I’ll admit I was totally wrong

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gopherbadgerman

gopherbadgerman

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Last year I wanted a AK to replace Tanner Morgan about 20 different times. Tanner Morgan is a better quarterback than a AK will ever be here and it’s not even close. Gophers would only have two losses this year if Morgan had been the quarterback.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
Last year I wanted a AK to replace Tanner Morgan about 20 different times. Tanner Morgan is a better quarterback than a AK will ever be here and it’s not even close. Gophers would only have two losses this year if Morgan had been the quarterback.
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Agree
 





I was a Tanner defender until the bitter end. The Mike Sanford offense was a massive part in his regression. He was a rhythm-driven quarterback: get him a few easy slants, and he’ll start making some very impressive throws. Sanford never gave him that progression like Ciarrocca did. Yeah, Tanner benefitted from having an incredible receiver group, but he regularly made NFL-quality throws in that 2019 season. The Autman-Bell TD at Fresno State and the Johnson TD against PSU come to mind.

Athan… I just don’t know. His lack of accuracy is incredibly concerning. It’s going to be interesting to see if PJ’s loyalty keeps him from probing the transfer portal like he should.
 

We dont beat Nebraska with Tanner, we dont beat Iowa with Tanner, we still lose today with Tanner. The only game we may have won with Tanner is Northwestern. I think you're forgetting just how bad Tanner had become by 2022.
 

The high fastball to #87 on 3rd down reminded me pretty much every Gopher QB in the 20 years before Morgan came along, so it's depressingly back to the norm.

PS: I think Weber could have been better with consistent coaching.
 

StudentSectionMenace said:
We dont beat Nebraska with Tanner, we dont beat Iowa with Tanner, we still lose today with Tanner. The only game we may have won with Tanner is Northwestern. I think you're forgetting just how bad Tanner had become by 2022.
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100% wrong. Athan has been worse this year than any year with Morgan.
 



If AK wouldn’t throw a fastball on everything short he’d be fine. But at this point in his career if you can’t differentiate when or when not to throw a fastball hang it up buddy or transfer down where the game isn’t this fast.
 


gopherphil said:
If AK wouldn’t throw a fastball on everything short he’d be fine. But at this point in his career if you can’t differentiate when or when not to throw a fastball hang it up buddy or transfer down where the game isn’t this fast.
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His mechanics are bad and he has almost no touch on his passes. That last third down was silly bad. Anyone remember OT against NW? Had BSF WIDE OPEN.....and threw a laser rather than float him an easy pass.

These are fixable problems. But he needs to come out looking a whole lot better next year. Because you can't win at a consistent level with a QB that cannot make the easy passes.
 




AK is not even close to a Big Ten QB, if Fleck won't dip into the portal next year we'll be rough. He hasn't won us 1 game in his career.
 

stocker08 said:
I see what the problem is. You didn't actually watch the game....which would explain why you're confused about the reason for his stat line in that game.
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He had two chances to bring us down field and win us the game and he threw two horrible interceptions. Enough said.
 

StudentSectionMenace said:
He had two chances to bring us down field and win us the game and he threw two horrible interceptions. Enough said.
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You clearly did not watch the game. We shouldn't have been playing from behind with two minutes remaining in the game. That was entirely due to the most vanilla gameplan ever concocted.
 

stocker08 said:
You clearly did not watch the game. We shouldn't have been playing from behind with two minutes remaining in the game. That was entirely due to the most vanilla gameplan ever concocted.
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I was there!!! I watched the entire painful game! But why does Tanner get the excuse of vanilla gameplan but Athan doesn’t?? At least Athan can beat MAC teams….
 


StudentSectionMenace said:
I was there!!! I watched the entire painful game! But why does Tanner get the excuse of vanilla gameplan but Athan doesn’t?? At least Athan can beat MAC teams….
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Morgan threw only 13 passes in the entire game. Most of which were on third and long or when the Gophers were down towards the end. Sanford's gameplan was to run and it failed. Face it.....Athan is not on Morgan's level...yet. He never will be if he can't manage five yard passes to wide open receivers.
 



