Minnesota Gophers Fans Can Expect More Max Brosmer vs Nevada… and Going Forward

BleedGopher

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Expect more Brosmer vs Nevada​

But so far this season, teams have been throwing the ball on them constantly, and it has worked. Through three games, opposing teams are averaging 34 passing attempts per game. That’s 39th-most in the country. The 250.3 passing yards per game, that they’ve given up, are 32nd most in the country. Meanwhile, they are bottom-40 nationwide, in opponent rushing attempts.

Again, teams have been airing it out vs the Nevada Wolf Pack, and they have had success. More than likely, especially since Minnesota is still trying to piece together the right side of its offensive line, that will be the Gophers’ plan as well. Which is almost weird to type.

PJ Fleck and Max Brosmer have a goal of 70% completion, on the season, which would be far-and-away the best in program history. Currently, he sits at 72.5%. Last year, at New Hampshire, Max Brosmer completed passes at a 64% clip.


Go Gophers!!
 


One quibble with the writing in this article.

He says 48 was "an unfathomable score" because Fleck plays conservative with a lead, making it "nearly impossible to score that many times."

I did about 5 minutes of research, and found...

2017
Minnesota 48, Oregon State 17
Minnesota 54, Nebraska 21

2018
Minnesota 48, New Mexico State 10

2019
Minnesota 52, Maryland 10

2022
Minnesota 62, Western Illinois 10
Minnesota 49, Colorado 7

So, nothing "unfathomable" about it. It seems to happen pretty regularly.
 

One quibble with the writing in this article.

He says 48 was "an unfathomable score" because Fleck plays conservative with a lead, making it "nearly impossible to score that many times."

I did about 5 minutes of research, and found...

2017
Minnesota 48, Oregon State 17
Minnesota 54, Nebraska 21

2018
Minnesota 48, New Mexico State 10

2019
Minnesota 52, Maryland 10

2022
Minnesota 62, Western Illinois 10
Minnesota 49, Colorado 7

So, nothing "unfathomable" about it. It seems to happen pretty regularly.
Yeah a bit over the top to use that particular word, even given it was an almost 50-point difference. I guess I would say pretty unusual since according to what you show here, it's happened once before. Definitely unusual to score that many and shut out the opponent.
 

Yeah a bit over the top to use that particular word, even given it was an almost 50-point difference. I guess I would say pretty unusual since according to what you show here, it's happened once before. Definitely unusual to score that many and shut out the opponent.

What's happened 'once before'?

Here's the direct quote from the article:

"Whenever Gopher teams, of the past, have gotten out to early leads, they've went super conservative, making it nearly impossible to score that many times."

This is simply not true. I've given 6 examples of the Gophers under Fleck scoring "that many times" — 48 points — including a few where they scored more than 48.

Go back and look at Gopher scores since 2017. There are more than a few other games with pretty impressive point totals that were slightly short of 48 points.
 


I predict this team will pass a higher % of the time than any Gopher team since the 1993 squad averaged 45 passes and 30 runs a game.
 

What's happened 'once before'?

Here's the direct quote from the article:

"Whenever Gopher teams, of the past, have gotten out to early leads, they've went super conservative, making it nearly impossible to score that many times."

This is simply not true. I've given 6 examples of the Gophers under Fleck scoring "that many times" — 48 points — including a few where they scored more than 48.

Go back and look at Gopher scores since 2017. There are more than a few other games with pretty impressive point totals that were slightly short of 48 points.
Win by 50. The part you didn't include from the article. "Up until September 7, 2024, blowing out an opponent by nearly 50 points was not even possible."
 

Win by 50. The part you didn't include from the article. "Up until September 7, 2024, blowing out an opponent by nearly 50 points was not even possible."

Oh, come on. How many teams in the country win by a 50 point margin on a regular basis?

Judging by this, I guess I have to assume if you don't routinely win by 50 it proves that you're "super conservative".

Give me a break.
 

Oh, come on. How many teams in the country win by a 50 point margin on a regular basis?

Judging by this, I guess I have to assume if you don't routinely win by 50 it proves that you're "super conservative".

Give me a break.
Sort of his point amplified. I mean, it is a fact other than 2019, the offense has been vanilla and yes, conservative, except in weird situations were you'd want to be...like when AK got hurt at UNC last year and they had the backup, who was known as not a good passer, throw an endzone shot coming off the bench cold.
 



Sort of his point amplified. I mean, it is a fact other than 2019, the offense has been vanilla and yes, conservative, except in weird situations were you'd want to be...like when AK got hurt at UNC last year and they had the backup, who was known as not a good passer, throw an endzone shot coming off the bench cold.

I can see that you and this writer are in agreement.
 


You don't think the offense has been conservative?

The offense is definitely based on a strong run-first approach.
I understand that conventional thinking would have us define that as conservative. I get it that to many people more running = conservative, and more passing = modern.

On the other hand, I see Fleck's offensive philosophy as one that is definitely bucking current trends, and if you look at it that way you might even be able to make a case that it's the opposite of conservative, in that it's breaks with many current norms.
 

The offense is definitely based on a strong run-first approach.
I understand that conventional thinking would have us define that as conservative. I get it that to many people more running = conservative, and more passing = modern.

On the other hand, I see Fleck's offensive philosophy as one that is definitely bucking current trends, and if you look at it that way you might even be able to make a case that it's the opposite of conservative, in that it's breaks with many current norms.
If I do some mental gymnastics, maybe. It's been a very tight playbook outside of 2019. Works until it doesn't, and then he doesn't adjust.
 



If I do some mental gymnastics, maybe. It's been a very tight playbook outside of 2019. Works until it doesn't, and then he doesn't adjust.

You are as one with many people on this. Although I give you credit for the descriptive "tight playbook" as being original — at least, I've never run across it previously.
 

You are as one with many people on this. Although I give you credit for the descriptive "tight playbook" as being original — at least, I've never run across it previously.
Literally the definition of a conservative offense is ball control...running the ball and running down the clock.
 



One quibble with the writing in this article.

He says 48 was "an unfathomable score" because Fleck plays conservative with a lead, making it "nearly impossible to score that many times."

I did about 5 minutes of research, and found...

2017
Minnesota 48, Oregon State 17
Minnesota 54, Nebraska 21

2018
Minnesota 48, New Mexico State 10

2019
Minnesota 52, Maryland 10

2022
Minnesota 62, Western Illinois 10
Minnesota 49, Colorado 7

So, nothing "unfathomable" about it. It seems to happen pretty regularly.
some of this is the context the writer is alluding to. Typically with huge leads we go conservative and those scores typically come from big plays in the running game.

Vs Or St: we scored twice in the last 5 min, including a 64 yard run from Croft with under 3 min to go
vs Neb: we scored twice in the last 7 min, including a 43 yard run from Mccrary with about 3 min to go
vs WIU: we had Jelens late rumbling run to score

He's just saying you get THAT big a lead that early, you typically stop scoring in part because I think PJ is old school and respects his opponents and we run the ball almost exclusively (hence our very minimal passing attempts by backups over the year). He definitely bucked that trend last game and let Lindsey throw the ball, which I really liked. The word unfathomable is a really weird choice (yay journalism and needed to use big words) but it is pretty atypical of how PJ usually goes about these games. the only other game I can really think that was like this was the game against Rutgers in 2019 where we were up like 35-0 and Morgan threw a TD to Johnson to go up 42-0 that we certainly didn't need. Lindsey played the entire 4th quarter and threw the ball on his first drive in.Was nice to see him get in and get those reps
 











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