Impact of Maryland I/giant power running O

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Ole

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It's the doldrums of the offseason, and recruiting hasn't picked up yet so I thought I'd ask everyone what the thoughts on our apparent goal of an uber powering running offense.
Some thoughts on our recruiting:
We've been targeting some athlete types the past few years that bear notice.
Plsek, Goodger, Williams, and especially Wozniak are big body TE's, most would be candidates for a switch to the Oline/Dline right away, we have lined them up at TE and mash. We've also targeted some big body pass catching TE types as slot/Hback candidates like Anyanwu and Wolitarsky.
Add in the obvious emphasis on Oline recruiting, and some whispers that we've talked to some Dline prospects as potential part time fullbacks, and I'm interested to see how Limegrover and Kill shape this offense going forward.

I loved the bowl game O, it was fun, even hilarious to watch us simply bowl over TTech, but their D was not very good, and their team had discipline issues.

Can this type of O work against the B1G?
Can we score points in recruiting with big TE's, OL and power backs?
Thoughts?

Personally I love it, most here will, and it has the potential to be a signature of Kill's program here if we can win games by lining up 800lbs of athlete in a triple I and smashing our way through the season.
 

Ole said:
It's the doldrums of the offseason, and recruiting hasn't picked up yet so I thought I'd ask everyone what the thoughts on our apparent goal of an uber powering running offense.
Some thoughts on our recruiting:
We've been targeting some athlete types the past few years that bear notice.
Plsek, Goodger, Williams, and especially Wozniak are big body TE's, most would be candidates for a switch to the Oline/Dline right away, we have lined them up at TE and mash. We've also targeted some big body pass catching TE types as slot/Hback candidates like Anyanwu and Wolitarsky.
Add in the obvious emphasis on Oline recruiting, and some whispers that we've talked to some Dline prospects as potential part time fullbacks, and I'm interested to see how Limegrover and Kill shape this offense going forward.

I loved the bowl game O, it was fun, even hilarious to watch us simply bowl over TTech, but their D was not very good, and their team had discipline issues.

Can this type of O work against the B1G?
Can we score points in recruiting with big TE's, OL and power backs?
Thoughts?

Personally I love it, most here will, and it has the potential to be a signature of Kill's program here if we can win games by lining up 800lbs of athlete in a triple I and smashing our way through the season.
Click to expand...


Good stuff Ole. I did a little research and you can see the Kill's progression with the size of the line:
Year ........... #300+
2013..........14
2012...........8
2011...........5
2010...........9
2009...........7

A significant increase in o-line 300+. Is this a hint at what type of offense we'll be seeing? I believe so. This will be more patiently run it down your throat in hopes that attrition and fatigue affect the d-line of our opposition. I see a majority of our yards being in the 3rd quarter as the beating takes it's toll. With the B1G running a variety of offenses, it will be difficult to have the personnel to prepare for a run heavy offense one week and the spread the next. This is an offense that is more adaptive to the Minnesota recruiting area. Mason made his career on this type of offense. It's a little less exciting to watch, but after Brewster....I don't care about exciting.
 

Rescooter said:
Good stuff Ole. I did a little research and you can see the Kill's progression with the size of the line:
Year ........... #300+
2013..........14
2012...........8
2011...........5
2010...........9
2009...........7
Click to expand...

Not just weight, but these kids coming in are 6'6+ at takle/TE and 6'3+ inside. They have frames that will allow them to be 300+ and still athletic. Plus the big slot receivers help our backs get the corner and break long runs with down field blocking.

If our backs can continue to develop and our new speed back out of MI can offer a change of pace...we might have a decent running attack and play action opportunity.

I love what Kill and Co are doing with our offense. Best of all, our O-Line is still very young this year, but have significant game experience...meaning they have plenty of upside over the next couple years.

We have a brutal schedule the next two years and I still think we will see 8 wins this year and 9-10 wins in 2014 and a New Years Day bowl!
 


Part of it I think is balance. Last year, the defense was the strength of this team. I'd guess that Kill still sees depth as an issue on that side of the ball, so you try and grind the clock and keep the defense fresh by running, running and running some more.
 


Rescooter said:
Mason made his career on this type of offense. It's a little less exciting to watch, but after Brewster....I don't care about exciting.
Click to expand...
I can't remember ever having been more excited while watching a Gopher offence than watching MBIII and Maroney run over opposing defenses.
 

4 yards and a cloud of dust. I love it. the way it should be
 

GopherVictory said:
I can't remember ever having been more excited while watching a Gopher offence than watching MBIII and Maroney run over opposing defenses.
Click to expand...

