Fleck: interesting facts about Kaliakmanis

[RememberMurray]

Fleck on the radio today pointed out something I hadn't been aware of.

He said Tanner Morgan threw for something like 10,000 yards in his high school career. He played a whole lot of football in high school, and consequently he already had a high level of football experience when he got to Minnesota.

Athan Kaliakmanis, in contrast, missed a lot of games in his junior and senior years in high school because of injuries and COVID protocols. He hasn't played nearly as much football as Morgan had at similar points in their college careers.

Fleck said: give AK time. He's still learning. He will grow. He's loaded with talent.

This all makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[Tommyboy]

Fleck on the radio today pointed out something I hadn't been aware of.

He said Tanner Morgan threw for something like 10,000 yards in his high school career. He played a whole lot of football in high school, and consequently he already had a high level of football experience when he got to Minnesota.

Athan Kaliakmanis, in contrast, missed a lot of games in his junior and senior years in high school because of injuries and COVID protocols. He hasn't played nearly as much football as Morgan had at similar points in their college careers.

Fleck said: give AK time. He's still learning. He will grow. He's loaded with talent.

This all makes a lot of sense to me.

I said that a long time ago, Covid messed his group up. Then after they got to college, all these guys would would have graduated have extra years to play.

 

[Spaulding!No!]

I always hope to learn something from the PJ Fleck show but dang it is the same show each week.

 

[corcorangopher]

Recent Gopher multi year quarterbacks have not shown much progression over time. Tanner peaked as a sophomore (two NFL receivers), Mitch never improved from freshman year. Weber maybe slightly improved senior year. Need to go back to Cupito and Assad Abdul Khaliq to see improvement into Jr/sr year. Let’s have results now.

 

[RememberMurray]

Recent Gopher multi year quarterbacks have not shown much progression over time. Tanner peaked as a sophomore (two NFL receivers), Mitch never improved from freshman year. Weber maybe slightly improved senior year. Need to go back to Cupito and Assad Abdul Khaliq to see improvement into Jr/sr year. Let’s have results now.

I'm sorry, please connect the dots for me.

What is the connection between Mason-era and Kill-era QBs, and Fleck QBs?

The coaching staffs, players, and administrations are completely different. I'm a bit lost on what, exactly, your point is. Is Fleck in some way accountable for the 'progression' of QBs you mentioned, other than Morgan?

 

[Dakota2]

I said that a long time ago, Covid messed his group up. Then after they got to college, all these guys would would have graduated have extra years to play.

What those stats don’t tell us is how much capacity for growth is there and how fast it can occur.

Tanner, with his wealth of experience could progress at a steady rate and become a very good college QB. For our purposes right now AK will need to progress a lot in a hurry.

I’m confident in the “a lot “ part because I think he has a higher skill ceiling. In a hurry is asking a lot. If he is that kind of special we will see it this season.

 

[Some Day...Maybe]

I’m telling you a big part of all of this, that people don’t mention enough, is Kirk Ciarocca. He is the best OC I can remember at MN in my 50 years.

Tanner was much worse the year he was gone and got better when he came back. Our offense was shit the year he was gone and our offense got better last year.

So far, our offense is shit again this year. All we can do is hope it gets better as the year goes on. I really hope it does. I’m praying it’s not near as bad as the Sanford year. Ciarocca is a very good offensive coach.

 

[99Gopher]

The problem for PJ is that this is not 5-10 yrs ago where you could waste a year for a young QB to develop. If this team drops off and let's say for argument's sake goes 6-6 this year, but let's say Athan really shows some improvement over the last 5-6 games then I think you might be OK. However, if he doesn't show measurable improvement by year's end then you may have significant issues and need to look at the portal options.

Whether we want to accept/believe it, any talented WR coming out of high school thinks if he has the right QB then he's good enough to make it to the League. If Athan is not doing well two immediate issues arise. First, why would any talented WR on the roster want to stay if they have doubts Athan can get them the ball with the portal staring them in the face? Second, as you look at it, Athan could possibly be the QB for another 2 yrs if PJ sticks to his guns. What "top" HS WRs or Portal WRs are going to want to commit if they are looking at poor QB stats? I think PJ has to have a backup plan for next year if things don't start to develop with Athan.

 

[Some guy]

I’m telling you a big part of all of this, that people don’t mention enough, is Kirk Ciarocca. He is the best OC I can remember at MN in my 50 years.

