Gray's missed td passes

[Winnipegopher]

Much has been made about Gray’s “five” missed td passes and also a lot has been made about how good our receivers looked. I would like to analyze this a bit more.
By my count the incomplete td passes were:

1. Rabe on the opening drive. This was the worst of the bunch. They ran a play similar to the second td in OT and Gray overthrew him. This was the worst one and a clear bad throw by Q.
2. MacDonald in the second quarter. Defender fell down, MacDonald wide open. I watched on the computer but it looked to me that the ball hits the ground just a few yards from MacDonald who is not even trying to adjust his route to get to the ball. Possibly a bad throw but Andre has to go to the ball.
3. Two deep balls to Fruechte. Both overthrows by a couple of yards. Should also note that on the second one Gray scrambled and bought time and then threw it as far as he could. Even in the NFL, people miss deep balls all the time.
4. Which other one am I missing?

Now on to the receivers. Everyone seems pumped about the wrs but I can only recall one really good catch, Barker’s grab along the sidelines in the fourth quarter. All the other completions were right in their mitts.

 

[stocker08]

Much has been made about Gray’s “five” missed td passes and also a lot has been made about how good our receivers looked. I would like to analyze this a bit more.
By my count the incomplete td passes were:

1. Rabe on the opening drive. This was the worst of the bunch. They ran a play similar to the second td in OT and Gray overthrew him. This was the worst one and a clear bad throw by Q.
2. MacDonald in the second quarter. Defender fell down, MacDonald wide open. I watched on the computer but it looked to me that the ball hits the ground just a few yards from MacDonald who is not even trying to adjust his route to get to the ball. Possibly a bad throw but Andre has to go to the ball.
3. Two deep balls to Fruechte. Both overthrows by a couple of yards. Should also note that on the second one Gray scrambled and bought time and then threw it as far as he could. Even in the NFL, people miss deep balls all the time.
4. Which other one am I missing?

Now on to the receivers. Everyone seems pumped about the wrs but I can only recall one really good catch, Barker’s grab along the sidelines in the fourth quarter. All the other completions were right in their mitts.

Well run routes. Creating separation from the d-backs. I saw a whole lot of it all game.

 

[Formo]

Much has been made about Gray’s “five” missed td passes and also a lot has been made about how good our receivers looked. I would like to analyze this a bit more.
By my count the incomplete td passes were:

1. Rabe on the opening drive. This was the worst of the bunch. They ran a play similar to the second td in OT and Gray overthrew him. This was the worst one and a clear bad throw by Q.
2. MacDonald in the second quarter. Defender fell down, MacDonald wide open. I watched on the computer but it looked to me that the ball hits the ground just a few yards from MacDonald who is not even trying to adjust his route to get to the ball. Possibly a bad throw but Andre has to go to the ball.
3. Two deep balls to Fruechte. Both overthrows by a couple of yards. Should also note that on the second one Gray scrambled and bought time and then threw it as far as he could. Even in the NFL, people miss deep balls all the time.
4. Which other one am I missing?

Now on to the receivers. Everyone seems pumped about the wrs but I can only recall one really good catch, Barker’s grab along the sidelines in the fourth quarter. All the other completions were right in their mitts.

#4) Not sure when it was, but it was before the huge swing and a miss to Andre, there was another pass that just bounced off his one hand. I'm old school receiver and was taught if I can get one hand on the ball, then get BOTH hands on the ball. And CATCH IT (we ran, ALOT for dropped balls), but while Andre did technically have his hand on the ball for a split second, I can't blame him for not being able to haul it in.. If that ball had 1/2 a second of air under it, that's a huge first down, if not 6 on the board.

I also think I remember more than those 5, but that could be my mind playing games on me, too.

I also think you are crazy saying the McDonald needs to adjust to his route/get the ball. That was far more of a miss than your #1 to Rabe. The defender fell, how do we know that their legs didn't get tangled up and Andre was just fighting to stay on his feet? Or maybe it was just Q's jitters (he seems to have them this time of year) and the true freshman WR's green showing?

 

[GophersInIowa]

Well run routes. Creating separation from the d-backs. I saw a whole lot of it all game.

They also showed a lot of athleticism and speed.

There was also one overthrown in the flats (maybe to Jones?). It wouldn't have been a TD but it looked like the receiver had a lot of room to run.

 

[stocker08]

They also showed a lot of athleticism and speed.