StudentSectionMenace said:
We dont beat Nebraska with Tanner, we dont beat Iowa with Tanner, we still lose today with Tanner. The only game we may have won with Tanner is Northwestern. I think you're forgetting just how bad Tanner had become by 2022.
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I agree, I’ll still take Athan. And Athan has not been good.
 

StudentSectionMenace said:
I was there!!! I watched the entire painful game! But why does Tanner get the excuse of vanilla gameplan but Athan doesn’t?? At least Athan can beat MAC teams….
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Because Athan has gotten more opportunities to throw the ball than Tanner did in 2021 and 2022.

2021: 19.8 attempts/game
2022: 21.6 attempts/game
2023: 23.1 attempts/game

Athan’s passer rating (per Sports Reference) this year and last year are both worse than any year that Tanner had. Tanner’s lowest was 128.8 in 2020. Athan’s highest (last year) was 127.4, and he’s sitting on a 111 this year. Even taking out the “rose colored glasses” of 2019, I don’t know how anyone can still pretend that Athan is better than Tanner.
 

gopherphil said:
If AK wouldn’t throw a fastball on everything short he’d be fine. But at this point in his career if you can’t differentiate when or when not to throw a fastball hang it up buddy or transfer down where the game isn’t this fast.
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Morgan’s fastball to TJ lost the Iowa (or was it the Wisconsin) game in 2019. Ironic, I suppose.
 

AK is the only QB I’ve ever seen where every throw comes out of his hand nose down. Even in warm ups. They only way it gets to the receiver is if he throws it as hard as he can
 

fair said:
I was a Tanner defender until the bitter end. The Mike Sanford offense was a massive part in his regression. He was a rhythm-driven quarterback: get him a few easy slants, and he’ll start making some very impressive throws. Sanford never gave him that progression like Ciarrocca did. Yeah, Tanner benefitted from having an incredible receiver group, but he regularly made NFL-quality throws in that 2019 season. The Autman-Bell TD at Fresno State and the Johnson TD against PSU come to mind.

Athan… I just don’t know. His lack of accuracy is incredibly concerning. It’s going to be interesting to see if PJ’s loyalty keeps him from probing the transfer portal like he should.
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He reminds me a lot of Leidner. I watch him play and he's fine and then out of nowhere he throws a ball that makes me screw up my face.

He also just has terrible form which I'm sure doesn't help. Tanners footwork was very good.

We saw glimpses of this last year as well. Athan led a great comeback at Nebraska but while doing so he threw a ball that gave me flashbacks. I wondered if this wasn't going to happen and here it is.

If he's not going to be a good thrower then he needs to be a good athlete. Gophers need to start running that RPO the way that it's meant to be run. He's not going to be a guy that you can drop back there and have him throw super accurate balls all day.
 


I think AK’s problems can be summed up in one play: 2nd and 7, wide open field ahead to get a first down (or very close to it), where one first down all but seals the game, and instead of surging to the open forward area, he stops and tries to juke the def. back coming at him from the side and turns a likely first down into 3rd and 4.
He just seems to have so little situational understanding.

Very next play: A wide open receiver, short pass….do you gun it as fast as possible (and miss) or do you just place the ball in your open receiver’s hands, a play that most HS QBs could complete regularly?
 

One thing about Athan, he's still a true freshman in terms of games played. The guy who came off the bench for IL was a sixth year senior and he threw three perfect (almost uncanny) passes for 85 yards. Athan can't do that. We need a really good QB coach for him or we need to recruit a better passer than he is (50% today after a good start).
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
One thing about Athan, he's still a true freshman in terms of games played. The guy who came off the bench for IL was a sixth year senior and he threw three perfect (almost uncanny) passes for 85 yards. Athan can't do that. We need a really good QB coach for him or we need to recruit a better passer than he is (50% today after a good start).
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Yeah for sure this. Minnesota is currently trotting out:
  • A QB that's playing his first full season
  • A first year QB coach that has never coached QBs before
  • A first year co-offensive coordinator that has never been an offensive coordinator before
  • A first year offensive play caller that has never
  • Oh and the last three are all the same person
Fleck is completely negligent when it comes to hiring. It's absurd.
 

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