The problem was, I would then have to change the channel for a little bit while the opposing offense took the field. Absolutely painful....
 

Good post!

I think this has always been the plan. Kill has always used a lot of big TE's and athletic and large OL (usually very tall and over 300 lbs). It doesn't really which particular formation we line up, his system is power running. You can look at his time at Northern Illinois, even the years when Harnish was fantastic, they ran the ball down their opponents throats.

He uses a lot of RBs, he uses a lot of TE/FB/H-Back types, he runs a lot of different formations, but at the end of the day it has always been about running the ball.
 






GopherVictory said:
But that was usually only about 30% of the game since we held on to the ball for so long. :)
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The reason we ran for so many yards was that we would get the ball back soon after we scored. That's because our defense was a sieve and often allowed the opponents to score quickly. Thus our best defensive strategy was to run as much time off the clock as possible during our drives.
 



The best teams in the BIG have one thing in common. the ability to pound the rock!!

The Gophers have a long ways to go to get to that status as we only averaged 35 carries/game and a meager 3.6 yd/carry. If we can get to 45 and 4.5 we should make some noise in the BIG. I think we have the players to get us to 40 and 4.0 which will show a marked improvement.
 

I've said it before, but it is worth repeating.

Kill recruits for both sides of the ball. Defensively, he talks about DE, but he pays attention to the DT position as well. He is recruiting some interesting defensive line guys. And, if the evaluation services are anywhere near accurate, some of his guys coming are real beasts and the best D-line material seen here in a very long time. Of course, we need even better guys in the future to have a dominant d-line, but progress comes in steps.

After reviewing some recruiting gurus, I think the program may need as many as 10 years to really own the B!G. Two years in, and I'm really happy about the progress.
 

Schemes don't win, players do. If Kill can get the right guys for the right offense and then the team executes will, I don't think it will really matter how we line up. I think bigger, stronger linemen is the first step in that.
 


50PoundHead said:
Schemes don't win, players do. If Kill can get the right guys for the right offense and then the team executes will, I don't think it will really matter how we line up. I think bigger, stronger linemen is the first step in that.
Click to expand...

I think Kill, because of his midwest roots and history recruiting MN, WI & IA understands that to be successful he needs to pull the meat out of his home states. I love that we have kept top o line prospects at home as well as several walk ons that never used to come here.
 

gophmeister said:
If the bowl game is any indication, we're moving away from the spread. It's still there but Nelson took a lot of snaps under center.
Click to expand...

I don't know if the bowl game was as much of an indicator for an entire change in offensive strategy as much as a game plan to attack the weakness of the opponent. That said, I think they will continue to use it to mix it up from the spread power run attack. It will give the opponents something else to worry about during the short week of game prep. I may be completely wrong, which would be fine with me because I greatly enjoyed watching us run it down Tech's throat.
 

LBJ said:
I don't know if the bowl game was as much of an indicator for an entire change in offensive strategy as much as a game plan to attack the weakness of the opponent. That said, I think they will continue to use it to mix it up from the spread power run attack. It will give the opponents something else to worry about during the short week of game prep. I may be completely wrong, which would be fine with me because I greatly enjoyed watching us run it down Tech's throat.
Click to expand...

I spoke to Matt Limegrover at the signing day party in February and asked him if we would see more of the offense that the ran against Texas Tech. His answer was a definite yes.
 

Unless college football changes, I am not a fan. I don't know how Minnesota (or anyone else really) will be able to score enough points to keep up with teams that are able to score 40 or 50 points a game. Will the college game become a game of defense and field position again? I am sure it will at some point, but now it's about speed and big plays.

My biggest concern about such an offense is that is near impossible to make a comeback in a game which forces your team to get off to a hot start or face a long day. We had a different type of run dominated approach under Glen Mason and I can't remember a significant comeback win, but I can remember a whole lot of 14+ point leads that turned in to losses. We also never beat a team that finished in the top 3 of the conference using that style (again a finesse running game, but still a run dominated O). Nothing wrong with running the football, but the Gophers will need to show a lot more in the passing game if they expect to have success.

One other note:Kansas ran for 390 yards against that Texas Tech team in Lubbock when the Red Raiders had their head coach still in place.
 

I think if you look back, you will find that the teams that finish above .500 in the BIG have both a strong running game and defense.

So many people look at the TT game as a positive for the program as we "ran the ball down their throats." We did for a good share of the game, but our inability to run the ball in the fourth quarter was a factor in the loss. As well as weak D that allowed TT to complete 6 of 7 passes and go 82 yds in just 1:42 in the 4th quarter.
And of course, the errant throw by Nelson and long INT that set up the game winning FG.