Tanner was much worse the year he was gone and got better when he came back. Our offense was shit the year he was gone and our offense got better last year.

So far, our offense is shit again this year. All we can do is hope it gets better as the year goes on. I really hope it does. I’m praying it’s not near as bad as the Sanford year. Ciarocca is a very good offensive coach.

One of the things that makes KC so good for QBs is how simple he is.
Really easy to be fast on reads in his offense. At times so simple it was frustrating. But at the same time, we should keep in mind that AK is on his third OC in 3 years.

 

[jonnyganas]

One of the things that makes KC so good for QBs is how simple he is.
Really easy to be fast on reads in his offense. At times so simple it was frustrating. But at the same time, we should keep in mind that AK is on his third OC in 3 years.

Reminds me a bit of Adam Weber who I think had 5 OCs. Another Gopher QB with massive potential.

 

[TurfGopher]

I dont think Ciarocca was really that special. How come he floundered at Penn State? Sanford was young, inexperienced and ran a terrible offense. AK needs to work on reading target options and develop some touch and he will be a much better QB.

 

[Spaulding!No!]

Zebrowski!

 

[GopherRock]

When I saw the thread title, I was expecting this:

 

[GVLCGopherFan]

When I saw the thread title, I was expecting this:

That was worth the re-watch. Thanks.

 

[USAF]

Zebrowski!

NORVVVVVVV!!!!!

 

[USAF]

Maybe if your QB needs experience in the passing game, don't have him turn around and hand the ball off 157 times against EMU simply because you can.

 

[Tommyboy]

He will do fine. I find it interesting all these programs pick a guy when they might me a 15-16 year old kid and bet the farm on them. The recruiters do not want to be proven wrong. I would get a bunch of guys and have a real competition until one guy rises to the top.

 

[GophersInIowa]

He will do fine. I find it interesting all these programs pick a guy when they might me a 15-16 year old kid and bet the farm on them. The recruiters do not want to be proven wrong. I would get a bunch of guys and have a real competition until one guy rises to the top.

You're not going to land a lot of top QBs when you already have a packed QB room. QBs want to go where they have a good chance to play and play early.

Certainly in this case it wasn't about betting the farm on one guy. We usually bring in at least one QB each season. AK ended up being more ready than Knuth. AK beat out Clark. I'm pretty confident that if either of those guys were the better option, they'd be starting for the Gophers right now.

 

[SeaBee_Gopher]

It's very hard to stack good QBs now. If they don't see a path to playing, they will go somewhere else and get paid to do so. I'm sure they're making the most in NIL and for good reason. It's the most important position in the sport. Why pass up money to wait your turn? You sort of have to pick the best guy and hope it works out. If not, go to the portal. I've heard rumors that both Alabama and Ohio State sort of dragged out their QB competitions into the season partially to hang on to their quarterbacks a little longer similar to Michigan last year. It's harder to transfer mid-season. I get that they wouldn't have done this if one guy was great, but another reason is to try to keep a little depth...even average depth is hard to hang onto. Look at Tyler Buchner going from ND to Alabama.

I digress, but I think this is a large reason why the sport has more parity this year and, for me, is more fun to watch. More good quarterbacks are playing instead of sitting on the bench behind someone else waiting their turn at some power program. A good quarterback can flip a program from a loser to a winner almost overnight. Look at Deion's son in Colorado.

 

[btowngopher]

Maybe if your QB needs experience in the passing game, don't have him turn around and hand the ball off 157 times against EMU simply because you can.

Well the running clearly needed work after week one. Plus the game wasn’t in hand early enough to just start messing around.

 

[Panthadad2]

Well the running clearly needed work after week one. Plus the game wasn’t in hand early enough to just start messing around.

We can only speculate, but week 1 running against a good D line might have looked different with Taylor getting the bulk of carries. We'll never know.

 

[Gopherchase]

You're not going to land a lot of top QBs when you already have a packed QB room. QBs want to go where they have a good chance to play and play early.

Certainly in this case it wasn't about betting the farm on one guy. We usually bring in at least one QB each season. AK ended up being more ready than Knuth. AK beat out Clark. I'm pretty confident that if either of those guys were the better option, they'd be starting for the Gophers right now.

