Gophers Football Positives and Negatives Heading Into Week 3

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Gophers Football Positives and Negatives Heading Into Week 3
By Luke Gildemeister

http://www.gopherhole.com/news_article/show/553457?referrer_id=

Many Gopher fans knew Colorado State would be a formidable opponent. Just not that formidable. The Minnesota Gophers salvaged an overtime victory in Fort Collins Saturday in a sloppy contest highlighted by turnovers, dropped passes and a few questionable calls from the officiating crew. Here are some positive and negative aspects from week two:

Positives

The Emergence of “Woli”
Junior receiver Drew Wolitarsky emerged as Leidner’s most reliable option on Saturday. The California native had nine catches for 114 yards, both of which are career highs. His touchdown early in the third quarter provided the Gophers with some much-needed offensive momentum. Could “Woli” be the go-to wideout as Big Ten play looms?

Runnin’ Rodney
Redshirt freshman Rodney Smith continues to look the part of a Big Ten starting running back. He rushed 21 times for 108 yards, averaging an impressive 5.1 yards per carry. Smith has seemingly taken over the starting position from senior Rodrick Williams Jr. after only two weeks. Currently, Smith rightly deserves the starting role.

Opportunistic Defense
Hopefully we are starting to see a season-long trend. The Gophers’ defense caused four Colorado State turnovers, none more important than an overtime forced fumble due to a Cody Poock strip. The turnover eventually allowed Ryan Santoso to kick an easy 18-yard game-winning field goal. In addition, a Briean Boddy-Calhoun interception on the Ram’s first play from scrimmage set the tone early for the gritty Gophers defense. Through two games, Minnesota has six defensive turnovers. Look for timely turnovers to become the identity of this defense as the season progresses.

Negatives

Dilemma Under Center
The quarterback quandary continues into week three. Some are calling for freshman Demry Croft. Others continue to stress patience and support starter Mitch Leidner. I’ll just tell you the facts: The offense looked miserable in the first half as they failed to tally a first down in the opening six drives. Minnesota gained just 19 yards in the first quarter. The Gophers fumbled twice; both turnovers of which seemed completely preventable. Everyone watching the game, including the Colorado State defense, knew a run was coming each time backup Chris Streveler entered the game. The final offensive drive of regulation, which concluded when Mitch Leidner found receiver KJ Maye on a 22-yard touchdown pass, should provide a sliver of encouragement entering week three. There is no doubt that inconsistency at such a critical position will need to be answered before Big Ten play begins Oct. 3.


Trouble in the (Offensive) Trenches
During fall practice, it appeared the offensive line was going to be an asset of enormous proportions. After two weeks of play, it seems the injury-plagued group is more of a liability. Even worse, senior guard Jon Christenson left the Colorado State game with a knee injury. Hopefully the health of Christenson, Ben Lauer and others will improve quickly, because pass protection will need to improve in the coming weeks.

At the end of the day, Minnesota barely survived a road scare from a Mountain West Conference program. A win is a win. One can only hope victory will come easier on Sept. 19 when the Gophers take on a weak Kent State program at TCF Bank Stadium. With that being said, crazy things can happen on any given Saturday. Just ask Arkansas.
 

Positives - 1 win.
Negatives - 1 loss.
Here's hoping for 11 or more positives.
 


the fact that we gave #2 all they wanted and took a decent team in a hard place to win all the way to a victory with plenty of injuries

We are going into a couple weeks that should really be steps down and we should be fired up to show the world that we are better than we have shown

Illinois took care of Kent State 52-3 We need a similar performance or we can forget about going bowling

we should be able to see plenty of 2's or 3's in this game because of the score not due to injuries

Coach Kill needs to put the throttle on and dont look back
 



Good analysis. I think the key going forward is getting our OL healthy. When given enough time, Leidner has proven that he can be a much more effective passer than he was overall against CSU, and that's probably all we need to keep opponents from stacking the box against the run. Plus the realistic threat of a pass, and some good blocking up front, should help our running game considerably. I've been very impressed, as I believe has been everyone else, with the effectiveness of Rodney Smith. Coupled with a good defense, that should make us competitive in most of the games going forward. My hope is that we can get the OL healthy over the course of the next two weeks and be ready to take on the B1G schedule. I still think we can have a 9 or 10 win season.
 

How much we beat up on Kent state is not going to affect our Bowl picture.
A good number of Players will be held out to heal. Young Players will get their chance to play.
A solid win is all this Team needs this week.
 

Johnny Olson said:
How much we beat up on Kent state is not going to affect our Bowl picture.
A good number of Players will be held out to heal. Young Players will get their chance to play.
A solid win is all this Team needs this week.
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+1. I think 10 pts will be enough to seal the win in this one. It will be a good game to give the offense confidence going forward. I believe Minn. goes up by four scores or more at half-time. Then you'll see a lot of younger players getting some valuable game experience. This should be a dominating physical performance on both sides of the ball for the maroon and gold.
 

