Le'Meke Brockington Appreciation Thread!!! WOW what a first career TD!!

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Interesting route behind the DB who looked like he was playing the… run from way back in the secondary?
 







These are the kind of plays that at Minnesota tend to be 15-20 yard gains and at Ohio State or Michigan, they are touchdowns. Same play, same idea, but the guy running it is just a bit faster.

Big time speed, big time play. Gophers need more of this to take the next step.
 

He's a redshirt freshman, so after this year we may get 3 more exciting years from him (unless he leaves early for the NFL!)
 






A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Interesting route behind the DB who looked like he was playing the… run from way back in the secondary?
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It looked like some kind of zone possibly. Either way he did a good job running behind the DB instead of in front. Many WR have the tendency to try to get in front but going behind causes the DB to kinda lose him.
 



BamBam said:
should have been playing a lot more over Micheal Brown Stonehands
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I'm not sure what happened to this guy? I was very excited to see what he could do this year. He had moments in the past where he looked like our best WR.
 

Stuff said:
I'm not sure what happened to this guy? I was very excited to see what he could do this year. He had moments in the past where he looked like our best WR.
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I think his confidence was shattered on that Purdue drop.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Interesting route behind the DB who looked like he was playing the… run from way back in the secondary?
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In postgame, both AK and PJ said it was cover 2 and the throw should not have been made, but were glad it was. (just the messenger here- my understanding of coverage is limited)
 

Vandy said:
In postgame, both AK and PJ said it was cover 2 and the throw should not have been made, but were glad it was. (just the messenger here- my understanding of coverage is limited)
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When AK said in the postgame that he shouldn't have thrown it he got a little twinkle in his eye, this kid has IT...whatever IT is. :)

I was surprised by the way Brockington broke away after that catch. That was next level speed there as he had defenders converging on both sides and he ran right past them.

The WR group has taken a beating this season and much of it has been deserved. Lots of dropped balls, failure to come up with 50/50 balls and just poor play in general. As a group though they came to play yesterday and made some great catches.

In his post game Fleck mentioned the lightbulb going on for a couple of players. Athan is one for sure, I think Wright and Brockington might be a couple other candidates. With CRAB almost certainly back next year (just waiting on official approval) this has the potential to be a solid WR room with a QB that can really fire it into those tight windows in a way that Morgan just couldn't.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
I think his confidence was shattered on that Purdue drop.
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I agree. He's made some really good catches in traffic and not many really bad drops prior to that game. He's kind of disappeared ever since that game and has had drops that he'd normally catch. He's still a young guy with two more years, I'm optimistic he'll figure it out.
 

Losing Crab threw the entire receiving core into flux. He was supposed to be our sure handed, reliable guy, who catches everything thrown in his vicinity. It was a gigantic blow to this offense trying to find a way to fill that hole....and it's clear that the staff tried multiple things to little avail.

Personally, I thought that it meant it was time for Wright to make himself a factor. But something never really clicked. Maybe it was his chemistry with Morgan....maybe it was just that he wasn't getting the opportunities. I think the latter is more plausible. Two times yesterday....we tossed a deep ball up to him to let him go and get it. He caught the more difficult of the two. 50/50 on those? Take it all day. We never did that prior to yesterday. Wright is 6'3". That's the exact type of play we should have been attempting here and there. Then we threw MULTIPLE screen/quick passes to him. Again....never did that before yesterday. He's a good possession receiver. Quick moves to pick up extra yards. And he's strong. In close range without building up speed to hit him, smaller CBs had trouble taking him down before Wright picked up several more yards. Super effective play that we just never saw before yesterday. And maybe that's because he's a different type of receiver that we didn't really have during the 2019 passing clinic season. Maybe KC just didn't know how best to utilize him.

