Hello Gophers, from a CSU fan.

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In regards to our front 7 being slow, here are their measured max velocities (all from last summer except Poock which is from this summer) compared to a few Gophers who have official 40 times after going through the combine/draft process

LB - Cody Poock 20.0 mph
LB - DeVondre Campbell 20.4 mph
LB - Jack Lynn 19.9 mph
DE - Thieren Cockran 19.2 mph
DE - Hank Ekpe 19.3 mph
DT - Scott Ekpe 18.1 mph
NT - Steven Richardson 17.4 mph

Comparison group

S - Cedric Thompson 21.7 mph = 4.38 40 yd dash
S - Derrick Wells 21.3 mph = 4.50
CB - Marcus Johnes 21.0 mph = 4.53
WR - Issac Fruecte 21.0 mph = 4.50
RB - David Cobb 21.0 mph = ~4.6
LB - Damien Wilson 20.6 mph = 4.77
TE - Max Williams 20.5 mph = 4.78
RB - Donnell Kirkwood 19.5 mph = 4.70
DT - Cam Bottichelli 19.0 mph = 5.06
G - Zach Epping 15.3 mph = 5.41

So given those numbers, the current starters would come in around:

LB - Cody Poock ~4.75-4.8
LB - DeVondre Campbell ~low 4.7's
LB - Jack Lynn ~4.75-4.8
DE - Thieren Cockran ~4.85
DE - Hank Ekpe ~4.85
DT - Scott Ekpe ~5.2
NT - Steven Richardson ~5.25

These times fall pretty much in line with NFL averages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-yard_dash#Average_time_by_position. This also assumes no improvement from last summer.

Obviously a lot more that pure speed goes into being "fast" on the football field - reaction time, agility, acceleration etc. are all just as important if not more important than top end speed, but I do this this illustrates that at least athletically, we have a pretty quick front 7 by D1 standards.
 

Speed use to be a major problem in the B1G years. Especially at the U, we were so slow and got burned all the time on defense. The current staff is a big fan of speed and length. They get the right athletic skills and coach them into their position.

Our third string RB was the sprint (100 & 200) champion in Michigan, member of the Junior Olympic winning sprint relay team and he is not the fastest player on the team. Every team could use more speed, but nobody's WR will be out running our DB's!


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Thanks for the data Golden_Sloth but data doesn't matter. We "looked" slow against TCU and the Rams "looked" fast against Savannah State...............therefore our NFL-quality secondary will be chasing Ram wideouts all afternoon. Sounds like we will be in a lot of Cover 3 and prevent-D just to try and contain their greased lightning.
 

I will go record with two observations.

If our front seven looks slow against CSU:
1. It will be a long and disappointing season for Gophers.
2. It will be a long and disappointing season for TCU.
 

Winnipegopher said:
I will go record with two observations.

If our front seven looks slow against CSU:
1. It will be a long and disappointing season for Gophers.
2. It will be a long and disappointing season for TCU.
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+1
 



I've said it before, if CSU turns the ball over 4 times as they did vs one of the worst teams in football, Gophers win easily.

I do think CSU has a good shot at an upset, but they need to force some turnovers and slow run game down.

My guess is we'll see similar to what we saw last year in some early games, early success by CSU passing attack, adjustment by Claeys at halftime and lockdown second half.

I'd put gophers winning at about 75%
 

Section2 said:
I have the opposite feeling. As Claeys said, they probably have a lot of wrinkles to roll out to start the game, and they might start off fast. I wouldn't be surprised if they gave us a couple shots early, especially if Travis can't go. If we get up early or get some early TOs, I think we win going away. If my first thought happens, I think it's a dog fight.

CSU posters sound like SEC posters, all they talk about is their speed. Every single guy on our defense was recruited because they can run. We haven't been outrun in a long time, including OSU and TCU last year and this. It's comical to me that they think the game will be won on speed.
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I am pretty sure JT Barrett out ran our entire defense for, oh, about 86 yards.
 

If you look at that play the safeties were out of position. Barrett, who does have speed, only had Campbell chasing him and even he was close to tacking him.
 





goofinSF said:
I stand corrected. My bad.
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You are not allowed to say that here on GH! You are supposed to keep debating.

To answer the OP...most of what has to be discussed already has been. Nobody learned anything about CSU from their opening game. We know they were 102nd in the country against the run last year. Hopefully Minnesota is able to exploit that. I think we will see more misdirection and jet sweep action this week. Why? CSU's defense is not as fast as TCU's.