No question that speed has changed the game. But, IMO it still comes down to playing good D first and then being able to run the ball.
 

EG#9 said:
Unless college football changes, I am not a fan. I don't know how Minnesota (or anyone else really) will be able to score enough points to keep up with teams that are able to score 40 or 50 points a game. Will the college game become a game of defense and field position again? I am sure it will at some point, but now it's about speed and big plays.

My biggest concern about such an offense is that is near impossible to make a comeback in a game which forces your team to get off to a hot start or face a long day. We had a different type of run dominated approach under Glen Mason and I can't remember a significant comeback win, but I can remember a whole lot of 14+ point leads that turned in to losses. We also never beat a team that finished in the top 3 of the conference using that style (again a finesse running game, but still a run dominated O). Nothing wrong with running the football, but the Gophers will need to show a lot more in the passing game if they expect to have success.

One other note:Kansas ran for 390 yards against that Texas Tech team in Lubbock when the Red Raiders had their head coach still in place.
Click to expand...

Oh, you just use that selective memory of yours. Thee was that 1999 comeback win against PSU in State College, PA. That same year at Kinnick...down in Iowa City, the Gophers pulled a significant come from behind win in the fourth quarter against Iowa. There were several wins against Indiana when the Gophers trailed by a td or two and jusgt smoked the Hoosiers in the 2nd half. How on earth could you forget that come from behind win against wisky when Lloyd kicked the game winner at the very end of that game and raced the the Badger sidelines to grab the AXE. Or, how about that game ending field goal that was tipped but still made it over the bar against a pretty fair Oregon team? I also recall a come from behind win over MSU.

You always want to overlook anything that was good, exciting, stuff that makes college football memorable during the Mason Era don't you eg9? Well, there were some GREAT memories that I have from that era including wins over Michigan, the Ohio State, Arkansas, Alabama, Penn State, wisky, iowa, Purdue, MSU, Nu, Illinois, and some other Big Ten teams. And yes, there were a fair number of painful losses...losses in which the team was very competitive. And there wres too many out and out losses...some blow=-out losses. But, it was pretty darn nice to dare to go to road games with a chance to be competitive and once in a while even win.

I am really pulling for Coach Kill to take us to levels above where Coach Mason had the Program...but, until that happens, we will have to call a spade a spade, won't we eg9! B1G wins and B1G losses with give us the complete picture about where the Gopher Football Program is. Those of you who like to etll your versions of how the Mason Era was...are STUCK having to deal with the reality of exactly where the program is today....about six or seven seasons following the Mason Era. We have the new stadium. We also have what the record tells us that we have....no more...no less...Our record is exactly what we are...where we are...how we are.

Good luck to Coach Kill! Get us back to the Mason Level and then take us WAY beyond!
We wanted more than the Mason level...and...we have gotten less than the Mason level so far. Tomorrow is a new day. But, we are what our record tells us we are.

Be fair and balanced in the way you recall things eg9. A quick check of the record book tells us that there WAS some good back during the Mason Era. And so far, we haven't passed or even equaled that situation. There has been some good there is some good and there has been and is some "less than..." At least that is what the record book tells us...

; 0 )
 

If we were just going to line up and smash people we would not recruit B Edwards or try to get the TB from KC. When we played NIU they ran Spann between the tackles a lot, drove me nuts actually, but still had all kinds of other stuff to keep us off balance. We need to be able to power the ball, but we won't be what Wisky has been.
Actually, the prolem with Mase's offense, given our defense, was that we could not get third or fourth and one in the fourth quarter when the other team loaded the box, because we were a finesse blocking team, not a real power team.
 


imthewalrus said:
I am really pulling for Coach Kill to take us to levels above where Coach Mason had the Program...but, until that happens, we will have to call a spade a spade, won't we eg9! B1G wins and B1G losses with give us the complete picture about where the Gopher Football Program is. Those of you who like to etll your versions of how the Mason Era was...are STUCK having to deal with the reality of exactly where the program is today....about six or seven seasons following the Mason Era. We have the new stadium. We also have what the record tells us that we have....no more...no less...Our record is exactly what we are...where we are...how we are.
Click to expand...

Keep lighting those candles for Saint Glen wren. Just be sure that you have a fire extinguisher close at hand. If you don't, you are very likely to burn down that trailer house of yours.:blah::blah::blah:
 

Can someone please explain why you cannot be power run team AND still throw the football efficiently??