There was also one overthrown in the flats (maybe to Jones?). It wouldn't have been a TD but it looked like the receiver had a lot of room to run.

Yes. Certainly nice to see after all of the uncertainty about this group. While they were not all receivers, we had nine different players catch a pass.

 

[jmag21]

As I recall, he had another bad one to Rabe at one point.

 

[Ogie Ogilthorpe]

Much has been made about Gray’s “five” missed td passes and also a lot has been made about how good our receivers looked. I would like to analyze this a bit more.
By my count the incomplete td passes were:

1. Rabe on the opening drive. This was the worst of the bunch. They ran a play similar to the second td in OT and Gray overthrew him. This was the worst one and a clear bad throw by Q.
2. MacDonald in the second quarter. Defender fell down, MacDonald wide open. I watched on the computer but it looked to me that the ball hits the ground just a few yards from MacDonald who is not even trying to adjust his route to get to the ball. Possibly a bad throw but Andre has to go to the ball.
3. Two deep balls to Fruechte. Both overthrows by a couple of yards. Should also note that on the second one Gray scrambled and bought time and then threw it as far as he could. Even in the NFL, people miss deep balls all the time.
4. Which other one am I missing?

Now on to the receivers. Everyone seems pumped about the wrs but I can only recall one really good catch, Barker’s grab along the sidelines in the fourth quarter. All the other completions were right in their mitts.

2) McDonald. That was along our sideline and I'll watch some of the game again tonight but it sure looked like McDonald slowed down the last 6-8 steps. McDonald should have had that one.

3) The deep ones to Fruechte, yes, they were overthrows but those were more "home run" balls I think that you don't typically complete a high percentage of. He missed them badly, true, but they weren't ones that you expect to complete a high percentage of.

Others: Driving towards the north end zone (open end), missed a receiver (Rabe again I think?) right down the middle/seam, wide open, again way over his head in the end zone. Can't recall for sure but this might have been right before halftime, prior to the missed FG near the end of the first half.

> The ball to AJ Barker; shows up as a nice 30-yd completion but nobody was within 15 yards of Barker and he had to make a twisting circus catch, falling out of bounds just to haul it in. Should have been a 70-yd TD play.

> Another ball to a receiver down the same sideline (DCT?), going to the south end zone, overthrown badly earlier in the game, first quarter.

> A couple of short flat/out routes for possible small gains that were thrown into the ground, which didn't bother me that much at the time, but likely would have been 5-10 yard gainers. Not a major deal, outside of how badly he missed the mark from 10 yards away.

> Two scrambles from pressure late in the game, heading south, when Gray was flushed from the pocket and never even looked downfield. Not a chance in the world that there weren't multiple receivers wide open at that point. Not missed throws, but significantly missed opportunities; both of them were with the Gophers well across midfield.

Just off the top of my head. Haven't watched the TV airing of the game, might look at it more this weekend if I get bored. The wife doesn't understand this at all. Oh well...

 

[husker70]

When he was throwing to Rabe he shortened his motion almost like he was throwing darts. He need touch, or a little more air under the ball on the longer throws to let the reciever run under it.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

Yup, gray needs to put air under the ball and put it on the receiver's to adjust. When people are THAT open, all you have to do is put enough air under it and get it in the general vicinity. The WR will do the rest.

 

[Formo]

Yup, gray needs to put air under the ball and put it on the receiver's to adjust. When people are THAT open, all you have to do is put enough air under it and get it in the general vicinity. The WR will do the rest.

THIS.

+1

< insert>whatever else type of agreement cliche here< /insert>

 

[STPGopher]

When he was throwing to Rabe he shortened his motion almost like he was throwing darts. He need touch, or a little more air under the ball on the longer throws to let the reciever run under it.

While I agree with many of the comments in this thread, including this one, I don't think things are as bad as many of us think. Many celebrate the shots our D gave Sherry, but dismiss that Gray had things that affected/ impacted his play.

1. It's no secret Gray gets jacked up early in the game/ season. The first miss/ tipped INT IMO reflected that.

2. Gray took (and delivered) shots as well.

3. We all have read about Gray sweating way more than normal. Could one or two of those got away from him early/ slipped a bit during release? Gray mentioned this as an issue early last season.

