Here is why Gray didn't redshirt

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diefirma

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I think the only reason Gray is playing at all is Brewster promised Gray he would play as a freshman. Remember Gray was very highly recruited and Brew need to do something to reel this guy in. Brew has often said how important early playing time is to young recruits so... Brew says I'll guarantee you will get playing time as a frosh - not that you will start but you will get game time - after that it is up to you. Brew is just keeping his word and Gray, according to the Pioneer Press at least, isn't upset by not getting more snaps. That tells me Gray isn't doing that well in practice and he knows it. Look at it this way - if Gray were tearing things up in practice he, and many of his teammates, would be the ones pushing for more playing time. That doesn't seem to be happening. If Gray were really outstanding in practice I don't think you could keep it secret.

Just my best guess - no inside information
 

Also...with Alipate behind him redshirting...no reason to red shirt him.

Are we recruiting a QB this year? Drawing a blank.
 


With all due respect, I could not disagree more. Gray is a top college football recruit in all respects. He has the chops to be far better than Terrelle Pryor and, in fact, the pundits were speculating on that 2 years ago. At the same time, he could be an epic failure with an inability to read defenses or command an offense. I've read that too. The bottom line, as I've posted before, is that MarQueis Gray remains the face of the Brewster era and we have yet to see the full fury or failure of that era. Bring him on. Bench Weber and go for broke. What do we have to lose.
 

Handsome Pete said:
Bench Weber and go for broke. What do we have to lose.
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We could lose all of the rest of our games and not make a bowl game. I don't think Brewster or the team would be real thrilled about that. Maybe you wouldn't care, but it's important to the coaches, players, and the higher-ups. I'd bet a lot of fans wouldn't like it either.
 


Word said:
We could lose all of the rest of our games and not make a bowl game. I don't think Brewster or the team would be real thrilled about that. Maybe you wouldn't care, but it's important to the coaches, players, and the higher-ups. I'd bet a lot of fans wouldn't like it either.
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This is what happened last year. I'm not afraid of it anymore.
 

Gray didn't redshirt because he is THE backup QB. Teams don't redshirt players in the two-deep. If Weber went down injured in the middle of a game the coaches would be caught in the position of questioning whether to insert Gray or Lueck because they may not immediately know the severity of the injury to Weber. Also, you can't give adequate time in practice to two backup QB's to ensure either one is ready to play in case Weber goes down with a serious or a minor injury.
 





Handsome Pete said:
WTF are you talking about. Yeah, we made a bowl game and we got massacred. You satisfied with that?
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Satisfied, no. Better than going Wacker and being 3-9 though.
 

grunkiejr said:
Gray didn't redshirt because he is THE backup QB. Teams don't redshirt players in the two-deep. If Weber went down injured in the middle of a game the coaches would be caught in the position of questioning whether to insert Gray or Lueck because they may not immediately know the severity of the injury to Weber. Also, you can't give adequate time in practice to two backup QB's to ensure either one is ready to play in case Weber goes down with a serious or a minor injury.
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I find this pretty convincing. Weber goes down and... season is over? This way, we have Gray playing. At the beginning of the year, he was the obvious successor to Weber. This way, the Gophers are getting their best chance at winning this year as well as giving the eventual starter some game experience.
 

The thing some people forget about going to a bowl game, ANY bowl game, is the extra 15 practices which is the equivalent to another spring ball. Now I want as high of a bowl game as we can get but any bowl game, especially with a roster that will be lacking in experience next year, will benefit this team down the road.
 

Hey Handsome Pete -----------

How about e-mailing Brewster or going to practice and talking to Brewster. Am sure he would give you an answer. I suspect, however, that you wouldn't take his word for it.
 



I don't buy the sack Weber and make Gray the starter plan. What I do think is that Gray should have had at least 2 full series by now, and they could have come in the last 2 games. Brew should be starting Weber and then giving Gray some extended playing time when it won't affect the outcome of the game. Giving the reins over to Gray now, could set his development back big time and the Gophers would be far worse for it. If you don't think starting a QB before he is ready can't hurt, just think of the guy over at OSU that's having an awful season.
 

I think gray has a strong belief in his skills and wants to be on a fast track. He already was forced to sit out a year, I don't think he wanted to lose another. And as Grunk said, he's the backup.
 

WAGopher said:
If you don't think starting a QB before he is ready can't hurt, just think of the guy over at OSU that's having an awful season.
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I'm not singling you out, you just happen to be the most recent person that said this. Pryor is having a far, far, far better season than Weber, whether based on individual statistics or team success.

So if Pryor is "having an awful season", what would you call what Weber is having?
 

Handsome Pete said:
Bench Weber and go for broke. What do we have to lose.
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We (the fans) don't have much to lose by it, other than the possibility of the games.

Brewster - on the other hand - has his job to lose. I have a hunch that he feels if he used only Gray from here on out that there's a reasonable shot that the team loses out. If that happens, there's a good shot there will be someone else coaching Gray next year.

So, the stakes are quite high for Brewster and you have to acknowledge that he knows he needs to win games. He knows he needs a contract extension. He clearly feels Weber gives him a better shot at winning. I mean do you seriously think that he'd purposefully leave the better guy on the bench knowing that his job is somewhat on the line? I would guess he isn't comfortable at this time placing the potential of his entire coaching future on Gray. Maybe next year Gray will be ready and Brewster will take the plunge. Not this year.
 

I agree. The problem is that we haven't had any games yet where the W was salted away by the end of the third quarter. Even the Purdue game could have gotten interesting late if Gray had come in and immediately thrown a pick 6. On the flip side, I don't think its a smart idea to throw a green QB into a situation like last w/e at PSU where we're down 3 scores and in a hostile environment just to get him some PT.