I'm not completely convinced we will completely go away from the 'spread'. Unless Kill has states otherwise, he's always preached being 'multiple', meaning I, Maryland I, pistol, spread, 3-Wr, etc. I think we'll continue to see a variety of offensive sets and motion to set up mismatches, whether they be run or pass mismatches.
 

imthewalrus said:
Oh, you just use that selective memory of yours. Thee was that 1999 comeback win against PSU in State College, PA. That same year at Kinnick...down in Iowa City, the Gophers pulled a significant come from behind win in the fourth quarter against Iowa. There were several wins against Indiana when the Gophers trailed by a td or two and jusgt smoked the Hoosiers in the 2nd half. How on earth could you forget that come from behind win against wisky when Lloyd kicked the game winner at the very end of that game and raced the the Badger sidelines to grab the AXE. Or, how about that game ending field goal that was tipped but still made it over the bar against a pretty fair Oregon team? I also recall a come from behind win over MSU.

You always want to overlook anything that was good, exciting, stuff that makes college football memorable during the Mason Era don't you eg9? Well, there were some GREAT memories that I have from that era including wins over Michigan, the Ohio State, Arkansas, Alabama, Penn State, wisky, iowa, Purdue, MSU, Nu, Illinois, and some other Big Ten teams. And yes, there were a fair number of painful losses...losses in which the team was very competitive. And there wres too many out and out losses...some blow=-out losses. But, it was pretty darn nice to dare to go to road games with a chance to be competitive and once in a while even win.

I am really pulling for Coach Kill to take us to levels above where Coach Mason had the Program...but, until that happens, we will have to call a spade a spade, won't we eg9! B1G wins and B1G losses with give us the complete picture about where the Gopher Football Program is. Those of you who like to etll your versions of how the Mason Era was...are STUCK having to deal with the reality of exactly where the program is today....about six or seven seasons following the Mason Era. We have the new stadium. We also have what the record tells us that we have....no more...no less...Our record is exactly what we are...where we are...how we are.

Good luck to Coach Kill! Get us back to the Mason Level and then take us WAY beyond!
We wanted more than the Mason level...and...we have gotten less than the Mason level so far. Tomorrow is a new day. But, we are what our record tells us we are.

Be fair and balanced in the way you recall things eg9. A quick check of the record book tells us that there WAS some good back during the Mason Era. And so far, we haven't passed or even equaled that situation. There has been some good there is some good and there has been and is some "less than..." At least that is what the record book tells us...

; 0 )
Click to expand...

I don't know why I am choosing to reply to you this once, but here are the facts:

The largest deficit in the 1999 game against PSU was 8 points at 17-9 in the 3rd quarter. The Gophers had the lead early in the 4th quarter, then gave it up and finally won on Nystrom's FG. This was not some sort of spectacular comeback, but was a great win. The big play on the drive to set up the game winning FG was a pass play.

The largest deficit in the 1999 game against Iowa was 21-10 at halftime. Again, the Gophers were never down two touchdowns and needed to come back to beat a 1-9 Iowa team that they were HUGE favorites against. This game doesn't take away from my point either.

Wisconsin in 2003? You can't be f'ing serious. The Gophers were up 10-0, 17-3, 24-6, and then 24-13 at half. Wisconsin tied the game at 27 late in the 3rd quarter, then Minnesota went up by a TD at 34-27. The Badgers would score to tie it and then Lloyd hit a kick to win it. The Gophers NEVER TRAILED in this game and almost blew a 24-6 lead at HOME! This was almost the case of another choke job, NOT an example of a comeback.

Hopefully, the Gophers will be able to run and pass proficiently (and maybe play some defense too). The Glen Mason "level" was consistently losing to Iowa and Wisconsin, never beating a single team that finished the season in the upper echelon of the Big Ten, and finishing with about 3 Big Ten wins a season. I have very few fond memories of allowing that to continue for a decade.
 

Walrus - I don't want you to get me wrong, because I actually look back at the Mason regime with fondness (mostly), but let's not get too gushy about it. Kill's 2012 season was basically an average Mason season. Now, as the years went by Mason did have some great Big 10 victories and Kill will hopefully follow suit, but it's not like we are miles away from where we were for the majority of Mason's years. 4-0 in the non-conference, 2-6 in conference and a non-elite bowl game was pretty much status quo.
 

I guarantee you that our offensive will be designed to include an efficient passing attack. The thing about Mason's offense is that it lacked any version of the slant. The quick slant, is a time tested method of defeating a stacked box, yet Mase never used it. I'll bet that if Kill sees a stacked box there will be a variety of slant and seam route patterns run.
 

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