Gophers Offense Change Not Imminent Now - Per Greder Tweet

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GopherWeatherGuy said:
Minnesota had 241 yards and 12 first downs against Bowling Green. The Gophers had 294 total yards and 12 first downs against Purdue.

That's not much of an improvement.
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Judging by your name I'd have figured you could understand that the weather conditions and a number of dropped balls skewed what could have been a far better passing game.
 

GopherPete said:
Judging by your name I'd have figured you could understand that the weather conditions and a number of dropped balls skewed what could have been a far better passing game.
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Purdue also played in the same conditions and completed 34 of 52 passes for 371 yards. Not hard to figure out that it wasn't the weather.
 



Yeah, not super impressed with the offense Saturday and BG was unforgiveable in my mind. However, dropped balls, tipped balls, wet balls, slipping and sliding. It may also be we just don’t have the horses. The offense will be better if Dylan Wright gets back and CAB plays to his potential. Like Morgan, not going to write him off after a bad game.
 

bamor5229 said:
Purdue also played in the same conditions and completed 34 of 52 passes for 371 yards. Not hard to figure out that it wasn't the weather.
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Quick question - Would you rather have 20 points, 0 turnovers and 300 yards of offense

or

13 points, 2 turnovers, and over 400 yards of offense?

CRAB dropped a couple of passes that would have gone for big yards and made the total look a little better. Offense wasn't great on Saturday but in bad conditions they took care of the ball and put enough points on the board to get the win. That is a big step up from the terrible performance against BG but there is still work to do.
 




Really the only difference in the Purdue game was more deep shots. Otherwise, pretty similar. RUTM, RUTM, pass, punt happened on too many drives.

As mentioned above, Purdue seemed to have much less trouble completing passes in the rain, so I'm not ready to just give an outright pass due to the weather conditions.

This team desperately needs an intermediate passing game. A screen or two to a RB wouldn't kill them, either.
 

We had three 3 and outs in a row to follow up the first TD. Not good.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Quick question - Would you rather have 20 points, 0 turnovers and 300 yards of offense

or

13 points, 2 turnovers, and over 400 yards of offense?

CRAB dropped a couple of passes that would have gone for big yards and made the total look a little better. Offense wasn't great on Saturday but in bad conditions they took care of the ball and put enough points on the board to get the win. That is a big step up from the terrible performance against BG but there is still work to do.
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This is hyperbole. I don't think many are pining for the air raid Purdue offense. I for one am not. One of the downsides of this type of offense is a lot more plays, which equates to a higher propensity for turnovers. It's not like it's an either/or. You can want the offense to be more aggressive and creative without wanting to go full-on Mike Leach.

It is notable how little the weather seemed to affect Purdue's passing game, where it clearly affected the Gophers. If you watched the game, it's clear the offense is still not firing on all cylinders, weather or not.
 

forever a gopher said:
This is hyperbole. I don't think many are pining for the air raid Purdue offense. I for one am not. One of the downsides of this type of offense is a lot more plays, which equates to a higher propensity for turnovers. It's not like it's an either/or. You can want the offense to be more aggressive and creative without wanting to go full-on Mike Leach.

It is notable how little the weather seemed to affect Purdue's passing game, where it clearly affected the Gophers. If you watched the game, it's clear the offense is still not firing on all cylinders, weather or not.
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I do think weather hurts the purdue style offense as temps drop though.
 



MNVCGUY said:
Quick question - Would you rather have 20 points, 0 turnovers and 300 yards of offense

or

13 points, 2 turnovers, and over 400 yards of offense?

CRAB dropped a couple of passes that would have gone for big yards and made the total look a little better. Offense wasn't great on Saturday but in bad conditions they took care of the ball and put enough points on the board to get the win. That is a big step up from the terrible performance against BG but there is still work to do.
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Obviously rhetorical, but can’t we take care of the ball AND run a modern passing offense? Just saying it doesn’t have to be so drastic of a choice.
 

Given the conditions, the fact that we won, and that we didn't turn the ball over, our offense's performance against Purdue wasn't the kind of outing that would have me clamoring for a change.

