basically right in front of you, then a change simply HAS to be made. Don't get me wrong, I really want to see Mitch improve, but it just isn't happening. I also don't think the coaches will make a change because they don't want to pull the redshirt.
 

boofbonser said:
I think Croft is talented, but I don't think we should burn his redshirt yet. I have not seen him in practice either, but he really needs a redshirt year to gain weight. Imagine a 6 6 190 pound freshmen qb behind our current offensive line.
Click to expand...

This. Kill isn't going to jeopardize the career of someone who isn't physically ready to play especially with the state of the offensive line.
 

can we get a new OC? can we get an OL that actually is above average? (supposed to be solid but has been so so)

Mitch isnt great but he still should be the starter, however we should be comfortably a head at halftime next week and we should see Croft or someone next week in the 2nd half
 

go4rob said:
I voted "yes". When you have an offense that goes 3 and out for their first 5 (or so) possessions, w hen you come off and opposing punt and your seasoned qb doesn't know what play to call and you have to burn a timeout, when your have a key 3rd down play and you miss a WIDE open receiver who is basically right in front of you, then a change simply HAS to be made. Don't get me wrong, I really want to see Mitch improve, but it just isn't happening. I also don't think the coaches will make a change because they don't want to pull the redshirt.
Click to expand...

He also lead a comeback to win the game, so I don't think it's fair to only pick out the negatives.

Bottom line is we have no idea how Croft has looked in practice. It's a tough question to answer without knowing anything about Croft or how ready he is.
 


Let's burn the shirt. In fact, let's burn the shirts for every player forever.

As for wasting a year of development, what nonsense is that from a purely analytical point of view. First, let us not ask
"can" Demry Croft win. That word suggests only ability up to this point. The question is "shall" Demry Croft win. The answer to that, no matter how you evaluate it is "yes." The mindset difference between "can" and "shall" is enormous.

Think about this:

"Can we get to the moon in 1962?"
No, we could not.

"We shall go to the moon!"
Yes, we did.

Did we redshirt the moon mission because of the word "can" or did the moon mission go forward. It is the same for Demry Croft and his ability to win or lose now and go the distance in development. Red shirting a player of his caliber is like saying the Buckeyes could not win the National Championship with their third string quarterback.

You can wring your hands all day long and fret about yesterdays abilities. But, we are not talking about yesterday anymore around here. We are playing for the moon, and to the moon we shall go.
 

We should use the qb from the michigan and Iowa games last year. Sadly, I don't know how we get that ML
 

I don't know whether we should burn his redshirt or not, though if we get up on Kent State big, I'd like to see him get some reps.

What I do know, though, is that I'm really glad Croft has such a simple name. With the amount of times I've read about how we should play Strevlar or Parra, it's a nice change of pace to see posters get one backup QB's name right.
 

boofbonser said:
I think Croft is talented, but I don't think we should burn his redshirt yet. I have not seen him in practice either, but he really needs a redshirt year to gain weight. Imagine a 6 6 190 pound freshmen qb behind our current offensive line.
Click to expand...

Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
This. Kill isn't going to jeopardize the career of someone who isn't physically ready to play especially with the state of the offensive line.
Click to expand...

+1

Let him mature physically in strength & conditioning program with the current crop of red shirt O-Linemen and play him extensively in practices. FOR NOW.

In the next two non-conference games, they must play the current backups to give them game experience. They need to be evaluated in actual game conditions. What will happen if Leidner goes down for an extensive period?

Things may change. If you look around the B1G West in the first two non-cons games, everybody's improved. There are no gimmes for the Gophers. To say that the Gophers have one of the toughest overall schedule in the B1G West is an understatement.

To me, the team's overall health is the biggest concern with all the injuries piling up after two games. Key injuries will dictate which red shirts will burn.
 

