Minnesota Football: Evaluating Year 6 of the P.J. Fleck era

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PhiloVance said:
Offense rated a C
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This was the worst offense that the Gophers have put on the field since 2017. No real receiving threat. Inconsistent QB play. Bland play calling. The good news is that it's hard to get much worse than what happened below.

Minnesota's offense this year:
  • Had a first-year (kinda?) offensive coordinator that had to re-install his system
  • Turned over all but one of its offensive lineman during the offseason
  • Lost its top receiving threat after three games
  • Lost its best RB for what turned out to be the most important game
  • Went through an unplanned QB transition during the season
  • That transition festered due to multiple injuries that lasted all the way through the bowl game
Hard to imagine it gets any worse than that. I'm not sure what Minnesota's offense would have looked like if Weber and Decker got knocked out in 2008 but I imagine it would have looked a lot like what we saw this year.

I'm hopeful going into next season. KC will have had more time to re-install his offense. Athan will have had an entire off-season to prepare. The offensive line should be a little older. The receiving room should be a little better. Many of Minnesota's rivals are going through coaching transitions while Minnesota's staff appears to be stable.

If the first four games of 2022 were any indication of what this team _could_ have looked like, then there is a lot of reason to be excited.

Next year is really about keeping it "one week at a time." Gophers probably aren't putting together another 9-win season and Minneapolis sports media is probably going to be calling for PJ's head by the bye week.
 
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I think the disappointment part is how we lost the Purdue and Iowa games, and what winning those games would have meant. An opportunity that we aren't likely to get again for a very long time.

It's a different kind of disappointment than thinking you're going to have a great year but then going 7-6 on the year.


In some ways, it's a worse kind, but in other ways it is better.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I think the disappointment part is how we lost the Purdue and Iowa games, and what winning those games would have meant. An opportunity that we aren't likely to get again for a very long time.

It's a different kind of disappointment than thinking you're going to have a great year but then going 7-6 on the year.


In some ways, it's a worse kind, but in other ways it is better.
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Can't imagine what the offense grade would have been without Mo.
 

I like to think that the offense took a big step towards improvement and having a modern offense in the Wisconsin game. My hope is that will be the new normal going forward.
 




hello-world said:
This was the worst offense that the Gophers have put on the field since 2017. No real receiving threat. Inconsistent QB play. Bland play calling. The good news is that it's hard to get much worse than what happened below.

Minnesota's offense this year:
  • Had a first-year (kinda?) offensive coordinator that had to re-install his system
  • Turned over all but one of its offensive lineman during the offseason
  • Lost its top receiving threat after three games
  • Lost its best RB for what turned out to be the most important game
  • Went through an unplanned QB transition during the season
  • That transition festered due to multiple injuries that lasted all the way through the bowl game
Hard to image it gets any worse than that. I'm not sure what Minnesota's offense would have looked like if Weber and Decker got knocked out in 2008 but I imagine it would have looked a lot like what we saw this year.

I'm hopeful going into next season. KC will have had more time to re-install his offense. Athan will have had an entire off-season to prepare. The offensive line should be a little older. The receiving room should be a little better. Many of Minnesota's rivals are going through coaching transitions while Minnesota's staff appears to be stable.

If the first four games of 2022 were any indication of what this team _could_ have looked like, then there is a lot of reason to be excited.

Next year is really about keeping it "one week at a time." Gophers probably aren't putting together another 9-win season and Minneapolis sports media is probably going to be calling for PJ's head by the bye week.
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Clearly you did not look at the 2021 offense.
 

That felt like a pretty fair analysis. 8 regular season wins is solid, but that's the level we were at before PJ got here (8 regular season wins 3 times in the last 4 years under Kill/Claeys). The three things that put PJ above the previous regime are (1) the 11-2 season, (2) bowl game success, and (3) success against Wisconsin (though this is somewhat offset by a maddening losing streak against other rival Iowa). Hopefully we can take a step forward next year, beat Iowa AND Wisconsin in a year, go to the B1G title game, and not fall back into the 8 win regular season rut we were in pre-Fleck that many in here feel was good but not great. Obviously, love to see him continue having the success in bowl games. That makes for a more fun off-season than Kill losing a winnable bowl,and then spending the off-season watching this board try to rationalize it with some weird argument that the bowl game was meaningless.
 

Giving our offense a C is kind of crazy.

We were #4 in the conference in Yards Per Play (conference games only). This is important because the Gophers style slows the game down so much that you can't look at total yards or points - - we intentionally shorten the game. When we lining up to run a play, only Penn State, Ohio State, and Michigan averaged more yards on that play.

We were #3 in the Big 10 in rushing yards and #3 in the Big 10 in yards per passing attempt.

Obviously there are things I would have liked done a different way but we had a good offense.

It was a B.
 

