Replacement Gopher
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lol....I had a few moments where I was like why aren't we running the damn ball more...
Gotta love it, it is tough for us Gopher fans to embrace being the dominant team.
Us long-time diehards are always nervous having been burned so many times before,I'd point out to PJ that he may want to reconsider his squeeze-the-life-out-of-the-game strategy when dominating in the opening half. Here's why.
Notice that despite the statistical dominance, the Gophers hadn't really put the game away at the half? This means that if Thorne doesn't fumble on the opening drive of the second half, it's a different game.
One consequence of always driving the bus in slow motion is that the team is likely to only get 3 or so true drives in the opening half. And if the team ever fumbles, or ever has a bad holding penalty, or ever drops the ball and kills a drive, well, you end up in a situation where the team is dominating statistically (first downs, yards, TOP, etc.) but the score is 13-0 at the half. And you have to wait until the third quarter elapses until you've really tilted game situation.
If you're having a game where everything is clicking and you're dominating: speed up and tilt game situation in the first half. Don't ALWAYS drive the bus in slow.
Shortening the game is why I think we have had so many close calls against lesser non-conference teams. Stands to reason that the lesser team benefits from fewer overall possessions as luck plays more of a role in a 5 possession game than a 500 possession game. That being the case, I didn’t notice us bleeding the clock just to bleed the clock like we have in previous years.