I hope defensively we generate a pass rush early and rattle the new starting QB. Last week we were in 3-3-5 almost exclusively with Huff and other LB's playing the rush end spot.
 

This video played right after your link to Barrett's run... Pretty funny how the guy really wants to call us Michigan.

http:/[video]http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:13623255[/video]
 



First of all most of us haven't seen the "new" look CSU team. New coach, and new offense and defense could give CSU the upper hand early on.

At a glance it looks like strength vs strength(CSU O vs Gopher D) and strength vs weakness(Gopher O(run game)) vs CSU(run) D. Special teams could be a huge factor, as it appears that none of your kickers have much experience. They also seem to have trouble keeping kick-offs in the field of play. Being able to start drive(s) at the 35 could be a huge plus.
 


STPGopher said:
First of all most of us haven't seen the "new" look CSU team. New coach, and new offense and defense could give CSU the upper hand early on.

At a glance it looks like strength vs strength(CSU O vs Gopher D) and strength vs weakness(Gopher O(run game)) vs CSU(run) D. Special teams could be a huge factor, as it appears that none of your kickers have much experience. They also seem to have trouble keeping kick-offs in the field of play. Being able to start drive(s) at the 35 could be a huge plus.
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so there's a reason they'll be playing the game?
 

goofinSF said:
This video played right after your link to Barrett's run... Pretty funny how the guy really wants to call us Michigan.

http:/[video]http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:13623255[/video]
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A couple things:

Michi-michi-Minnesota. That reminds me of my parents trying to yell at my youngest brother when we were younger. They'd go through my and our middle brother's names first.

Second, is anything on CBSSN really a "national stage"? I mean, it's no AggieVision...
 

salzie said:
I've said it before, if CSU turns the ball over 4 times as they did vs one of the worst teams in football, Gophers win easily.

I do think CSU has a good shot at an upset, but they need to force some turnovers and slow run game down.

My guess is we'll see similar to what we saw last year in some early games, early success by CSU passing attack, adjustment by Claeys at halftime and lockdown second half.

I'd put gophers winning at about 75%
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I agree with you about the turnovers, it won't be close if CSU repeats week 1. But on another note, how the hell do you score 63 points with that many turnovers?? Did they have defensive TD's?
 

GopherVictory said:
A couple things:

Michi-michi-Minnesota. That reminds me of my parents trying to yell at my youngest brother when we were younger. They'd go through my and our middle brother's names first.

Second, is anything on CBSSN really a "national stage"? I mean, it's no AggieVision...
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I've been thinking the same thing. I keep seeing all these "Colorado State on national TV" things all over the internet, even though CBS Sports Net is probably the least available "National" sports channel out there. It's damn near like having the game on HBO and saying it's nationally televised.
 

beatles said:
I agree with you about the turnovers, it won't be close if CSU repeats week 1. But on another note, how the hell do you score 63 points with that many turnovers?? Did they have defensive TD's?
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They played a team that is only better (via rankings) than 2 of the 200-something NCAA schools.
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
Uh, it's a 5-point spread. I don't think anyone on either side is expecting a rout.
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Accept maybe Spoofin. Sorry I just couldn't resist. As far as our offense, we are definitely a run first team. We would like to have a more productive passing game and have recruited several potentially excellent receivers. The problem is that they are both inexperienced and unproven. My hope is that your defense ignores our passing game. We then arise to the occasion and exploit that. One can dream and sometime dreams come true.
 

beatles said:
I agree with you about the turnovers, it won't be close if CSU repeats week 1. But on another note, how the hell do you score 63 points with that many turnovers?? Did they have defensive TD's?
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I imagine that the SSU players were quite stunned to have the ball so often. CSU is perhaps the first FBS team in history to allow SSU to score double digit points.
 

beatles said:
I agree with you about the turnovers, it won't be close if CSU repeats week 1. But on another note, how the hell do you score 63 points with that many turnovers?? Did they have defensive TD's?
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They scored on the last play of the game. They also had a kickoff return TD negated because the returner dropped the ball a yard short of the endzone.

I'm not joking, if you go to ramnation.com and read through it they fully believe (word for word) that their offense is better than TCU's, all of their skill position players are better than TCU's, that TCU isn't that great because they're used to playing them from when they were conference mates in the MWC. They also think that Minnesota is an extremely slow team on offense and defense and a bottom tier B1G program. Their fans are in for a rude awakening.

