Iowa-Minnesota Thoughts

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PapaHawk21

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The Iowa defense has been porous and have a proclivity to give up long drives. Minnesota has struggled to put together drives all season long. What does Minnesota need to do on offense to take advantage of the lack-luster Hawkeye defense? I'm looking forward to the week long conversation on here before the game on 10/29. Go Hawks!
 

PapaHawk21 said:
The Iowa defense has been porous and have a proclivity to give up long drives. Minnesota has struggled to put together drives all season long. What does Minnesota need to do on offense to take advantage of the lack-luster Hawkeye defense? I'm looking forward to the week long conversation on here before the game on 10/29. Go Hawks!
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Iowa might struggle next week. They may only win by 20-30.
 

Papa-

I really thing the Gophers need to come out and complete some short passes early. Gray looked much more comfortable today with the short passes. Slants, hooks and option routes when he could drop back and make one read he was decisive and made
quality throws. I hope he is able to do that early. Also, the Hawks have traditionally struggled with mobile QB's, so hopefully
Q can take advantage of that. He was made a few CLUTCH runs in the game last year. I really hope the coaches draw up a game plan of short, quick passes early so Iowa at least has to respect the face that we can complete a pass.

Iowa has been BRUTAL on the road so far this year, so I obviously hope that trend continues. The Hawks scored 45 today at
home on IU, I am not sure what to take away from that other than IU is terrible. As I said on another thread, I just hope
Minnesota can play a clean game without penalties and turnovers and see what happens.
 

here's my thoughts and the only one that matters!!! The PIG is staying home in MINNESOTA!!!
 

Stan The Caddy said:
Papa-

I really thing the Gophers need to come out and complete some short passes early. Gray looked much more comfortable today with the short passes. Slants, hooks and option routes when he could drop back and make one read he was decisive and made
quality throws. I hope he is able to do that early. Also, the Hawks have traditionally struggled with mobile QB's, so hopefully
Q can take advantage of that. He was made a few CLUTCH runs in the game last year. I really hope the coaches draw up a game plan of short, quick passes early so Iowa at least has to respect the face that we can complete a pass.

Iowa has been BRUTAL on the road so far this year, so I obviously hope that trend continues. The Hawks scored 45 today at
home on IU, I am not sure what to take away from that other than IU is terrible. As I said on another thread, I just hope
Minnesota can play a clean game without penalties and turnovers and see what happens.
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Vandenberg has not won on the road yet as a Hawkeye starter (09' 0-1, 11' 0-2). I agree, Minnesota needs to use designed runs by Gray and short passes (see Northwestern) in order to move the ball down the field against Iowa. Indiana's defense is one of the worst I've seen in years and they were completely over-matched by McNutt and Davis. In my opinion, if Iowa can run the ball successfully with Coker, everything else will fall into place offensively. Do you think Shortell will see the field Saturday?
 


I'd like to take this chance to say goodbye to Floyd. Been nice seeing you this year, but your going back to your other home. I'd like to see our team continue to work on continuity and getting better. We were slightly better today on both offense and defense. Let's hope Gray continues to get better every game...
 

Papa-

I do not think Shortell will see the field, but I am one of the most vocal Gray supporters on this board. Shortell is just not
ready for BT play. With how the Minnesota OL has played, Gray at least has a chance to escape the pressure. I think the Iowa
coaches will really challenge their D-line this week because Minnesota somehow whipped them in the trenches last year.

Burkhead did not go off today and he is a better back than Coker, so I am holding out a little bit of hope that Minnesota can at
least slow him down. McNutt scares me and if Vandenberg is accurate, I am not sure Minnesota can contain him.
 


Stan The Caddy said:
Burkhead did not go off today and he is a better back than Coker, so I am holding out a little bit of hope that Minnesota can at least slow him down.
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Depends on you define "go off", but Burkhead got 117 yards on the ground, averaging six-yards per carry. He extended their drives with key runs. I'm sure Iowa would take that from Coker next week.
 



tjgopher said:
Depends on you define "go off", but Burkhead got 117 yards on the ground, averaging six-yards per carry. He extended their drives with key runs. I'm sure Iowa would take that from Coker next week.
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If Coker can eclipse the 100 yard mark w/o a fumble...I would absolutely take that. Iowa's defense will probably afford Gray the opportunity for his best game of the season. The Hawks made Tre Roberson(True Freshman) look like a veteran starter. Fortunately, Indiana's defense is terrible.
 

tjgopher said:
Depends on you define "go off", but Burkhead got 117 yards on the ground, averaging six-yards per carry. He extended their drives with key runs. I'm sure Iowa would take that from Coker next week.
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So, 23 carries for 117 yards is 6-yards per carry? I would be interested in knowing where you learned basic math.