The thing that scares me is that barring Gray being a total bust, at some point he is going to be our starting QB. Whether that's next month, next season, or in 2011 who knows? And every "rookie" college QB has at least a couple of gawdawful interceptions in him. Remember Weber's first season? I'd rather see Gray put those behind him this year in what's shaping up to be a 7-5 season rather than have him throw a ill-advised pass sometime in a future season that costs us a crack at a Jan 1 bowl.

My suggestion would be to keep working Gray into more plays in our upcoming games. Ideally in some of them he actually passes the ball. IMHO, unless Weber suddenly starts channelling Joe Montana in the next 2 weeks, Gray should start the SDSU game. We should be able to call out our plays to their D on the LoS and still run it down their throats. If Gray stumbles in that game then he obviously isn't ready for prime time.
 

Too Long in the Wasteland said:
Gray should start the SDSU game. We should be able to call out our plays to their D on the LoS and still run it down their throats. If Gray stumbles in that game then he obviously isn't ready for prime time.
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SDSU is way better than people here think. They lead the Missouri Valley Conference and are ranked No. 11 in the FCS. They face No. 6 Northern Iowa this weekend and we'll get a better idea about them. But, if anyone thinks this is going to be a 50-point blowout, they need to re-think it. We should win the game (obviously) by 20+, but it shouldn't surprise anyone if SDSU hangs in it for awhile.
 

"He has the chops to be far better than Terrelle Pryor and, in fact, the pundits were speculating on that 2 years ago."

Name one person who speculated on that.

Gray was a good recruit for Minnesota but Pryor was number one in the nation. I just looked at Rivals. In 2008 Pryor was number 1, Gray 112.
 

Winnipegopher said:
"He has the chops to be far better than Terrelle Pryor and, in fact, the pundits were speculating on that 2 years ago."

Name one person who speculated on that.

Gray was a good recruit for Minnesota but Pryor was number one in the nation. I just looked at Rivals. In 2008 Pryor was number 1, Gray 112.
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If I recall, when Big Ten Network was here two years ago before Gray got ruled out cause of the ACT flap, they were talking about how Gray looked a lot better than Pryor and might end up being the better of the two. Obviously that was just fall practice talk, but it was bandied about a little bit.
 

Winnipegopher said:
"He has the chops to be far better than Terrelle Pryor and, in fact, the pundits were speculating on that 2 years ago."

Name one person who speculated on that.

Gray was a good recruit for Minnesota but Pryor was number one in the nation. I just looked at Rivals. In 2008 Pryor was number 1, Gray 112.
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Gerry DiNardo, for one. He said on BTN (I believe it was during their 2008 conference preview) that Gray is a far, far better passer than Pryor and that he believed Gray would end up being the better QB.

I'm not sure what weight to give DiNardo's opinion, but he is a former Big Ten head coach, so I don't think his comments can be dismissed out-of-hand.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I'm not singling you out, you just happen to be the most recent person that said this. Pryor is having a far, far, far better season than Weber, whether based on individual statistics or team success.

So if Pryor is "having an awful season", what would you call what Weber is having?
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The stats don't reflect Pryor have a "far, far, far better season than Weber." These are the stats and they look very similar. So if Weber is having a bad year, isn't Pryor doing about the same:

Stats through last weekend's game:

<table border="0" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td>PLAYER</td>
<td>QB Rating</td>
<td>Att</td>
<td>Comp</td>
<td>Pct</td>
<td>Yds</td>
<td>Y/A</td>
<td>Y/G</td>
<td>TD</td>
<td>Int</td>
<td>Int%</td>
<td>Long</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Pryor, Terrelle</td>
<td>128.4</td>
<td>159</td>
<td>89</td>
<td>56.0</td>
<td>1169</td>
<td>7.4</td>
<td>167.0</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>5.03</td>
<td>76</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Weber, Adam</td>
<td>115.3</td>
<td>190</td>
<td>106</td>
<td>55.8</td>
<td>1325</td>
<td>7.0</td>
<td>189.3</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>4.74</td>
<td>53</td>
</tr>
</table>
 

Man, that post formatting was ugly. At least the table was formatted so it's easy to read. Anyone know how to get a table inside a post without all that space?
 

WAGopher said:
The stats don't reflect Pryor have a "far, far, far better season than Weber." These are the stats and they look very similar. So if Weber is having a bad year, isn't Pryor doing about the same:
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I would agree that Pryor is having an awful season. Weber's, by any measure, is unquestionably worse. So, I will repeat my earlier question: what would you call Weber's season?
 

Didn't Gray miss his senior season due to injury recovering in time to play the HS All Star game? Did Pryor outplay him there? By how much? I hope SDSU isn't as good as NDSU.
 

diehard said:
I hope SDSU isn't as good as NDSU.
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South Dakota State has beaten NDSU each of the last years, including last week. South Dakota State also beat NDSU the same year NDSU beat us.

Again, SDSU is not a 50-point gimme. This will be a tough game.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I would agree that Pryor is having an awful season. Weber's, by any measure, is unquestionably worse. So, I will repeat my earlier question: what would you call Weber's season?
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I never said Weber is having a good season and I think both of them are having bad years. I showed you the stats and proved your hyperbole wrong about Pryor having a far, far, far better season than Weber.
 

I'm not impressed by any of the big ten QB's this year. Except maybe Kafka.
 

WAGopher said:
I never said Weber is having a good season and I think both of them are having bad years. I showed you the stats and proved your hyperbole wrong about Pryor having a far, far, far better season than Weber.
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I never said that you said Weber is having a good year.

It's a simple question, really. Two parts.

Part 1. Terrelle Pryor is having an awful season.

Part 2. Weber's is unquestionably worse. Therefore, what do you call Weber's?

It's not rocket science. Please just answer the question.
 

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