Doogie Tweet: Gophers Might Not Have All Their Regulars UPDATED: Croft won't play Sat

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Taji34 said:
The fumble turnover was a direct result of doing what they have been instructed not to. On a bad snap, you fall on the ball, don't try to pick it up. It also gave OSU way better field position than the interception against Buffalo gave Buffalo.
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Yes, but the INT took points off the board...
 

jonnyganas said:
Yes, but the INT took points off the board...
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You could argue the fumble did as well. Who knows what could have happened on that possession if we hadn't turned it over?
 

Taji34 said:
The fumble turnover was a direct result of doing what they have been instructed not to. On a bad snap, you fall on the ball, don't try to pick it up. It also gave OSU way better field position than the interception against Buffalo gave Buffalo.
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This. I think that is why Fleck was so upset. Obviously a fumble is never good but I think it lives with it a little more if he had tried falling on it.
 

Taji34 said:
The fumble gave OSU WAY better field position than the interception gave Buffalo, so view the fumble as the worst mistake.

You also have to factor in the fact that he's said they instruct the QBs to fall on the ball in the case of a bad snap like that, don't try to pick it up. So he also went directly against the training they've been practicing.
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Anyone can fumble a wet football. He didn't fall on it because it was already rolling behind him. That would have been a neat trick.

You're correct it put us tough shape on D. OTOH Rhoda took points off the board and made a bad throw.

Like I said before he's been throwing from a clean pocket at cover 0 with wide open WRs the majority of the time. That's good, but not elite. Better defenses will pose some challenges and I don't know what's going to happen. I hope he keeps it up.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Anyone can fumble a wet football. He didn't fall on it because it was already rolling behind him. That would have been a neat trick.

You're correct it put us tough shape on D. OTOH Rhoda took points off the board and made a bad throw.

Like I said before he's been throwing from a clean pocket at cover 0 with wide open WRs the majority of the time. That's good, but not elite. Better defenses will pose some challenges and I don't know what's going to happen. I hope he keeps it up.
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You can argue any turnover can take points off the board. No one knows how a possession could go.

Also Croft attempted to pick it up and throw it, which resulted in him bobbling it away from himself due to the rain. If you can reach down to try to pick up the football, you can fall on it.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
Anyone can fumble a wet football. He didn't fall on it because it was already rolling behind him. That would have been a neat trick.
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Come again?

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joshvanklomp said:
Come again?

0LZPcq.png
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Watch the film. It's rolling between his legs to his rear. He reached down to get his hands on it and it had momentum and squirted away. Sitting on it probably probably would have had the watermelon seed effect. Not as clean and simple as you guys think. Bang bang and I'm sure he wishes he had that one back.

In the **** Happens category while you're at it scroll ahead to the third quarter when Rhoda fumbled it (unforced error on a rushed pass attempt) right before getting drilled out of bounds. If the defenders leg hadn't kicked it out of bounds they would have recovered.

That's football. Clucking about one error and not another just shows your preconceived biases.
 




Taji34 said:
You can argue any turnover can take points off the board. No one knows how a possession could go.

Also Croft attempted to pick it up and throw it, which resulted in him bobbling it away from himself due to the rain. If you can reach down to try to pick up the football, you can fall on it.
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See above.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
i don't think there was enough of a body of work to say either way. Most learned observers though Croft had the better arm, athleticism, and expected him to win out.

In the two games we've played Rhoda has done well but I wouldn't say it's close to a definitive body of work. These have not been good defenses and WRs have been running free all over the field.

Croft also hasn't been out there enough to draw any definitive conclusions.

To me, the INT was worse than the fumble although I think that's debatable.

In a nutshell I'm reserving judgment on Rhoda '17 until we play some live teams. One game is a data point, two is a line, three is a trend.
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Ditto all of that.
 

GophersInIowa said:
This. I think that is why Fleck was so upset. Obviously a fumble is never good but I think it lives with it a little more if he had tried falling on it.
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Yup.

One of PJ's quotes from the TV series had him saying "I don't care if you don't win a game" and then he went on to note something about playing it the right way (presumably this applies beyond the field).

Dude is told to do a thing when something happens... he doesn't do it.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Watch the film. It's rolling between his legs to his rear. He reached down to get his hands on it and it had momentum and squirted away. Sitting on it probably probably would have had the watermelon seed effect. Not as clean and simple as you guys think. Bang bang and I'm sure he wishes he had that one back.

In the **** Happens category while you're at it scroll ahead to the third quarter when Rhoda fumbled it (unforced error on a rushed pass attempt) right before getting drilled out of bounds. If the defenders leg hadn't kicked it out of bounds they would have recovered.

That's football. Clucking about one error and not another just shows your preconceived biases.
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But if he had rather dropped right away, rather than taking the time to stop and attempt to reach for it, he could have had both hands and his body to try to stop the ball. Maybe it still squirts out, but its a lot less likely.
 