But Wright was never going to fill Crab's shoes. Different style of receiver. Looked to me that a lot of those primary receiver routes went to MBS. I know I was saying it early on, as were other posters. MBS should never have been higher than third or fourth receiver. It appeared that Fleck and KC were trying to shoehorn him into the Crab role. Jackson started taking over some of that, and was extremely reliable right off the jump. But MBS was a liability all year. It's really too bad that Brockington didn't see more playing time earlier on. Seems like he would have been a natural fit in that quick slant role, in which he did see sparse opportunities throughout the year. But sure looks like we had a better option here than MBS. But that's evidenced by the fact that Brockington's TD catch was probably an MBS route at some point during the year. Even if MBS catches that ball....there's no chance he breaks it for a touchdown.

Easy to look back and see that opportunities were squandered. Particularly in the Purdue game. Mo would have likely been the difference in that game....and the outcome of the West in hindsight. But that deflected pass by MBS in the end zone turning into an INT also could have been the difference between a win and a loss. Truly makes you wonder if Fleck IS too adverse to making changes or pulling time from one player in favor of another....which we've seen plenty of posters accuse him of....particularly when talking about Morgan. But the number of reasons why the passing game looked like trash for the majority of the year could be attributed to a number of things: conservatism (adversity to risk/downfield passing & limited playbook), wrong personnel (were we playing our best receivers?), pass blocking was downright terrible at times, etc...

The team did a number of things that we didn't see until the final game of the season. Since I'm an eternal optimist, I am less concerned about missed opportunities earlier in the season from keeping this passing attack under wraps. I'm more excited about the future. AK looks like the real deal. Don't want to anoint him as the savior just yet....if you look across the field at the hated Badgers....they did that with the guy who many want off the team these days. But he's got a rocket arm, he doesn't get rattled, and he has the size and speed to make things happen on the ground himself. Really....I'm only kind of (;)) throwing the parallels out there since we don't want expectations TOO high....but he is very much in the mold of a Josh Allen. Almost identical size and has a lot of the same attributes. The hype may very well be warranted.

I was just over the moon to see a passing game that worked yesterday. I went to the Rutgers game this year with my brother who's a wet blanket. He complained about it being boring....and he's not entirely wrong. Watching eight minute drives conducted almost entirely on the ground is fine. Getting the win is the most important thing. But it's not exciting....and it showed how limited this offense is. My main concern surrounding this is how the passing game would develop from where we were at to where we wanted to be. How did the receivers on the roster feel about their low utilization? Daniel Jackson has shown that he has skill. Does he hang around this offseason on a team that won't throw the ball? Wright appeared to have all the physical attributes in the world. But we couldn't get the ball in his hands or even get him targets.

Yesterday we had four receivers with over 50 yards. I don't know the last time that's happened....but a quick check of the box scores from 2019 shows that we had a few games with three receivers over 50...but never four. Turns out we DO have guys that can catch the ball if the staff is willing to air it out and try different things. With AK set to take over....and the entire receiving room presumably returning along with Crab and another year of BSF....next year could look a lot more like 2019 than it has the previous three. Lots of good vibes going into the offseason...which we as fans were hoping for...and what was really needed for the receiving core.
 
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Didn’t he also have miss the catch where it deflected into Iowa hands for that critical pick that led to the Iowa loss? Great redemption for him!! Great to see that
 

This was a shorter slant than the Outback Bowl bomb to Tyler Johnson, this play reminded me of that. Brockington's running style and physical build remind me a bit of Tyler's.
 

holereader said:
Didn’t he also have miss the catch where it deflected into Iowa hands for that critical pick that led to the Iowa loss? Great redemption for him!! Great to see that
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I don't remember if it was him but I think most of our receivers had drops go for interceptions this year. BSF and MBS for sure.
 

Watching a replay in slow motion, the Wisc CB is focused on Mo and bites on the play action to Mo, losing his coverage on Brockington. I have been screaming all year to use Mo more often as a decoy. If PJ and KC would have listened to me, it would be, "Indy, here we come!!"
 




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