Actually, Minnesota began to surge when Orji threw an INT on a deep pass. Michigan was up 24-3, then inexplicably threw a deep pass. Minnesota intercepted, the Gopher offense marched down the field and scored to make it 24-10, and the Gophers began to roll.
Sorry.
Hence the comment Moore couldn't out PJ PJ.
When did that drive happen? Roughly 3/4 of the way through the game, right?
And that drive to go to 24-10. That drive was 14 plays 76 yards took about 5 minutes, right? We used a little tempo on this drive.
Then held them, figured out a few key players on the Oline were hurt (took awhile). Nice stop.
Big punt Return which was awesome. We should try on special teams more often.
Then played quick and scored quickly 3 plays 17 yds :47 seconds. They're a bit tired, we actually pressed it and scored quickly.
Then Michigan had a sustained drive but we held them to a field goal.
Then we used tempo and really moved down the field - 14 plays, 78 yards 3 minutes. Better. Urgency. Stick with what was working.
Then didn't get it done.
Maybe if we didn't burn time outs in the first half when we had the ball on the one we could have called a timeout and tush pushed a yard for the TD. But we did burn time outs.
Could have used another one in the 2nd half at the end as well.
But in the end, I just want to make sure I have this right since you responded to let me know you don't think I had it right:
By playing one quarter and 2 minutes of competent football wasn't enough to beat a not very good Michigan team, Right?
We pissed the opportunity to grab a win 10 years, almost to the day, the last time we went to the BiG house and came up with a win with inferior players and incompetent coaches - am I correct on that? Or am I mistaken and we won?
If we'd showed up at the kick-off, we might have won. That first half made the Iowa game look like we were defending national champions in comparison to our effort in the first half of this game. Failure on all three phases of the game.
That does not show that PJ Fleck is a great coach.
PJ is not the worst coach out there, but he a rehashed, less interesting, more bombastic version of the coaches we've had for decades (excluding the Wacker and Brewster fiascos). He has more slogans, and fewer big wins than any other coach during that time.
In 2019 he was able to coach around the failures and find wins with the help of playing 5 backup QBs, but when presented he took advantage.
In 2019 he still failed to beat Iowa. Failed to beat Wisconsin and failed to make the conf title game.
He then failed to win the west in 21, 22, and 23 - the weakest division in the then P5, even though we controlled our own destiny at some meaningful point all three years, in all three losing badly to bad football teams based primarily on shooting himself in the foot.
This is not the mark of a great coach.
I'm not going to change your mind. I won't be on the board again this week. Your confused and pedantic demands that we need to recognize "greatness" in mediocre performances is exhausting.
If your take away from this game is that PJ is a great coach, so be it.
He may be, but I saw two football teams playing mostly bad, boring football that at times bordered on absurdity in it's ineptness (mostly us), and even rarer bordered on competent. And I won't celebrate a moral victory or believe the hype when I continue to see more of the same that I've seen regardless of who the coach is.