So I don't want to read through all of this. What was the off the field issues with croft?

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gobbles03 said:
So I don't want to read through all of this. What was the off the field issues with croft?

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Nobody knows, but some seem to imply it was marijuana related.
 

Quick show of hands: who doesn' smoke maijuana:confused:
 

alchemy2u said:
Sorry, but a fan is a homer by definition.
If you don't want to see Gopher homerism, then move on over to the Badger board.
Discussions are what GH is all about. It just gets old seeing EVERY topic morph into a way to bash the coach, AD or the U. Of course, they are not infallible, but they also are not the source of all evil.
We have an exciting new coach that is creating a national brand. We are undefeated and just blew out a P5 opponent on the road. Let enjoy the ride and discuss football.


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Please. Just cuz you don't like to hear negativity about your man-crush let's not act like it's new on here to criticize coaches, players, ADs, fans, other posters, etc., etc.


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50PoundHead said:
After the fumble, I believe the die was cast. It was a bad snap, but P.J.'s "the ball is the program" is obviously a mantra he takes as seriously as "row the boat."
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And thank god for it.
Controlling turnovers is probably the single easiest way to keep yourself in games against good teams, and put away bad teams.
Rhoda doesn't throw that interception in the first game and the narrative would probably have been a little more positive.
Croft doesn't fumble that football and OSU probably scores one fewer touchdown.
Leidner doesn't throw four (!) key interceptions last year and we would have had a 10 win season.

I'm one of the biggest Fleck skeptics, but he is 100% correct in assuming that ball = life for our (and any other) program.
 

hello-world said:
And thank god for it.
Controlling turnovers is probably the single easiest way to keep yourself in games against good teams, and put away bad teams.
Rhoda doesn't throw that interception in the first game and the narrative would probably have been a little more positive.
Croft doesn't fumble that football and OSU probably scores one fewer touchdown.
Leidner doesn't throw four (!) key interceptions last year and we would have had a 10 win season.

...
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These are teaching moments that PJF capitalizes on.
 

GoodasGold said:
Quick show of hands: who doesn' smoke maijuana:confused:
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PJF should have hung with Randy Moss and done a J with him - cannabis and the "HYPPR Culture" can go together. Just takes the right person.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Watch the film. It's rolling between his legs to his rear. He reached down to get his hands on it and it had momentum and squirted away. Sitting on it probably probably would have had the watermelon seed effect. Not as clean and simple as you guys think. Bang bang and I'm sure he wishes he had that one back.

In the **** Happens category while you're at it scroll ahead to the third quarter when Rhoda fumbled it (unforced error on a rushed pass attempt) right before getting drilled out of bounds. If the defenders leg hadn't kicked it out of bounds they would have recovered.

That's football. Clucking about one error and not another just shows your preconceived biases.
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I'm sorry, but if a guy can reach down in front of him to attempt to pick a ball up, he's in position to dive on it.

And the difference between Croft's play and Rhoda's play? Minnesota still had possession of the football after Rhoda's play. I'm sure there were a few words on that one too, but there is a specific rule about what to do in Croft's situation and he didn't follow it.
 


joshvanklomp said:
I'm sorry, but if a guy can reach down in front of him to attempt to pick a ball up, he's in position to dive on it.

And the difference between Croft's play and Rhoda's play? Minnesota still had possession of the football after Rhoda's play. I'm sure there were a few words on that one too, but there is a specific rule about what to do in Croft's situation and he didn't follow it.
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The reason Croft's fumble is worse in terms of the football game itself is because we lost the ball obviously. But how a coach looks at a player's performance has nothing to do with that - Rhoda got lucky that the ball went out of bounds and Croft got unlucky that OSU got to the ball before a Gopher did. The big problem is that Croft had a great opportunity to recover the ball himself and his effort to do so was lacking. Rhoda had no ability to try to recover the ball himself, so his effort in that area isn't in question.

I remember years ago that a Gopher kicker got benched for a while after a blocked kick happened and he didn't make much of an effort to recover the ball. Same kind of thing - he wasn't benched for the blocked kick (which is a failed play on his part), he was benched for not doing what he could to make up for it afterwards.
 

2727Gopher said:
he wasn't benched for the blocked kick (which is a failed play on his part), he was benched for not doing what he could to make up for it afterwards
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You're exactly right. Rhoda's INT in the endzone and Croft's fumble were both bad plays. Rhoda couldn't really do anything subsequent to the INT to save face, but Croft could've fallen on the ball (as he'd been drilled repeatedly) and it wouldn't have been a big deal. As you say, he wasn't benched for the fumble, but rather for his response to it.
 

So, he's going to jump on it without grabbing it??