I’m not confident of that. Fleck certainly favors players based upon other than talent issues. FAMILY is just as important to him. Where is Evans right now—in the doghouse. I don’t think it was ever an open competition between Clark, Knuth and AK. Now we have to worry about whether 8 has the guts and IT to be a big time QB. Post Wisky last year I would have bet the farm on the kid but now I think it was short sighted to anoint him as the next big thing.

 

[Go Gophs]

It's very hard to stack good QBs now. If they don't see a path to playing, they will go somewhere else and get paid to do so. I'm sure they're making the most in NIL and for good reason. It's the most important position in the sport. Why pass up money to wait your turn? You sort of have to pick the best guy and hope it works out. If not, go to the portal. I've heard rumors that both Alabama and Ohio State sort of dragged out their QB competitions into the season partially to hang on to their quarterbacks a little longer similar to Michigan last year. It's harder to transfer mid-season. I get that they wouldn't have done this if one guy was great, but another reason is to try to keep a little depth...even average depth is hard to hang onto. Look at Tyler Buchner going from ND to Alabama.

I digress, but I think this is a large reason why the sport has more parity this year and, for me, is more fun to watch. More good quarterbacks are playing instead of sitting on the bench behind someone else waiting their turn at some power program. A good quarterback can flip a program from a loser to a winner almost overnight. Look at Deion's son in Colorado.

And this is 100% why the money raised for NIL should be used to land these types of guys if we figure out we don't have who we want.

I DO think AK can and will be really good. But if he plays poorly all year, old PJ better start making some phone calls and steal one of Alabama or some other stud school's backup.

 

[RememberMurray]

We can only speculate, but week 1 running against a good D line might have looked different with Taylor getting the bulk of carries. We'll never know.

I was very, very impressed by this... Nebraska is currently #1 in the B1G in run defense.

Their totals so far, by opponent:

Minnesota — 25 carries, 55 yards, 2.2 yds/carry

Colorado — 33 carries, 58 yards, 1.8 yds/carry

Northern Illinois — 22 carries, 26 yards, 1.2 yds/carry

That is outstanding run defense!

https://bigten.org/stats.aspx?path=football&year=2023

 

[Dakota2]

I was very, very impressed by this... Nebraska is currently #1 in the B1G in run defense.

Their totals so far, by opponent:

Minnesota — 25 carries, 55 yards, 2.2 yds/carry

Colorado — 33 carries, 58 yards, 1.8 yds/carry

Northern Illinois — 22 carries, 26 yards, 1.2 yds/carry

That is outstanding run defense!

https://bigten.org/stats.aspx?path=football&year=2023

Nebraska run defense is so good our coaches deserve an A for game planning to throw and not try too much to block an odd front with very talented guys.

 

[Mulligan]

Maybe if your QB needs experience in the passing game, don't have him turn around and hand the ball off 157 times against EMU simply because you can.

Maybe if run game sucked in the first game, you want to establish it in the next game since your basic philosophy is to control the clock and limit the opportunities your opponent has. (Even if you have to hand it off 157 times.)

 

[RememberMurray]

Maybe if run game sucked in the first game, you want to establish it in the next game since your basic philosophy is to control the clock and limit the opportunities your opponent has. (Even if you have to hand it off 157 times.)

Ding, ding, ding... we have a winner!

 

[SeaBee_Gopher]

And this is 100% why the money raised for NIL should be used to land these types of guys if we figure out we don't have who we want.

I DO think AK can and will be really good. But if he plays poorly all year, old PJ better start making some phone calls and steal one of Alabama or some other stud school's backup.

I'm with you, but I'm sure that's hard. Probably half our competition is going to think their QB sucks and will want a new one too! We might need to at least go find some more quality competition. Behind Cole Kramer, all we have are a two and three star freshman. It seemed like we had pretty decent depth and quality in our quarterback room for our level of program, but the portal & NIL hurt that. The portal giveth and it taketh away! Well, I hope we helped some lower level programs become a little more competitive...and I also still think AK can be very good.

 

[RememberMurray]

Nebraska run defense is so good our coaches deserve an A for game planning to throw and not try too much to block an odd front with very talented guys.

I agree! We only scored 13 points vs Nebraska, but we won the game. And that, to me at least, is the freakin' goal. WIN. THE. GAME.

I don't care if you pass 65 times or run 65 times, as long as you win.

 

[tjgopher]

Where is Evans right now—in the doghouse.

Care to elaborate on this? I've seen you post this a few times now. I believe you, as its the only logical explanation as to why he hasn't played one down in three games. I am wondering what the details are, if you can share.