Having a star QB ......

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Injury from the bowl game against Syracuse could be tweaked/nagging him?
 

short ornery norwegian said:
on the Gopher Gridiron Podcast, former Gopher OL Derek Burns had an interesting point. He said Athan tends to have the most success against Man defenses, and he struggles more against Zones.

According to Burns, that comes down to being able to read defenses and make quick decisions. against a Man defense, it's a simpler read. against a Zone, it's a more complicated read. Burns suspects that Athan is still having trouble processing certain defenses and that makes him more tentative. against a Man, he can just drop back and let 'er rip.

I have to say that Derek Burns is very good at breaking that type of stuff down and making it understandable. He also went through a fairly detailed breakdown of how Illinois changed its defensive schemes in the 2nd half to shut down the Gopher running game.
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This x 1000.

If the D goes zone and the primary / first read is covered, AK has no chance. He can not read a defense to save his life. He then gets flustered and then throws a 200 mph low pass to his closest 2nd or 3rd read.

Even in man, thank God we have #9, he throws to his 1st read 80% of the time.

Watching college football as much as I do, AK is not bad. He is very similar to the majority of college QBs that are all average. It's when you take QB's in the top 1/3 that you can really see the difference between average college QBs and the one's that are simply a notch better.
 

Devin Brown. 2nd string Qb at tOSU. Injured at the moment. 2nd string and behind McCord. Being pushed big time by 2 freshmen. Big guy who can run. Fleck needs to put full court press on if he enters the portal. Sweeten the pot by offering to bring in a quarterback whisperer to help with his development.
 


Many quarterbacks improve dramatically with a combination of experience, better teammates, coaching. It’s an absolute mystery why his mechanics are so awful but maybe it’s just nerves and hearing footsteps. Google says he threw for over 10 ypa and 64% in 2018 season. Obviously against much, much worse defenses but he is capable of completing passes/a decent completion percentage.

I don’t know. He needs help from his team he hasn’t been receiving (as did Morgan), he needs to improve his accuracy and touch - maybe my biggest concern. Tough to even complete the easy 5 yard stuff right now. Processing speed and decisions (it factor) should progress if he’s mentally capable and if he isn’t time to cut losses. Fleck needs to commit to developing the pass game rather than treating it as the red-headed stepchild. The last series versus Illinois was emblematic. Awful. What does AK need to succeed? A new coach? Go get him.


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Good arm. Can scramble and create time. Tough. Appears to be a good leader and all around person. Struggles with accuracy and touch on crossing routes on short and intermediate throws (what should be a bread and butter play in this offense). The offense will succeed or fail in tough games on this last point IMO.
 

Burns (GI, not Derek) and Gaard were both saying that he actually played pretty well against ILL. If you talk about things like “adjusted completion percentage” of 65% (I think that does not count drops), not turning the ball over, having some really nice throws. Think someone posted he had PFF grade in the 90’s, which tries to use advanced analytics to factor everything.

But then yes to @Texan Gopher point … and hell you see this in the NFL too!! … there really just aren’t that many great QB’s. The ones there are go to the helmet schools, and everyone else has to make do with what they can get.


Just again, both defense and offense lost the game on some really frustrating plays where they failed to execute. Get a first down, game is over. Stop ice cold fresh off the bench backup QB on 4th & 11, game is over. Don’t let the best WR in the conference other than Harrison Jr get behind you for a huge TD, game is over. Three swings, three massive misses.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
on the Gopher Gridiron Podcast, former Gopher OL Derek Burns had an interesting point. He said Athan tends to have the most success against Man defenses, and he struggles more against Zones.

According to Burns, that comes down to being able to read defenses and make quick decisions. against a Man defense, it's a simpler read. against a Zone, it's a more complicated read. Burns suspects that Athan is still having trouble processing certain defenses and that makes him more tentative. against a Man, he can just drop back and let 'er rip.

I have to say that Derek Burns is very good at breaking that type of stuff down and making it understandable. He also went through a fairly detailed breakdown of how Illinois changed its defensive schemes in the 2nd half to shut down the Gopher running game.
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I have to wonder if this is why we rarely run the RPO anymore. At least not nearly as much as we used to. Morgan had his limitations but he was a master at reading it, especially in 2019.
 