This is analogous to a safety pulling up simultaneously with a WR going to the ground resulting in inadverdant targeting. It's simply not as easy as you describe. Locate the ball, put hands on it, fall on it. He would have had to do a donkey kick to the rear while simultaneously grabbing and holding the ball which as I said before would have been a nice trick. He went for the ball and it squirted behind him. Try it with a moving ball during a football game.

You guys are painting yourselves into a corner if mistakes are not allowed. I suspect we will see more.

It's pretty clear to me PJ favored Rhoda from the get-go (which is his right - he's the coach!) and was concerned about Croft's off the field issues, which none of us seem to know the nature of. Speculating but he seemed to be waiting for Croft to make a mistake to name Rhoda the starter and sure enough we didn't see him again until garbage time. If it was truly a QB competition he would have given Croft the start in game 2 and allowed it to play out.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
So, he's going to jump on it without grabbing it??

This is analogous to a safety pulling up simultaneously with a WR going to the ground resulting in inadverdant targeting. It's simply not as easy as you describe. Locate the ball, put hands on it, fall on it. He would have had to do a donkey kick to the rear while simultaneously grabbing and holding the ball which as I said before would have been a nice trick. He went for the ball and it squirted behind him. Try it with a moving ball during a football game.

You guys are painting yourselves into a corner if mistakes are not allowed. I suspect we will see more.

It's pretty clear to me PJ favored Rhoda from the get-go (which is his right - he's the coach!) and was concerned about Croft's off the field issues, which none of us seem to know the nature of. Speculating but he seemed to be waiting for Croft to make a mistake to name Rhoda the starter and sure enough we didn't see him again until garbage time. If it was truly a QB competition he would have given Croft the start in game 2 and allowed it to play out.
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Feel free to tell PJ his idea about falling on the ball is crazy...

I think the difference is clearly that mistakes are allowed, provided you're not outright failing to do the thing you're told.

Throw a pass and it doesn't get there is fine. PJ even addressed that as a learning experience.

Throw a pass you were told not to pass and it probabbly would be a different story.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
So, he's going to jump on it without grabbing it??

This is analogous to a safety pulling up simultaneously with a WR going to the ground resulting in inadverdant targeting. It's simply not as easy as you describe. Locate the ball, put hands on it, fall on it. He would have had to do a donkey kick to the rear while simultaneously grabbing and holding the ball which as I said before would have been a nice trick. He went for the ball and it squirted behind him. Try it with a moving ball during a football game.

You guys are painting yourselves into a corner if mistakes are not allowed. I suspect we will see more.

It's pretty clear to me PJ favored Rhoda from the get-go (which is his right - he's the coach!) and was concerned about Croft's off the field issues, which none of us seem to know the nature of. Speculating but he seemed to be waiting for Croft to make a mistake to name Rhoda the starter and sure enough we didn't see him again until garbage time. If it was truly a QB competition he would have given Croft the start in game 2 and allowed it to play out.
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There is a big difference between going to the ground and falling on the ball and trying to scoop it up bent over at the waist. Offensive players at every level of competition are coached to fall on the ball. It's elementary. If you can't acknowledge these basic facts, it's pointless to engage you on it.
 

dpodoll68 said:
There is a big difference between going to the ground and falling on the ball and trying to scoop it up bent over at the waist. Offensive players at every level of competition are coached to fall on the ball. It's elementary. If you can't acknowledge these basic facts, it's pointless to engage you on it.
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As is often the case, it wasn't the crime (re: the fumble) it was the cover up (or in this case, the lack of cover up!).

Go Gophers!!
 

Pompous Elitist said:
So, he's going to jump on it without grabbing it??

This is analogous to a safety pulling up simultaneously with a WR going to the ground resulting in inadverdant targeting. It's simply not as easy as you describe. Locate the ball, put hands on it, fall on it. He would have had to do a donkey kick to the rear while simultaneously grabbing and holding the ball which as I said before would have been a nice trick. He went for the ball and it squirted behind him. Try it with a moving ball during a football game.

You guys are painting yourselves into a corner if mistakes are not allowed. I suspect we will see more.

It's pretty clear to me PJ favored Rhoda from the get-go (which is his right - he's the coach!) and was concerned about Croft's off the field issues, which none of us seem to know the nature of. Speculating but he seemed to be waiting for Croft to make a mistake to name Rhoda the starter and sure enough we didn't see him again until garbage time. If it was truly a QB competition he would have given Croft the start in game 2 and allowed it to play out.
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Yeah I pretty much agree with this. It was awkward because the ball was rolling between his legs, not really in a position to "just fall on it." And Rhoda later had an unforced fumble that could've been just as bad, but luckily for him it went out of bounds.

All the focus on Croft's fumble obscures the real issue, which is that Croft already had been losing the trust of Fleck. If this competition purely was about QB play, Croft would've been starting. That's obvious to anyone who's been watching.
 

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