GopherFanatic19 said:
We get 9 wins next year I’d say great year, but of course I wish undefeated
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See no reason we can’t start 5-0 and have gameday visit again for the showdown with Michigan. Weird part about next year is they could whey realistically go 8-4 and make a B10 title game (lose the crossovers plus unc). Too early to say what to expect as well see what everyone unloads and brings in, but I think they’ll be right there again.
 



bleedsmaroonandgold said:
That felt like a pretty fair analysis. 8 regular season wins is solid, but that's the level we were at before PJ got here (8 regular season wins 3 times in the last 4 years under Kill/Claeys). The three things that put PJ above the previous regime are (1) the 11-2 season, (2) bowl game success, and (3) success against Wisconsin (though this is somewhat offset by a maddening losing streak against other rival Iowa). Hopefully we can take a step forward next year, beat Iowa AND Wisconsin in a year, go to the B1G title game, and not fall back into the 8 win regular season rut we were in pre-Fleck that many in here feel was good but not great. Obviously, love to see him continue having the success in bowl games. That makes for a more fun off-season than Kill losing a winnable bowl,and then spending the off-season watching this board try to rationalize it with some weird argument that the bowl game was meaningless.
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One small nit - we went over .500 in the Big 10.

In the 20 year before PJ, we were able to do that 3 times (twice with Kill/Claeys and once with Mason).
 

Defense feels about right, offense too low and ST too high.
 

We went 6-3 in 2021 and 5-4 in 2022, in the Big Ten.

Caveat: of the Big Time programs in the East, we only played Ohio State (at home) in 2021, and Penn State in 2022. Then Mich St, we played on the road in 2022 but they were way down.

In other words, we had very nice and soft East schedules that helped to pad the conference wins.
 



bleedsmaroonandgold said:
That felt like a pretty fair analysis. 8 regular season wins is solid, but that's the level we were at before PJ got here (8 regular season wins 3 times in the last 4 years under Kill/Claeys). The three things that put PJ above the previous regime are (1) the 11-2 season, (2) bowl game success, and (3) success against Wisconsin (though this is somewhat offset by a maddening losing streak against other rival Iowa). Hopefully we can take a step forward next year, beat Iowa AND Wisconsin in a year, go to the B1G title game, and not fall back into the 8 win regular season rut we were in pre-Fleck that many in here feel was good but not great. Obviously, love to see him continue having the success in bowl games. That makes for a more fun off-season than Kill losing a winnable bowl,and then spending the off-season watching this board try to rationalize it with some weird argument that the bowl game was meaningless.
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Gonna be tough with essentially two built in loses with Ohio State and Michigan. No margin for error.
 


Hopefully we won't lose 4 of 5 starting offensive lineman every year (thank you JMS for coming back). Keep building and recruiting O lineman like we have the past few years. As we all know, it starts in the trenches. We need to improve the D line (but that is the hardest position to recruit).
 

Rockraven said:
No margin for error but not built in losses.
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I mean I'll still root for them but we have a combined six wins against those two teams since 1977. Ohio State's talent is on a whole different planet. 2021 we ran out plan to perfection and they still put 40 up with under 20 minutes of TOP. Michigan essentially does what Fleck wants to do with better personal. Perhaps we are due. But we need to go 6-0 vs the West of we want to feel good about it
 

GopherJack said:
Hopefully we won't lose 4 of 5 starting offensive lineman every year (thank you JMS for coming back). Keep building and recruiting O lineman like we have the past few years. As we all know, it starts in the trenches. We need to improve the D line (but that is the hardest position to recruit).
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Guessing Boe, Ersery and Carroll are locks to start. Key will be will a couple of the young guys like Purcell or Nelson step up. Will JJ or Shaw finally breakthrough? Lewis was right there as well
 

Also still working through the back-end of covid super-seniors.

JMS and Axel Ruschmeyer should've been gone after 2021, then you would've had Boe probably starting center and he would've been a senior this year, I think same with Shaw. Instead they're seniors next year.

I think after 2023, it finally falls off and we're back to "normal" guys. But with the wide-open transfer portal, you probably can just paper over whatever gap would've been from that.
 



Dupreefor3 said:
Gonna be tough with essentially two built in loses with Ohio State and Michigan. No margin for error.
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We also have to play on the road at North Carolina who played for the ACC championship this year and at Kinnick.
 

hello-world said:
Run blocking looked worse. Ball was also coming out a lot more quickly this year so hard to compare sack numbers.

Sanford's super late developing routes weren't in the playbook this year.

They also lost a NFL right tackle.
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Any way you want to look at it statistically, 2021 was worse.
 

Wooty_Woot said:
We also have to play on the road at North Carolina who played for the ACC championship this year and at Kinnick.
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Drake is a great QB and has proven that. I do believe Athan can match him. Both are/will be outstanding. Given a choice of the two I’ll take Athan. Potentially a higher ceiling and we will have better WRs at least in my opinion.
 

There are a lot of question marks than answers for next season.

PJ Fleck has elevated the expectation ceiling. Nine-win seasons are great. I can live with nine-win seasons year-to-year.

But the Gophers have not been able to win a Big Ten West title outright. The Big Ten West will be gone after 2023.

Parity in the Big Ten West recruiting-wise bunched the top five teams closely. That may change in 2023 and beyond with Fickel, Rhule, and Walters coming to the scene. It will be even tougher with USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten with the conference divisions being dissolved.

It is not getting any easier. The Gophers need to get lucky in recruiting or something.
 
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