Colorado State is a damn good team, better than at least a few conference foes we'll face, and Minnesota is a good team. If this game were at home I'd take Minnesota 100%. On the road I give Minnesota a 55% chance of winning. We're a better team, but it's at their house the week after we got beat up against a great opponent and we have no idea what they're going to do on offense or defense other than throw the ball.

The altitude effect at that level is almost completely BS. 5,000 feet will almost certainly have no noticeable physical effects. It's psychological at that level, which is why teams like the Broncos have to put signs and stuff all around the opposing locker room areas. The majority of altitude effects don't kick in until about 8,000 feet. Can it affect some individuals still? Sure, but the large majority will be fine. Even the Grand Canyon is at a higher elevation above sea level than Fort Collins is, so I don't view that as much of a factor.

I think the defense struggles a little this week after last week, but the offense looks a little better. Minnesota wins a close one 34-28
 

I find the optimism interesting. Opposing fans, IMO, heavily gloss over their teams negatives. Every subtraction is an addition, every freshman faster and better than 5th year seniors.

Over the years, after reading countless opponent websites, browsing here, etc I have concluded the gopher fan base is the most rooted in reality. Not always, there are always irrational fans or terrible talent evaluators, but by and large we recognize our deficiencies, while remaining hopefully optimistic. What is interesting to me is the hostility unleashed amongst our fans for IMO
reasonable opinions; that inward-directed venom somewhat unique to the gopher hole, while we bend over backward in most cases to be welcoming to some pretty irrational visiting fans. Minnesota Nice. It's real. Tell them what you really think!
 

The talk of 'slow' is just stupid. No we're not LSU on D or anything but we're far from slow on any level of the D. An argument can be made that we're not an overly fast offense and I'd agree but our D hasn't had had that issue in a few years. If anything the main thing that's hurt the D is run fits against inside runs against spread teams. Anyway, We've played TCU twice and tOSU in the past year and our speed has held up just fine to this point. Unless of course CSU is secretly the fastest team in the country somehow.
 


oleboy41 said:
The talk of 'slow' is just stupid. No we're not LSU on D or anything but we're far from slow on any level of the D. An argument can be made that we're not an overly fast offense and I'd agree but our D hasn't had had that issue in a few years. If anything the main thing that's hurt the D is run fits against inside runs against spread teams. Anyway, We've played TCU twice and tOSU in the past year and our speed has held up just fine to this point. Unless of course CSU is secretly the fastest team in the country somehow.
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If someone asked me about our defense I think one of the first things I would mention is speed. Simply put, Kill won't recruit a slow LB or DB, he's in love with speed on defense.
 

Headbutt said:
Yeah, your D front 7 is who I was referring to. Just my take, but they looked slow. Maybe that was TCU speed, maybe that was 1st game thinking before reacting, but watching my team and your team it struck me that we were much faster on O than you were on D. Hey, I could be wrong, I'm no D1 coach, but that's how I saw it. Like I said though, big and nasty. Tons of respect for the athleticism of your secondary, but thought your front 7 failed to get where they needed to be in time quite often.

As for your O-line plowing the ground for your running game, that is my biggest worry. I think we match up much better against a passing team. Our D-line is dinky and fairly young. Our DC will have to find some creative ways to slow down your running game or we will be in a world of hurt. We have a lot of speed and talent in the area of "pass rush", so it would be helpful if you guys can find a way to turn the ball over on your first two or three possessions and force yourselves into an aerial battle. We can match up pretty well with that.

We're starting a RS Frosh at QB, but he's loaded with weapons. If we can be pretty mistake free in the passing game it will be a problem for you. We have a guy who is arguably the best WR in the country, and a few others that really aren't that far behind him. That's one of the gifts that McElwain left us. Our starting TE finished third in all conference voting in '13, took '14 off due to injury and has passed up last years 1st team all conference TE for the starting job. Yeah, I know it's the MWC, but we do have top end players. Just not as many as the B1G. The few we have are good enough to shine in any conference. Our receiving corps fits that bill.

Wanna' talk altitude. :D
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Yeah.....TCU returned ten starters from an offense that averaged over 40 points per game. Boykin is a Heisman favorite. He's fast......and he'd make any defense look slow.
 

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