Gophers ran 83 offensive plays

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

Generally speaking, if you run 70 plays on offense, you're controlling the game and the LOS. The Gophers ran 83 plays to just 35 for MTSU.

The Gophers had FIVE drives of 10 plays or more. Five drives. They had two 3-and-outs and none past the first quarter.

For a team that struggled with mindless penalties last year:

In the FIRST game of the season, ON the road, the Gophers had 4 penalties; a false start, a holding call, offsides on a kickoff, and an illegal substitution penalty on defense. If I recall correctly, not one of those penalties were drive stoppers.

Some of you are still "concerned about the passing game" after tonight's game, even though the Rodents passed the ball just 17 times and ran it 66 times. Weber's numbers almost mirrored that of the MTSU QB, who some fans were saying looked TREMENDOUSLY better than Weber.

There were basically two things that upset me about the game tonight; Ellestad missing two FG's that he should make 90% of and missed tackles on defense. Other than that, it's hard to argue with the results.

 

[Maverick]

+1

 

[StartGrayPlz]

All good points

 

[MBAGuy]

I'm with you, Ogee and those are generally fair points.

The only one I take issue with is our QB play. Frankly, it's not good enough that our QB play is comparable to MTSU's. We're starting a 5th year senior and they're starting a JUCO transfer in his first ever FBS start. I recognize we were emphasizing the rushing game tonight; but there was still far too much staring down of receivers and missing his target on fairly straightforward passes.

Time will tell, I guess. I just feel like the Weber tonight was not fundamentally different than the Weber from last year. The rest of the offense seems to have made decent progress from the SDSU and ISU games. Can't say the same about him.

 

[Schnoodler]

I just don't get what's terrible about 10/17 and no INT's. So he had a couple of bad throws early. Our recievers didn't exactly help at all. Alot of hands on those missed passes.

He also made some great throws to sustain some very important drives. Managed a game that included over 80 plays. Oh, we won.

You guys are way too critical of Weber.

 

[monk10]

You guys are way too critical of Weber.

Perception is key product produced by the Weber Myth Engineers(tm). They are trying to control the perception early to convince people so that they can convince others that if we go down to Roseville Jr. HIgh we can find a better QB. The same crap gets repeated over and over again.

 

[MBAGuy]

Perception is key product produced by the Weber Myth Engineers(tm). They are trying to control the perception early to convince people so that they can convince others that if we go down to Roseville Jr. HIgh we can find a better QB. The same crap gets repeated over and over again.

Due respect, I'm not exactly a Gopher antagonist around here. I'm just not that impressed with Weber. I expect more from a 5th year QB than to simply be a game manager. He could hand the ball off 66 times today, but that likely won't be an option later this season. Like I said, we'll find out as the games go on.

Why must there be some sort of conspiracy associated with every moderately negative sentiment? I'm as big of a Gopher rube as anyone I know. That doesn't preclude me from wishing we could get more out of the QB position, though.

 

[AhliBobwa]

Generally speaking, if you run 70 plays on offense, you're controlling the game and the LOS. The Gophers ran 83 plays to just 35 for MTSU.

The Gophers had FIVE drives of 10 plays or more. Five drives. They had two 3-and-outs and none past the first quarter.

For a team that struggled with mindless penalties last year:

In the FIRST game of the season, ON the road, the Gophers had 4 penalties; a false start, a holding call, offsides on a kickoff, and an illegal substitution penalty on defense. If I recall correctly, not one of those penalties were drive stoppers.

Some of you are still "concerned about the passing game" after tonight's game, even though the Rodents passed the ball just 17 times and ran it 66 times. Weber's numbers almost mirrored that of the MTSU QB, who some fans were saying looked TREMENDOUSLY better than Weber.

There were basically two things that upset me about the game tonight; Ellestad missing two FG's that he should make 90% of and missed tackles on defense. Other than that, it's hard to argue with the results.

Great post. People are forgetting that MTSU is a really good team. The Gophers did a lot of really good things tonight. If Gopher fans had been told that Duane Bennett would look like a legitimate starting Big Ten RB to the tune of 187 yds, team would have 281 yds on the ground, Weber would be 10-17 with no pics, team would engineer a clutch 90+ yd drive from inside the one yard line, and the TOP would be 45-15, these same critics would have been ecstatic.

Very few teams click on all cylinders in week 1. Remember, the Orange Bowl winning pigeyes of last year needed a blocked fg to beat northern iowa.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

True, but

Due respect, I'm not exactly a Gopher antagonist around here. I'm just not that impressed with Weber. I expect more from a 5th year QB than to simply be a game manager. He could hand the ball off 66 times today, but that likely won't be an option later this season. Like I said, we'll find out as the games go on.

Why must there be some sort of conspiracy associated with every moderately negative sentiment? I'm as big of a Gopher rube as anyone I know. That doesn't preclude me from wishing we could get more out of the QB position, though.

Look, I'm not saying Weber was amazing. He managed a pretty good game, that's about the best you can say.


But with all due respect, he was playing against a defense that came in with the sole purpose of blitzing and putting pressure on him; a defense that was one of the top teams in the country last year in Tackles For Loss, one that just plain does a lot of gambling on defense in order to try to make the opposing team/QB uncomfortable.

Let's not forget the starting Left Tackle for the Gophers, Weber's primary source of protection, is a RS Freshman playing his first game and got beat a few times BADLY by Lattimore off the edge.

MTSU came in really wanting to force Weber into making some mistakes and it just didn't happen. He deserves some credit for that.

 

[Max Power]

I just don't get what's terrible about 10/17 and no INT's. So he had a couple of bad throws early. Our recievers didn't exactly help at all. Alot of hands on those missed passes.

He also made some great throws to sustain some very important drives. Managed a game that included over 80 plays. Oh, we won.

You guys are way too critical of Weber.

This.

 

[Gophergrrl]

The biggest thing I see as a laywoman with Weber is issues with footwork. It doesn't seem like he always sets properly and has trouble sometimes getting cleanly out of the center exchange. I'll have to go back and rewatch the game but it seems like at times he struggles squaring himself before the pass which contributes, I'd imagine, to some accuracy problems. That said he didn't play that badly today. He had a couple gaffes with a fumbled exchange, a couple bad sacks he took but a lot of that, as was said, could just come down to the pressure he took. Drawing any definitive conclusions about how he's progressed after one game would be pretty silly.

Overall the offense dominated the time of possession, established the run game, kept a good rotation of backs in and just needed to convert some more opportunities. I don't see any reason to be upset by this game at all but I tend to take a long term of views in sports and in life. Give the new offense time to mature and develop and let's see what unfolds.