I think RPO was Ciarrocca’s baby.

Were we not running that against Wisc at the end of last year when AK had one of the best games of his life?
 



Pompous Elitist said:
Many quarterbacks improve dramatically with a combination of experience, better teammates, coaching. It’s an absolute mystery why his mechanics are so awful but maybe it’s just nerves and hearing footsteps. Google says he threw for over 10 ypa and 64% in 2018 season. Obviously against much, much worse defenses but he is capable of completing passes/a decent completion percentage.

I don’t know. He needs help from his team he hasn’t been receiving (as did Morgan), he needs to improve his accuracy and touch - maybe my biggest concern. Tough to even complete the easy 5 yard stuff right now. Processing speed and decisions (it factor) should progress if he’s mentally capable and if he isn’t time to cut losses. Fleck needs to commit to developing the pass game rather than treating it as the red-headed stepchild. The last series versus Illinois was emblematic. Awful. What does AK need to succeed? A new coach? Go get him.


.
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I think you hit on the two biggest factors: Fleck needs to commit to developing the passing game, and that definitely means getting a successful, accomplished QB coach at minimum.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I have to wonder if this is why we rarely run the RPO anymore. At least not nearly as much as we used to. Morgan had his limitations but he was a master at reading it, especially in 2019.
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The RPO should actually make it easier to read the defense.
 





MplsGopher said:
Burns (GI, not Derek) and Gaard were both saying that he actually played pretty well against ILL. If you talk about things like “adjusted completion percentage” of 65% (I think that does not count drops), not turning the ball over, having some really nice throws. Think someone posted he had PFF grade in the 90’s, which tries to use advanced analytics to factor everything.

But then yes to @Texan Gopher point … and hell you see this in the NFL too!! … there really just aren’t that many great QB’s. The ones there are go to the helmet schools, and everyone else has to make do with what they can get.


Just again, both defense and offense lost the game on some really frustrating plays where they failed to execute. Get a first down, game is over. Stop ice cold fresh off the bench backup QB on 4th & 11, game is over. Don’t let the best WR in the conference other than Harrison Jr get behind you for a huge TD, game is over. Three swings, three massive misses.
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Do you have any issue with the defensive call that allowed the cold, backup QB all the time needed to wait for the best WR in the conference other than Harrison to get behind the secondary?
 

Dakota2 said:
Do you have any issue with the defensive call that allowed the cold, backup QB all the time needed to wait for the best WR in the conference other than Harrison to get behind the secondary?
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I have more of an issue with our All American safety letting that receiver get behind him.
 

They rushed 4 against either 10 or 00 pers and fairly long field with needing a TD.

Rossi isn’t Brian Flores, and I doubt you’re ever going to see a blitz out of him (Rossi) in that situation.


If Gousby (still say it’s more his fault) and Nubin are on the same page, who knows.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Agreed with OP. Think not recruiting future #1 picks has been a bad strategy
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Recruiting time and money are finite. Coaches need to focus on candidates whom they can hope to get to show up. The premier players are more likely to opt for settings they see as more desirable than UM and Minneapolis.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I have more of an issue with our All American safety letting that receiver get behind him.
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Plenty of blame to go around. Not getting a first on third and one late in the game was the start of the panic. Then memories of NWern must have crept in along with the almost-loss to Iowa on a series of ole tackles during the punt return. The one thing teams must remember is that just because you think the game is over doesn't mean the other guy thinks so.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
I have more of an issue with our All American safety letting that receiver get behind him.
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Why take that risk when pressure up front could have forced a throw way before Williams could run that route?
 

Dakota2 said:
Why take that risk when pressure up front could have forced a throw way before Williams could run that route?
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You think it’s less risky to bring pressure? I’ve never heard that one before.
 


AK has made progress. I have no idea if he will be good enough in the new SLAUGHTER Big Ten conference with all those powerful West Coast teams coming in.

Maybe the Oracle of Delphi knows.
 

If Kirk Cousins return to QB1 next year, be nice if Gophers can land Dobbs? 😆
 


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