4. I've seen the likes of even OSU QB's have some big overthrows on long pass attempts.

Granted Gray made many mistakes, but I do think that I saw enough to believe that things are not as bad as they looked last night, nor are all of the misses 100% Gray's fault. I also believe that Gray will continue to improve his play (along with the rest of the team) as the season progresses. I think we are forgetting that even though Gray is a senior, he is really a Sophomore as a complete QB. I don't think that the Wildcat experience helped much more than the WR experience.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Re-watched the McDonald play. . .

I'm not entirely sure who was at fault on that play.
First, Gray was already throwing the football when the DB slipped. He wasn't just striding wide open when Gray made the throw so he couldn't just loft it up for Andre to run underneath.
Second, it kind of seems like McDonald should have cut that route a bit more inside. I'm still not entirely sure it would have been a well thrown ball, but it looks more like a mix up between a QB and a WR than it does like just a poorly thrown ball.
I don't know, it's hard to say. If anyone else rewatches the play, let me know what you think.

The Rabe throw was brutal, his worst throw of the night.

The Fruechte throws. . . meh. The second one would have been an All American caliber of play, you cannot blame him for not making that play. If you call that "missing on a TD" than every time Kirwood ran he missed on a TD because he hypothetically could have broke it for a TD. The first one, it still would have been an NFL caliber throw. I hope he can make a couple more of those, but I don't think I'd call those "missed TDs".

The throw to Barker that he made a fantastic catch, if that would have been led properly, it could have gone for much more too.

As far as the receivers....

#1: The routes? That's partially them, but that's partially the timing of the QB as well. DCT's big gain was largely the result of Gray getting the ball to him at the perfect time in the perfect place. YAC is only possible if the QB has good timing.

 

[Iceland12]

Gray went 17 for 30 for 260 yards, two TD's and one interception. Took two overtimes to get there but overall okay. Now after reading today's Hole turns out he should have been at LEAST 24 for 30 with seven touchdowns and 300 yards plus!

Wow, can't say my expectations for Gray were way quite that high.

 

[EG#9]

One play people are not talking about, but I thought was significant was a poor read by Gray in the first that Aaron Taylor commented on. UNLV busted a coverage and let a Gopher run WIDE OPEN down the seam, but Gray locked in on the outside guy and threw an incompletion.

One point I have not seen people bring up yet in defense of Gray is that it is difficult as a QB to have timing with as many different wideouts as the Gophers used yesterday. Every guy run each route a little differently, has different size/speed, etc. Hopefully, we'll see an improvement from week 1 to week 2, but a couple of those deep balls needed to be completed and were not as difficult of throws (IMHO) as some in this thread think.

 

[supadupafly]

don't get me wrong. i hope gray plays out of his mind this year. he has put in the work, shown great leadership at times over the last 2 years and is our team's QB this season. he deserves to be the starting QB this season. he can make some throws from time to time. but let's all be honest. he is and likely always will be a runner more than a thrower. it is just what he is. not saying that is good or bad.

that said, i am intrigued by the play, size, speed and what looks like more precise route running of some of our younger receivers. and looking forward to seeing how they progress when they will be receiving what will likely be more consistent and accurate passes from more traditional, pro-style pocket passers like shortell, nelson, leidner.

not a knock on gray. just an observation/side thought.

 

[btowngopher]

He also missed a wide open wr down the seem, electing instead to throw it to the the guy who was double covered on the same route combo for an incompletion. You can't just look at Gray's stats and be satisfied. That stat line can be ok in some situations, but it wasn't in this game. We scored one td in 4 quarters. You can't blame people for expecting more. He was 15 for 28 for 234 yrds no tds and an int through 4 quarters, that's not good enough. There's no reason why Gray shouldn't have posted a line like 17 for 28 with 2 tds and 270 yrds. That's a conservative estimate allowing him to miss more then half the big throws mentioned, and even that would've let us win this game comfortably.

 

[supadupafly]

Gray went 17 for 30 for 26 yards, two TD's and one interception. Took two overtimes to get there but overall okay. Now after reading today's Hole turns out he should have been at LEAST 24 for 30 with seven touchdowns and 300 yards plus!

Wow, can't say my expectations for Gray were way quite that high.

thinking your math/stats might be just a little off here! did you mean to write 260 yards?

 

[Iceland12]

thinking your math/stats might be just a little off here! did you mean to write 260 yards?

Thought I did but after reading about how god-awful Gray was I'm thinking the official stats were wrong!