That said, the Bowling Green performance was such an outing, and I don't think our offense showed me enough against Purdue to resolve the concerns I had after Bowling Green.
 

forever a gopher said:
This is hyperbole. I don't think many are pining for the air raid Purdue offense. I for one am not. One of the downsides of this type of offense is a lot more plays, which equates to a higher propensity for turnovers. It's not like it's an either/or. You can want the offense to be more aggressive and creative without wanting to go full-on Mike Leach.

It is notable how little the weather seemed to affect Purdue's passing game, where it clearly affected the Gophers. If you watched the game, it's clear the offense is still not firing on all cylinders, weather or not.
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I think the offense was more creative/aggressive than the BG game but given the conditions they were not likely to go too overboard with taking chances.

Purdue's whole offense is built on the passing game, they spread you out and throw a lot of short safe passes because they have essentially no running game of any kind. Not surprised the weather didn't affect them a ton in that regard.

I think the important part about Saturday is that it was clear they were trying to be more aggressive on offense. Still work to do but the conditions absolutely have to be factored into the equation.
 


bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Given the conditions, the fact that we won, and that we didn't turn the ball over, our offense's performance against Purdue wasn't the kind of outing that would have me clamoring for a change.

That said, the Bowling Green performance was such an outing, and I don't think our offense showed me enough against Purdue to resolve the concerns I had after Bowling Green.
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This is a good take. There was improvement evident but not enough to say that they have it fully figured out. Hopefully they can build on things during the bye week and come out firing against Nebraska in 2 weeks.
 

forever a gopher said:
Really the only difference in the Purdue game was more deep shots. Otherwise, pretty similar. RUTM, RUTM, pass, punt happened on too many drives.

As mentioned above, Purdue seemed to have much less trouble completing passes in the rain, so I'm not ready to just give an outright pass due to the weather conditions.

This team desperately needs an intermediate passing game. A screen or two to a RB wouldn't kill them, either.
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To be fair, we mixed it up by going RUTM, RUTM, chuck it 50 yards, punt.
 

At the risk of driving GHers nuts, how about putting Kramer in the Wildcat with the opportunity of throwing out of the pocket to our tight ends on quick outs or wr's on slants. Purdue made a living out of clearing the CB zone and allowing #88 to drift out from his TE or slot position for 5-10 yards, with some catches gaining additional yardage. #88 was the guy that leaf frogged over our defender for a big gain.
 

GopherPete said:
Fair enough, but all I'm saying is that if even 2 or 3 of those balls are caught Morgan's statline looks a lot different.
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I wasn't able to watch the game or the recording since I'm in PAC 10 country and don't subscribe to BTN. When people say that Bell dropped a couple balls (and allot of people are saying this) that 'could have/should have' significantly increased Morgan's stat line; does that mean he had one hand on the ball, he had 2 hands on the ball, the ball hit his chest and he flat out dropped it? I'm wondering how valid is the thought that there should have been 2/3 more completions that would have really changed Morgan's stat line.

I'm asking since his stat line was still NOT impressive in my mind but again, I didn't see the game, nor the conditions. Looking at the Purdue QB and Morgan, the stat lines show the Purdue QB was far more impressive than Morgan, which to me reflects there are still issues with the OC (play calling), QB (execution) or both that obviously must be worked out.

I really want to see some screens and simple plays like that which can really loosen up a defense and get the QB more comfortable. Seems like the play calling for the passing game were all or nothing which to me does not show that OC worked out his creativity issues.
 
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Gopher 461 said:
At the risk of driving GHers nuts, how about putting Kramer in the Wildcat with the opportunity of throwing out of the pocket to our tight ends on quick outs or wr's on slants. Purdue made a living out of clearing the CB zone and allowing #88 to drift out from his TE or slot position for 5-10 yards, with some catches gaining additional yardage. #88 was the guy that leaf frogged over our defender for a big gain.
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Morgan ran a bit last weekend.

With that in mind I feel like at best we're talking about 6 of one or half a dozen of the other picking between the two QBs to run that play.
 

Copy that. Though the OC doesn't seem to want to run those plays. At 6'7" SF is a good target.
 

There is plenty of evidence pointing toward replacing the OC being a sound decision. One example of many:
If the only time you bring in Kramer he keeps the ball and runs, that's not good football.
Sure, if you keep doing it and now he finally does pass once, then the pass play has an excellent chance to fool your opponent and be very positive if you execute. But there are more efficient ways to achieve the same result. It is the same with much of what the OC does.
 