To answer your question, "going off" would be 7-8 yards per carry with 15+ carries. I did not say we shut Burkhead down, we contained him.
 

Stan The Caddy said:
So, 23 carries for 117 yards is 6-yards per carry? I would be interested in knowing where you learned basic math.

To answer your question, "going off" would be 7-8 yards per carry with 15+ carries. I did not say we shut Burkhead down, we contained him.
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Yes, my bad, 5 yards per carry, which is still good. Not trying to be argumentative. I was less pleased than you with regard to our rush defense. No biggie.
 

tj-

The defense gave up a TON of rushing yards. Papa talked specifically about Coker and I referenced the fact that Minnesota at
least did not allow Burkhead to go off on us. You would have to agree that 5 yards per carry is not horrible based on how this
defense has played this year.
 



It was not horrible, although I think we've been giving up about 5-yards per carry all year. That ranks us close to last in the Big Ten.
 

Iowa opens up as 17.5 point favorites.

Go Gophers!!
 

If the Goph's could just stop the stupid penalties, bad snaps, stupid penalties, fumbles, stupid penalties... the game
could at least be interesting.
 

The Gopher offense somehow has to take advantage of any Iowa weakness that shows up on tape. Its hard to run the ball when the D does not respect the pass, loads up and press covers the WR's. It seems as if the Gophers are in max pass protection a lot and that takes the TE and TB out of many passing plays.

Coach Kill came out with a vanilla game plan versus the Huskers. I think his goal is to simply the game as much as possible at this juncture to get the youngsters a better chance to succeed.

My guess is that will continue against Iowa. If the guys can minimize the errors we could hang in there. Maybe improve in time of possession would be a start. How long can we go without making some big plays on D and more short passes to the TE? But we somehow need to score 27+++ if we expect to get a W.

We have been bad in all aspects and I don't expect us to win. But can we at least be competitive and keep the game within reach going into the 4th quarter???
 

rodentwatcher said:
If the Goph's could just stop the stupid penalties, bad snaps, stupid penalties, fumbles, stupid penalties... the game
could at least be interesting.
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Stupid penalties? We had 5 for 55 yards. Nebraska had 5 for 43 yards. 5 penalties in a game is pretty typical for any team.
Fumbles? We had one.

Penalties and fumbles are not what's caused us to lose games.
 

John Galt said:
Stupid penalties? We had 5 for 55 yards. Nebraska had 5 for 43 yards. 5 penalties in a game is pretty typical for any team.
Fumbles? We had one.

Penalties and fumbles are not what's caused us to lose games.
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We had 1 fumble LOST on Saturday (which, by the way led to a direct TD for Nebraska), but the fumbles, bad snaps/recovered fumbles/etc not only break up plays and rhythms but come at the worst times.

No, 5 penalties isn't terrible, but the ones we do take seem to come at the WORST times. A holding penalty here or a defensive offsides on first down there, not HUGE, but a defensive offsides on a critical 3rd down early where we would have sacked the QB.. offensive offsides on 3rd and 2, etc deflate the team.

Also, previous games have had much worse penalties than against Neb...
 

Agree with all your points Rail. I'm just saying the core issues of why we've struggled have been much deeper than penalties and turnovers.
 

John Galt said:
Agree with all your points Rail. I'm just saying the core issues of why we've struggled have been much deeper than penalties and turnovers.
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I think the Gophers will find it difficult to keep Marvin McNutt contained, which will lead to more opportunities for Coker to run the football successfully. If Iowa avoids turnovers, they could walk away with a big victory on Saturday!
 

If Gray can get 25 carries and 150 yards, I'll give the Gophers a fighting chance to keep it close.
 

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