Gophers have the ball-first and ten

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Doc1001

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Its Cobb up the middle. Other teams know that. Sheeesh limegrover. At least mix it up a little bit. We generally have only two chances to make a a first down.-note second half vs NW. How often was it second and 8 yesterday. Yes Cobb is a wonderful runner but when the whole stadium knows what the call will be it just makes it more difficiult than it needs to be.
 

Doc1001 said:
Its Cobb up the middle. Other teams know that. Sheeesh limegrover. At least mix it up a little bit. We generally have only two chances to make a a first down.-note second half vs NW. How often was it second and 8 yesterday. Yes Cobb is a wonderful runner but when the whole stadium knows what the call will be it just makes it more difficiult than it needs to be.
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Not perfect, I agree. But we won the damned game!!!
 



At some point people just have to realize it is what it is. We are going to run the ball 75% of the time on first downs most of the time.
 


GophersInIowa said:
At some point people just have to realize it is what it is. We are going to run the ball 75% of the time on first downs most of the time.
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GII, I think 75% of the time is indeed most of the time.
 

"Mo" changed over to NU when we took the ball on about our 42, and we called a pass play and Leidner was sacked for an 8 yd loss. A 2-yd Cobb run would have looked pretty good.

Long-term, I think the team has, and we will see, more 1st down variety. But yesterday, and in some situations those Cobb runs are absolutely correct and game-plan consistent.
 


station19 said:
I'm not even going to touch that.:rolleyes:
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Yeah I didn't word that the best. I meant in most games. We play 13 games this year and in 10 of them we run the ball 75% of the time on first down. 10 out of 13 games equals "most of the time".
 



GophersInIowa said:
Yeah I didn't word that the best. I meant in most games. We play 13 games this year and in 10 of them we run the ball 75% of the time on first down. 10 out of 13 games equals "most of the time".
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Nice CYA big guy.
 


I was thinking the same thing at the game yesterday, that we DO need to occasionally pass the ball on 1st down. Other than that, I was fine with yesterday's game plan.
 




Doc1001 said:
Its Cobb up the middle. Other teams know that. Sheeesh limegrover. At least mix it up a little bit. We generally have only two chances to make a a first down.-note second half vs NW. How often was it second and 8 yesterday. Yes Cobb is a wonderful runner but when the whole stadium knows what the call will be it just makes it more difficiult than it needs to be.
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The other way to think of this is that we just didn't execute. Had we reversed the play calling and came out with incomplete passes, or God-forbid an interception, the Limegrove pitchfork crowd would be screaming for his resignation and wondering why we didn't hand it to our work horse and 9th-leading rusher in the nation.

Block better and the game is over. We went "high percentage" and trusted our D.
 

Yesterday Defense, Special Teams and the Passing Game won it for the Gophers. Best said about the Running Game was that it didn't turnover the ball. The 52 yarder to Williams, catches by Fruechte and Jones, they set-up scores or got them out of trouble. The Running game got 2 plays for 10 yards or more. Two.

Two games in a row now, Leidner and his receivers have looked very good when they put the ball in the air. While the Wildcats focused solely on the run, Leidner went 10 for 15 with maybe one bad throw and on only one drop, by Cobb when he was wide open on a swing pass.

Yes, they've won a number of Non-Conference games just by running the ball, but for two seasons now when they've had a solid or better Passing Game they've won them all, with the possible exception of the Syracuse game. Even then the dropped/defended pass in the end zone would have pulled it out.

We've talked a lot about how a good to great Running game, solid Special Teams play and an average or above Passing Game would lead to a lot of wins. Yesterday they got a mediocre game on the ground, great performances on kicks and solid play when they threw the ball and they won a game that they could have easily lost.

Complaining about the single sack of the day seems like sour grapes at best.
 




We averaged about 5 yds per carry on 1st down in the first half. Our three 1st down pass plays in the first half were 3yds, 52 yds, and a sack.

2nd half we did not pass on first down and we were 11 carries for 20 yds.

Cobb had a -1 carry and Edwards had a -5 carry in the second half. You may have a beef in the 2nd half.
 


Ditto that, but especially on the final possession, when only one first down would have sealed the deal. Very happy to see Leidner tossing it around with confidence, but a little more imagination will be required to beat some of the teams down the stretch, and not only on first downs.
 

spermophilus said:
"Mo" changed over to NU when we took the ball on about our 42, and we called a pass play and Leidner was sacked for an 8 yd loss. A 2-yd Cobb run would have looked pretty good.

Long-term, I think the team has, and we will see, more 1st down variety. But yesterday, and in some situations those Cobb runs are absolutely correct and game-plan consistent.
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When I watch football, I think the greatest advantage an offense has is surprise. The screen in an obvious blitz situation, for instance. How many observers recognized the value of our play-action passing to the victory? That's the fun of being OC, playing that chess game against the DC, and all of the film study that leads to tendencies, in hopes of catching the opponent off guard.
 

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