DanvilleGopher said:
I wasn't able to watch the game or the recording since I'm in PAC 10 country and don't subscribe to BTN. When people say that Bell dropped a couple balls (and allot of people are saying this) that 'could have/should have' significantly increased Morgan's stat line; does that mean he had one hand on the ball, he had 2 hands on the ball, the ball hit his chest and he flat out dropped it? I'm wondering how valid is the thought that there should have been 2/3 more completions that would have really changed Morgan's stat line.

I'm asking since his stat line was still NOT impressive in my mind but again, I didn't see the game, nor the conditions. Looking at the Purdue QB and Morgan, the stat lines show the Purdue QB was far more impressive than Morgan, which to me reflects there are still issues with the OC (play calling), QB (execution) or both that obviously must be worked out.

I really want to see some screens and simple plays like that which can really loosen up a defense and get the QB more comfortable. Seems like the play calling for the passing game were all or nothing which to me does not show that OC worked out his creativity issues.
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three balls went through his hands...a nice slant came in hot from Tanner, but if he grabs it he might go for 50 and a TD....had a deep pass that would have been a 40 yard gain, iirc...
 

My issue is with the construction of the passing game. there seem to be almost no short-to-moderate distance routes - a 10-yd out pattern - a 12-yard-curl - a drag route over the middle at the 10-12 yard mark- a simple down-and-out at 12-15 yards. Even the hard inside slant that helped send Tyler Johnson to the NFL.

The Gophers "route tree" seems to be missing some limbs.......

with the Gophers, it's either a dump-off to the TE or a deep pattern down the sidelines.

and the more predictable the offense becomes - the easier it becomes to defend against.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
My issue is with the construction of the passing game. there seem to be almost no short-to-moderate distance routes - a 10-yd out pattern - a 12-yard-curl - a drag route over the middle at the 10-12 yard mark- a simple down-and-out at 12-15 yards. Even the hard inside slant that helped send Tyler Johnson to the NFL.

The Gophers "route tree" seems to be missing some limbs.......

with the Gophers, it's either a dump-off to the TE or a deep pattern down the sidelines.

and the more predictable the offense becomes - the easier it becomes to defend against.
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Yeah the quick passes over the middle in BG game were super quick snappy passes that were ultra short routes... against teams stacking the box so there was often a LB right there to make a play if he chose to just stand up.

That's not really a solution ... gotta get to where they ain't first ...

One play involved Morgan running for his life, when he looked downfield there were two WRs standing next to eachtoher ... covered. I hope that was a mistake by the WRs ... man I hope so.
 
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short ornery norwegian said:
My issue is with the construction of the passing game. there seem to be almost no short-to-moderate distance routes - a 10-yd out pattern - a 12-yard-curl - a drag route over the middle at the 10-12 yard mark- a simple down-and-out at 12-15 yards. Even the hard inside slant that helped send Tyler Johnson to the NFL.

The Gophers "route tree" seems to be missing some limbs.......

with the Gophers, it's either a dump-off to the TE or a deep pattern down the sidelines.

and the more predictable the offense becomes - the easier it becomes to defend against.
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This. All of this.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
My issue is with the construction of the passing game. there seem to be almost no short-to-moderate distance routes - a 10-yd out pattern - a 12-yard-curl - a drag route over the middle at the 10-12 yard mark- a simple down-and-out at 12-15 yards. Even the hard inside slant that helped send Tyler Johnson to the NFL.

The Gophers "route tree" seems to be missing some limbs.......

with the Gophers, it's either a dump-off to the TE or a deep pattern down the sidelines.

and the more predictable the offense becomes - the easier it becomes to defend against.
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This has lead to much of the QB pressures/sacks. Tanner dropping back with 1 or 2 (while in heavy formation) or 3 receivers going deep mean that when they blitz or get quick pressure, there is no quick place for Tanner to throw the ball. So he eats the ball, or tries to run.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Minnesota had 241 yards and 12 first downs against Bowling Green. The Gophers had 294 total yards and 12 first downs against Purdue.

That's not much of an improvement.
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It's not great, but playing Purdue on the road in pouring rain is a few notches up from clear sunny skies at home against the doormat of the MAC
 

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