Marcus Fuller blog: Changes in the secondary not working for Gophers

[BleedGopher]

Changes in the secondary not working for Gophers
By Marcus Fuller

Gophers coach Tim Brewster had a lot of patience with his young secondary players in the first four games of the season, but that didn't last in Saturday's 29-28 Big Ten opening loss to Northwestern.

Freshman cornerback Brock Vereen gave up a 45-yard touchdown catch to Tony Jones to start the first quarter. Sophomore Kyle Henderson, a Mankato State transfer, replaced Vereen.

After being high on freshman safety James Manuel to start the season, Brewster has gone away from playing him. Junior Christyn Lewis was Manuel's replacement, but Lewis was benched as well Saturday.

Senior Ryan Collado moved from cornerback to safety, but he also got beat on a late 25-yard touchdown catch from Jeremy Ebert in the fourth quarter. The 5-foot-9 Collado was right there with the 6-2 Ebert on the play, but he wasn't able to break up the pass. Size was a factor.

Collado is a great tackler and actually played well at safety for the most part, but doesn't have the height or jumping ability to stop deep throws to taller receivers. That's where the Gophers really miss senior Kim Royston, who stands around 5-11. Manuel and Lewis have the size at 6-2, but they are both inexperienced.

I'm not sure what else Brewster can do to help the secondary, besides maybe give former running back Shady Salamon a chance to play. He also could throw former receiver Troy Stoudermire into the mix. I actually thought we would see that Saturday, but maybe Stoudermire is too far behind to help right now.

It was a bad sign that cornerback Michael Carter and safety Kyle Theret finished with 11 and 10 tackles, respectively. Too many big plays in open space for Northwestern.

Northwestern quarterback Dan Persa threw for 309 yards and two touchdowns. Wildcats receiver Jeremy Ebert had seven catches for 105 yards and a touchdown. But Minnesota's defense will have to worry about a different kind of offense against Wisconsin this week.

-- Brewster said sophomore quarterback turned receiver MarQueis Gray was suffering from plantar fasciitis on his foot, which kept him from having a big impact Saturday. Gray had just two catches for eight yards in the game. That will be a key injury to watch out for moving forward.

-- The Gophers were 3 for 11 on third-down conversions and Northwestern converted 8 of 11 plays on third down, but they still nearly pulled it out in a 29-28 loss in Saturday's Big Ten Conference opener.

Imagine if Minnesota actually stopped the Wildcats on just one more third down in the second half. Or if the offense converted just one more. That could have been the difference in the game.

Not to mention, it's hard to believe the Gophers were 1 for 5 on third down conversions in the first half, but they still managed to take a 21-14 halftime lead. That just shows you how much Northwestern was giving the game away with penalties. The Wildcats finished with 10 penalties for 79 yards.

-- Junior linebacker Gary Tinsley is starting to look like pretty good player. He finished with 10 tackles and a forced fumble. But the Gophers really need to get sophomore Mike Rallis back from a hip pointer and pulled stomach muscle injury. Not sure what happened to Keanon Cooper. He only finished with one tackle after being replaced in the starting lineup by Spencer Reeves.

-- Redshirt freshman defensive end Matt Garin started in place of Jewhan Edwards at defensive tackles, but that was just for the matchup. Northwestern's offense was no-huddle, so it was harder for the 330-pound Edwards to keep up.

-- Brewster tried to defend freshman punter Dan Orseske, who struggled with a few bad punts in the game. Orseske had averaged just 34.7 yards on six punts. I think there should probably be an open competition for the starting spot this week, because it's really costing the Gophers field position in games. They obviously have a small margin for error.

http://blogs.twincities.com/gophers/2010/10/changes-in-the-secondary-not-w.html

Go Gophers!!

 

[Schnoodler]

I thought our secondary was alot better. Outside of the first play against Vereen I thought we covered well and forced Persa back into his dink and dunk game. And then we were right on the recievers with tackles.

I was very happy with Collado's role, and really liked what Henderson did with his playing time. I also thought the Linebackers made huge strides.

This is about where I expected this defense to be at this time, which is light years ahead of where we were against USD, USC, and NIU.

I think Fuller is way off on this one.

 

[diehard]

Vereen may have been a case of freshman jitters on that early pass. He froze flat footed and never was in the play. We can only only switch around the players so much. They are all we got. We won't have anyone else this year and next year anyone else is new again. They have to be coached up and get some experience. They have decent physical talent. They play slow. Thinking too much.

 

[scools12]

the defense gave up 490 total yards of offense, 309 passing yards, allowed 8 out of 11 conversions on 3rd down one which was a 15 yard run by the QB and 29 points which would have been worse of NW didn't turn the ball over twice inside the Gophers 10. What an imporvement over the last 3 weeks.

I think someone else is way off on this one.

 

[Schnoodler]

Seriously, you don't think this game was a hefty improvement? Did you even watch it? Night and day. That doesn't mean we were good. Nobody claimed we were good.

 

[91 CLA Grad]

We may be getting better, but there's still a lot of work to be done IMO.

Our DB's were still giving the WR's 8-10 yard cushions on the line. If I were a QB i'd be content to take what the defense gives me and get 6-7 yards per pass. Persa dinked & dunked his way to over 300 passing yards. Why take the lower percentage long passing plays if you don't have to?

Also, as I mentioned in another thread it appears we have a hole in our coverage in the middle behind the LB's. There were several times Persa hit his man there and no Gophers were within 5 yards of the receiver. Looks like they cleaned it up in the second half for I didn't remember seeing those sorts of plays later in the game.

I'm hopeful that with more playing time & experience that things will continue to improve incrementally. It'll be a process.

 

[scools12]

I did watch the game. I will give the defense credit for making a couple of plays to cause turnovers but without the penailites stopping themselves at times NW puts up around 600 yards. If giving up 600 yards on defense is what you expected then you are right they are improving.