La Velle Neal: P.J. Fleck should thank Tanner Morgan ... then switch to Athan Kaliakmanis as Gophers QB

[MNVCGUY]

Play Morgan. Winning is most important within the season. Next year can wait. Athan has put some stuff on tape and they can take the whole off-season to prepare the offence around Athan/Kramer/Knuth. All seem to be pretty mobile which should allow for some different looks on offense.

Shocking that the crowd advocating for benching Morgan for Athan isn't also asking for Mo and JMS to be benched so that their backups can get valuable reps for next year.

 

[Goldmember]

LaVelle E. Neal disagrees, of course. But sports media types love two things above all others: QB controversies, and fire-the-coach movements.

And then in taking sides on these controversies (which they fabricated themselves) they somehow manage to be wrong nearly 100% of the time.

 

[FredCoxRocks]

He's close to a 70% passer at a school that hasn't had a good QB in nearly 10 years. We may not see another QB as good as him again. If Athan is even comes close to Tanner's success at Minnesota, I will be ecstatic.

First off, I am in the "start Morgan" crowd for the remainder of the year. That being said, we will see another QB better than Morgan. For a guy that has been on the team for 6 years now and started 5, I thought by now we would be seeing a better version of him than what we currently have.
We've seen better QBs in the previous 30-40 years so no reason to think we won't in the next 30-40 years. I just doubt anyone of them will be fortunate enough to have 5 years to attack the record books.

And, FWIW, I was having a discussion with a friend on Saturday. We were comparing Morgan and Adam Weber. We both agreed that if you flipped those to around, Morgan wouldn't even come close to what Weber was able to do on those terrible Gopher teams; while Weber would have surpassed anything Morgan has done...especially when having the benefit of Johnson and Bateman in 2019.

Anyway, just my opinion.

 

[akgo4]

AK is the better athlete. Tanner is the better QB in terms of knwing how to play the position (even if his limited skill set doesnt allow him to do some things AK can potentially). The whole "Tanner is a MAC QB" thing though is bunk..... Big Ben, Josh Harris, Byron Leftwich. a couple kids from Buffalo..... In other words "MAC QBs get drafted too". Tanner can play if the system is right. We lost because we didnt show up to play and our system is too inflexible to use a skill set like AK's when Tanner cant play. AK was forced to do some things he wasnt prepped to do.....

 

[GopherPete]

Does playing TM at QB hurt our chances to recruit playmakers at WR?

 

[MNVCGUY]

Does playing TM at QB hurt our chances to recruit playmakers at WR?

Shouldn't have any impact on 2023 guys since they would be coming here knowing they were going to have a different QB under center.

Our overall offensive scheme isn't going to be super attractive to WR if they are looking to go somewhere that chucks the ball around a ton.

 

[PMWinSTP]

Well, duh, we pass less than the substantial majority of teams. The team is ranked much higher (by ESPN) in passer rating (#65 - middle of the pack in FBS).

Just pointing out that changing QBs probably would have little, if any, impact on the actual outcomes of the remaining games.

 

[PMWinSTP]

Play Morgan. Winning is most important within the season. Next year can wait. Athan has put some stuff on tape and they can take the whole off-season to prepare the offence around Athan/Kramer/Knuth. All seem to be pretty mobile which should allow for some different looks on offense.

I'm not convinced that playing Morgan or Athan will impact whether gophs win or lose any of the remaining games.

 

[PMWinSTP]

First off, I am in the "start Morgan" crowd for the remainder of the year. That being said, we will see another QB better than Morgan. For a guy that has been on the team for 6 years now and started 5, I thought by now we would be seeing a better version of him than what we currently have.
We've seen better QBs in the previous 30-40 years so no reason to think we won't in the next 30-40 years. I just doubt anyone of them will be fortunate enough to have 5 years to attack the record books.

And, FWIW, I was having a discussion with a friend on Saturday. We were comparing Morgan and Adam Weber. We both agreed that if you flipped those to around, Morgan wouldn't even come close to what Weber was able to do on those terrible Gopher teams; while Weber would have surpassed anything Morgan has done...especially when having the benefit of Johnson and Bateman in 2019.

Anyway, just my opinion.

As much as Weber could frustrate me at times, I have to agree.

 

[DanvilleGopher]

The Illinois game was awful in the passing department but Athan was no better. Tanner was not that bad against Purdue although he threw 3 interceptions. Tanner's accuracy against Rutgers was quite good although his yardage per pass was meager. I blame that more on the scheming and the receivers not getting much separation in that game but Tanner threaded those pretty well with defenders on the receivers. He also had no turnovers.

But, these recent games are not that relevant in the grand scheme of things. We were manhandled by Illinois and Penn State. Athan had a below average game against Penn State which I guess can be elevated in perception because of the difficult circumstances. That doesn't mean he's the Answer for the rest of the season.

Tanner hasn't completely lost it because of a couple of rough games. Now, I've expressed how I feel. I'm not going to change my mind and you're not going to change your mind so that's enough of this conversation.

Athan didn't have a chance in the Penn State game. The game plan was atrociously ultra conservative. The coaches didn't help him out whatsoever and put him in too many 3rd and longs. You say he was below average, the only real time they allowed him to shine, he drove the team down for a TD right before half. Given the circumstances the coaches put him in vs PS, I wanted to see him start against Rutgers.

Against Illinois, he came in at the end when the whole stadium knew he was there to pass and he forced things because he had no choice. The receivers certainly didn't help by not fighting for the balls.