1. You cannot throw the ball 45 times on the road and expect to win. To many opportunities for sacks, turnovers, interceptions.
2. 21 carries for Rodney Smith is not enough.
3. The defense gave up 3 more points than the goal.
4. Too many formations, not enough motion.
5. The first 10 scripted plays should be looked at a little closer.
 



I've been extremely disappointed with the defensive ends so far. Cockran was supposed to be NFL caliber and Ekpe was supposedly wowing everyone in practice. We've had very little pass rush in the first two games.
 

John Galt said:
I've been extremely disappointed with the defensive ends so far. Cockran was supposed to be NFL caliber and Ekpe was supposedly wowing everyone in practice. We've had very little pass rush in the first two games.
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The fact that we really don't get a ton from our D-Line makes what our DB's do all the more impressive. Usually a good secondary and a good Defensive line go hand in hand but in our case even with limited pressure up front they are still able to lock down other team's passing games.
 

Our defensive ends have been a lot better against the run this year. Last year we lost containment over and over.

Our defensive strategy has not (and probably will not) revolve around putting pressure on quarterbacks.

We will likely be content to rush four.

We want the ball in the air. It plays to our biggest strength.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Why not 12?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Positive TCU 70 Stephen F. Austin 7. We need to get them on our schedule soon. If they are good enough for TCU why not us. Just an example of other schools weak non conf schedule. It's going to hurt us all year due to injuries. That's why I never complain about and easy non-conf schedule. We get beat up enough in the Big 10.
 



swgopherdog said:
Positive TCU 70 Stephen F. Austin 7. We need to get them on our schedule soon. If they are good enough for TCU why not us. Just an example of other schools weak non conf schedule. It's going to hurt us all year due to injuries. That's why I never complain about and easy non-conf schedule. We get beat up enough in the Big 10.
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I believe they are a FCS school and we are not allowed to schedule FCS schools anymore. So technically they are not good enough for us.
 

I was most disappointed with the O-line. I understand they were banged up but this was to be our strength this year. There was no push or holes created by our veteran bunch. Because of the little passing lanes you seldom saw Leidner step into his throws. Rather, he veered off to the left side to avoid being hit or threw off his back leg. On a positive note, in the past we often seemed to find a way to loose the ugly games or the close ones. Here's to new trends! Let's work out the bugs this week with the WR's getting a little more separation. They'll make Leidner a hero.
 

bottlebass said:
I believe they are a FCS school and we are not allowed to schedule FCS schools anymore. So technically they are not good enough for us.
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Thats right. To bad. We will need to look for another TCU road kill.

Go Gophers
 

John Galt said:
I've been extremely disappointed with the defensive ends so far. Cockran was supposed to be NFL caliber and Ekpe was supposedly wowing everyone in practice. We've had very little pass rush in the first two games.
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There's a post on GI presumably made by a relative/friend of Andrew Stelter that said the coaches were worried about CSU's screen and draw game and it was by design to stay in their lane rather than recklessly rush the QB. Pretty sure the plan was similar against TCU.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I haven't been impressed either. Might be a little too early to judge though.
 

Good read. I like your articles. Looking forward to getting some of the young guys more snaps the next two weeks.
 

Positive:
Our average PPG keeps going up every year, we scored 31 pts in our 2 toughest non conference games last year, this year we've scored 40 in those 2 games so we are on pace to keep that trend going.
Negative:
Still haven't beat Bucky :(
 

givetheballtodarrell said:
I was most disappointed with the O-line. I understand they were banged up but this was to be our strength this year. There was no push or holes created by our veteran bunch. Because of the little passing lanes you seldom saw Leidner step into his throws. Rather, he veered off to the left side to avoid being hit or threw off his back leg. On a positive note, in the past we often seemed to find a way to loose the ugly games or the close ones. Here's to new trends! Let's work out the bugs this week with the WR's getting a little more separation. They'll make Leidner a hero.[/QUOTEi]

This +1 though the injuries give them an asterisk by the negative. By no means saying the two are equal, but the Vikings' savior at QB looked more like Ponder than Tarkenton last night. A lot of it was on the offensive line.

Hopefully, the offensive line gets healthy. Gets Mitch more time these next two games and get him into a rhythm. He's simply not a playmaker when things break down. Still not expecting them to open it up much. This staff's mindset is to get the fundamentals down and a consistent inside running game is primary. That needs work and that also needs healthier linemen.

Biggest positive though was this team found a way to win on the road after playing like crap much of the game.
Click to expand...
 

I wasn't sure which thread to post this in, but here's a reasoned film breakdown of CSU game courtesy of Derek Burns.

http://www.thedailygopher.com/2015/9/15/9334401/minnesota-football-film-breakdown-play-recaps-derek-burns-colorado-state

Highlights the talents of Steven Richardson and Rodney Smith. Also explains the reasons MN avoided jet-sweep against CSU. He makes the case that our DL pressure is better than some make it out to be, and correctly assigns blame of Leidner incomplete pass on inconsistent OL play. I learned a lot more from these critical takes than the ever-present "Let's burn Croft's RS, Leidner doesn't belong in D1 football" chants from the GH masses.
 

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