Joe Rossi and the Gopher defense

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The truly amazing thing about this D is how good they are without the individual superstars. For example, Wisconsin's LB core got a ton of press, Michingan had the dominant DE and there area other defensive stars around the confernece.

But if you asked fans from other cities, I bet they would have a hard time naming individual players on this Gopher defense. And yet game after game they came out and played great team defense to keep opposing offenses in check. Holding teams under 300 yards is not easy and our defense has now done that in 7 straight games.
 


WriterGoph said:
Quick guess (before any additional portal additions) what our 2022 starting defense looks like:

S - Howden
S - Nubin
CB - Walley
CB - Stapp
CB - Bishop
LB - MSM
LB - Oliver
DE - Rush
DT - Carter
DT - Richter
DE - Joyner

Outside of Joyner, there is a lot of college experience in that lineup. I like that. What I like even more is how excited I feel about the young players behind these guys (in no particular order):

Safety - Dixon and Darius Green
CBs - Glaze, Ortiz, Miles Fleming, Solomon Brown (T Smith maybe still around too?)
LBs - Willis, Burns, Finnessy, Lindenberg, Devon Williams
DT - Schuster, Keys, McCoy, Eastern
DE - Logan-Redding, Booker, Striggow

I'm sure I've forgotten a couple, but overall, the younger players in the second group are the ones with the higher upside (if you listen to recruiting analysts/ratings) and impressive P5 offers for the most part. These are the years we have been recruiting better, so it'll be great to see these players with another spring ball and fall camp.

But I think there is gonna be some great competition for playing time. I also know I feel confident in what Joe Rossi can do with this bunch and (despite a lot of change on the DL), I feel great about the Gopher D headed into 2022.
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I have heard that Eastern gave our offensive line a lot of trouble in practice.

We have some high rated defensive lineman about to get their time.
 

USAF said:
Elite!

The physical talent level of the defense is miles ahead of the Kill era, and the coaching is fantastic.
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Seems like under Claeys we had a least one targeting penalty a game for a stretch. Very undisciplined.
 

USAF said:
Elite!

The physical talent level of the defense is miles ahead of the Kill era, and the coaching is fantastic.
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Across all eleven positions, I agree with you. Kill's system relied on CBs who could go man-to-man so his safeties could play tighter and "forward" play from the LB position and he did get studs (Murray, Boddy-Calhoun, Myrick, Wilson, Campbell) at those positions. Outside of Richardson, I thought Kill's D-lines weren't all that solid. Winfield was recruited by Kill/Claeys and he would have been a stud for whichever regime he played under, but I've always been curious as to whether Claeys would have used him differently.
 


kg21 said:
I have heard that Eastern gave our offensive line a lot of trouble in practice.

We have some high rated defensive lineman about to get their time.
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That's great. Also heard a lot of positive feedback from the coaches and fellow DL on Schuster too
 

Go Gophs said:
No doubt! Fleck's system is coming into place. Play a stout D, run the ball well, win time of possession battle and don't turn the ball over. It is not always the most fun to watch, but it works!

The athletes we have here now seem to be a notch better than any time I can remember watching Gopher football also. These guys can move.
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100%
 

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