DoubleB said:
can we get a new OC? can we get an OL that actually is above average? (supposed to be solid but has been so so)

Mitch isnt great but he still should be the starter, however we should be comfortably a head at halftime next week and we should see Croft or someone next week in the 2nd half
Click to expand...
The OC to DC ability is the widest gulf in this program right now, Limegrover just may not have the ability or creativity to be an OC at this level. What's particularly concerning is how poor this program looks on offense when given a long period of preparation (bowl games, TCU). Against a TCU you unload the playbook, the Gophers did the opposite.
 

go4rob said:
I voted "yes". When you have an offense that goes 3 and out for their first 5 (or so) possessions, w hen you come off and opposing punt and your seasoned qb doesn't know what play to call and you have to burn a timeout, when your have a key 3rd down play and you miss a WIDE open receiver who is basically right in front of you, then a change simply HAS to be made. Don't get me wrong, I really want to see Mitch improve, but it just isn't happening. I also don't think the coaches will make a change because they don't want to pull the redshirt.
Click to expand...

Post of the day!!!
 

Yes-- if he is our best QB. There are no guarantees any player will be here all 4 or 5 years (Maxx Williams for example)
 

I guess there is a lot of truth about no knowing if a player will stay 5 years anyway with players like Maxx leaving early. I remember many were concerned with Phillip Nelson burning his red shirt, then he got beat out by Leidner anyway.
 

go4rob said:
I voted "yes". When you have an offense that goes 3 and out for their first 5 (or so) possessions, w hen you come off and opposing punt and your seasoned qb doesn't know what play to call and you have to burn a timeout, when your have a key 3rd down play and you miss a WIDE open receiver who is basically right in front of you, then a change simply HAS to be made. Don't get me wrong, I really want to see Mitch improve, but it just isn't happening. I also don't think the coaches will make a change because they don't want to pull the redshirt.
Click to expand...

All your reasons are valid for looking at a different option except for the last one. If the coaches, who work with the guy every friggin day of the week, felt Croft was the best QB on the team he would 100% be on the field. I really don't get why some people can not figure this out. They could care less about him redshirting if it means we win more games this season.

What fans need to accept is that right now the QB we all want either isn't on the roster or he is on the roster and hasn't developed enough yet. There are some that will go with the idea that it can't be worse then the way it is right now under Mitch, but that is so wrong it isn't even funny. It could be worse, it could be a lot worse.

Mitch is who he is (Mason still has the best take on him with his 10 handicapper golf analogy). The true issue isn't that the backups are better then him and the coaches need to play them, the issue is that the backups ARE NOT better then him so they go with the best of a bad situation. This if far less about Mitch and far more about the fact that to this point the coaches have not been able to find/develop/retain the guys on offense to make their system truly work the way they have on defense.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
my gut tells me Croft does not play this year - unless Leidner is out with a significant injury. If Leidner is out for 1 game, I think they would try to get by with Streveler. But if Leidner was going to be out for 2-3 weeks or more, then Croft might wind up getting snaps.

Despite all the complaining about Leidner, as others have posted, he hit 21 of his last 36 attempts, and led the team on an 80-yd drive for the go-ahead score late in regulation. Yes, the inconsistency is maddening, but he seems to have a knack for coming up with big plays at key times.
Click to expand...

I'm in general agreement with your sentiments about Leidner. There really isn't any other QB on the roster who one could have much confidence starting at this point. The backup situation is more of a problem. We've seen enough of Streveler to know that he has very little confidence when it comes to throwing the ball. If he had to substitute for Leidner for any extended period of time during the Big Ten season, the team's offense would be woefully inadequate. They need to groom a different backup and Croft seems like the most likely candidate. They have another well regarded quarterback coming in next year so it isn't like Croft's future years of eligibility have to be preserved at all costs. They could always redshirt him as an upperclassman if that became an issue.
 


MNVCGUY said:
Mitch is who he is (Mason still has the best take on him with his 10 handicapper golf analogy). The true issue isn't that the backups are better then him and the coaches need to play them, the issue is that the backups ARE NOT better then him so they go with the best of a bad situation.
Click to expand...

Mitch, for all his faults, clearly is the best viable starter. The bigger issue is what happens if he is incapacitated for any extended stretch of the season. The coaches can't possibly have much confidence in Streveler assuming that role for any extended period of time against Big Ten competition.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom