Most Disappointing?

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Ogee Ogilthorpe

Ogee Ogilthorpe

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What's been the most disappointing aspect of the Gophers play through 7 games this season?

For me, it's Special Teams and it's not even close. Yes, a case could be made for the defense against the run or the offense's inability to move the ball at times and close drives, but Special Teams have been abysmal.

>> The muffed punt by Troy against UNLV almost cost them the game, as UNLV could barely move the ball most of the game. The missed FG before halftime was a big momentum boost for UNLV also.

>> Dumping the opening kickoff against Northwestern was catastrophic. Handed NU one score there, and lost by one score. KJ Maye falling down/slipping at the 10-yard line on the ensuing kickoff didn't help much either.

>> Eldred has been serviceable at Punter, and that's somewhat generous. The positive thing about him has been that they have allowed virtually no return yards as he has some good hang time (along with a few shanks).

>> Wettstein has been disappointing. No other way to put it. Not entirely sure why Hawthorne hasn't been given another shot. For kicker, given a choice between talent and confidence, I'll take the confident guy every time. Wettstein's confidence seems to be lacking at times (the misses to the right) and I don't recall Hawthorne ever lacking in the confidence category.

>> Field position. Can't recall a team get so absolutely crushed/dominated in the battle for field position. Against Wisconsin, Wisky started EIGHT drives outside of their own 35-yard line; the Gophers started ONE. You are fighting a seriously uphill battle when you put yourself in that situation time and time again.

Against Northwestern, they had drives of 76 and 81 yards and netted 3 points.

I'm fully on board with Kill and I think he's going to get the job done. But this was an area he said he was going to put a primary emphasis on, himself, and in this area, I give him and the Gophers a loud, resounding FAIL.
 

Good points Ogee. I have to think this will be turned around by next year. The punting game is getting better (I think).

The missed field goals and extra points can take the wind out of a team that is trying to get momentum.
 

I agree that it has been special teams. One thing you did not mention Ogee is the Kick Return game. Troy has made poor decisions on when to take the ball out and when to down it and when he has taken it out, he has not been very solid. Finally last week, he appeared more comfortable and took it straight forward for some decent gains. In fact, he actually looked mad each time KJ Maye told him to down it. I thought it was interesting that Wisconsin choose to kick it to him. They appeared to be the first team this year willing to just kick the ball off as opposed to kicking away from Troy.
 

Man, Ogee, couldn't have summed it up better myself. Special Teams have been a dissapointment this year. Although, they are better than they have been last year, Special teams are still not at the level we would all like to seem them be. Most notably for myself, the punting. I am getting way to used to expecting a shanked punt at some point during the game, which is scary. Always at the most inopportune (SP?) as well. Seems like Eldred will have a great punt, followed by a 7-15 yard shank when we are deep on our own side of the field. These instances are becoming less frequent, but I expect to have little to no hiccups in the punting game. Now, I know this is Eldred's first year playing CFB, but I guess I can only hope he improves. Just really frustrating.

(Missed FG's and XP's also VERY frustrating as well!)
 

Agree as well.

I think an equalizer for struggling BCS teams is to emphasize the kicking game. Aggressively recruit kickers and punters. They don't get the love and attention of position players so I think it would be possible to recruit top 5 kickers/punters just by recruiting them as hard as you would recruit a top position player.

Currently our top kicker/punter are non-scholarship. If Orseske is not the answer, we should have recruited a scholarship punter for this year.

Has Hawthorne played? Perhaps they are redshirting him for next year.
 



50PoundHead said:
The multitude of bad snaps.
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+1. I have alluded to this a number of times in other threads, and not too many other people seem to take notice. The bad snaps also seem to happen at the worst times as well. 2nd and long, third and short. Guess there is never really a good time for a bad snap, but I digress.

Definitely not all on the center, but more often than not, either the snap count is mistimed, or the snap has been to high or or low, bouncing off the ground in some cases.
 

Special Forces would have needed to be good at any point in the past 6 yrs to disappoint. nope, 0 expectations for them. i been disappointed in the sour old men who sit behind us. They look at us like the hi-5 is a gang sign.
 

wait!what? said:
Special Forces would have needed to be good at any point in the past 6 yrs to disappoint. nope, 0 expectations for them. i been disappointed in the sour old men who sit behind us. They look at us like the hi-5 is a gang sign.
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LOL. Day-brightener!
 



Maybe it's just me, but I noticed what appeared to be a certain confidence in Eldred's posture and the way he carried himself during the Wisconsin game. Like he's finally figuring out what football's about and is comfortable that he won't embarrass himself and the team out there. Maybe I read too much into it, I don't know.
 

Stan The Caddy said:
I agree that it has been special teams. One thing you did not mention Ogee is the Kick Return game. Troy has made poor decisions on when to take the ball out and when to down it and when he has taken it out, he has not been very solid. Finally last week, he appeared more comfortable and took it straight forward for some decent gains. In fact, he actually looked mad each time KJ Maye told him to down it. I thought it was interesting that Wisconsin choose to kick it to him. They appeared to be the first team this year willing to just kick the ball off as opposed to kicking away from Troy.
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Our lack of return game has been really surprising this year. I also noticed Troy looking mad when KJ stopped him a couple times and I think on at least one of those they should have run it out. The overall inconsistency in the kicking game is definitely disappointing but I still think the worst part has been the run defense and the size of some of the running lanes we are giving up in recent weeks. Our coaches have not figured out how to fix it and you can bet the rest of the Big Ten teams are going to continue to exploit it until they do.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Maybe it's just me, but I noticed what appeared to be a certain confidence in Eldred's posture and the way he carried himself during the Wisconsin game. Like he's finally figuring out what football's about and is comfortable that he won't embarrass himself and the team out there. Maybe I read too much into it, I don't know.
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As far as I know, he has played zero football before this year so it must be surreal to be punting in front of such large crowds.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Our lack of return game has been really surprising this year. I also noticed Troy looking mad when KJ stopped him a couple times and I think on at least one of those they should have run it out. The overall inconsistency in the kicking game is definitely disappointing but I still think the worst part has been the run defense and the size of some of the running lanes we are giving up in recent weeks. Our coaches have not figured out how to fix it and you can bet the rest of the Big Ten teams are going to continue to exploit it until they do.
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I thought with the way the Sconnie game was going in the second half, there was no harm in returning those kicks out and taking a chance on Troy breaking one. We needed to do something to create a spark.
 



I agree that special teams has been the most disappointing. It doesn't appear the Eldred will have a huge leg but if he can consistently put it out there 40-45 yards with a lot of hang time, I'd be happy with that. It's better than 55 yard punts with little hang time.

The return game has changed completely in college football. It's hard for guys like Stoudermire, who's been so good over his career, to just take a knee all the time. Last year teams averaged 0.9 touch backs per game. That number is up to 2.1 touch backs per team per game this year. That's a huge jump. So I don't always blame guys like Soudermire for taking a chance once in awhile.
 

To me the biggest area of disappointment has to be injuries especially to offensive line. I do agree with center snaps and special teams also, just less catastrophic.
 

Stan The Caddy said:
I thought with the way the Sconnie game was going in the second half, there was no harm in returning those kicks out and taking a chance on Troy breaking one. We needed to do something to create a spark.
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Could not agree more.
 

Our coverage teams have been just fine, it's the KO return squad (Barker does OK on punt return) and the kickers who have struggled. To me, it's not even close the most disappointing thing is the number of big running plays we've given up on defense. The fumbled snaps a close second.
 

I would lump the special teams problems and the snaps into a single disappointing bucket of unforced errors. It is one thing to get out muscled by bigger, stronger, more experienced players. It is another thing to make mistakes that would disappoint a high school football coach (like missing an extra point or 4 fumbled snaps in one game)
 


bleedsmaroonandgold said:
I would lump the special teams problems and the snaps into a single disappointing bucket of unforced errors. It is one thing to get out muscled by bigger, stronger, more experienced players. It is another thing to make mistakes that would disappoint a high school football coach (like missing an extra point or 4 fumbled snaps in one game)
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+1. Thank you. Couldn't agree more.
 

Most disappointing is Gray getting hurt at Quarterback in the Syracuse game

They were just starting to move the ball and get it going with Gray when he got injured. His Injury and Shortells inefectiveness at times necessitated pulling the redshirt on Phillip Nelson that may hurt us down the road.
Second most disappointing statistic of the year is 3rd down completion percentage, we are under 30% for this area.

A lot of 1st down plays have led to a lot of 3rd and long situations and a lot of punting the last 3 to 4 games. We are typically involved in 3rd down and 8 yards to go situations on third down, it is hard to be successful on offense when your only average 1 to 2 yards on first down.
First down play calls have become predictable based on the fluctuation of the offensive line and all of the Ijury's there.
Gophers started off healthy before Big10 play and now are flush with Injury. It has been a run of bad luck on that front in the O-Line.
 


gopherdudepart2 said:
They were just starting to move the ball and get it going with Gray when he got injured. His Injury and Shortells inefectiveness at times necessitated pulling the redshirt on Phillip Nelson that may hurt us down the road.
Second most disappointing statistic of the year is 3rd down completion percentage, we are under 30% for this area.

A lot of 1st down plays have led to a lot of 3rd and long situations and a lot of punting the last 3 to 4 games. We are typically involved in 3rd down and 8 yards to go situations on third down, it is hard to be successful on offense when your only average 1 to 2 yards on first down.
First down play calls have become predictable based on the fluctuation of the offensive line and all of the Ijury's there.
Gophers started off healthy before Big10 play and now are flush with Injury. It has been a run of bad luck on that front in the O-Line.
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I say Gray's injury is most disappointing. Other than the muffed opening kickoff against NW, I don't see the outcome of any game changing with moderately improved special teams. Gray is a game-changer. With a healthy Gray, NW & Iowa become much more winnable.

It's unfortunate our star players have gone down the past few seasons. Decker, now Gray. Probably has something to do with lack of depth and having to rely on key players. Hopefully Kill can build depth, take pressure off our stars, and avoid these injuries.
 

With the bad snaps, even if you get the ball back, it's like a false start penalty, only worse, because you not only lose yardage, but lose a down as well. It sets up third and long situations which are hard to convert. The defense has given up some big plays in Big Ten games, but I'm really not too disappointed. Against Iowa, the defense gave up 24 points, and against Northwestern, the defense gave up only 21. The quick scores after turnovers is concerning, it's like the defense isn't ready to go in when there is a turnover.

Special teams has hurt, but the offense needs to come up with more that 13 points.
 

Dead nuts on Ogie. Also. The blocking on what kicks we've tried to return has been horrible. It is tough enough to beat 1-2 guys to the open spot. 5 or 6 is impossible.
 

The fact that Grays career will end with only about 15 start at QB while Adam weber got 50.
 

Rosemountian said:
The fact that Grays career will end with only about 15 start at QB while Adam weber got 50.
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Kinda off topic, and I'm probably opening up a can of worms, but my opinion is that Weber would have done very well in Kill's offense.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Kinda off topic, and I'm probably opening up a can of worms, but my opinion is that Weber would have done very well in Kill's offense.
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Weber was a pretty good runner early in his Gopher career when he was asked to run a fair amount. He was also very durable so I agree he would have been a good fit for Kill's offense.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
Most disappointing is Gray getting hurt at Quarterback in the Syracuse game. They were just starting to move the ball and get it going with Gray when he got injured. His Injury and Shortells inefectiveness at times necessitated pulling the redshirt on Phillip Nelson that may hurt us down the road...
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???? Not sure if serious, considering Gray never took the field against Syracuse and was on his way to leading the Gophers to a loss when he got hurt against Western Michigan? At the time he left the WMU game, the Gophers had mustered 110 yards of offense on 5 drives, put together an 8-yard TD drive, and Gray had just fumbled inside the Gophers own 20 in just under two quarters of play. Gophers trailing 10-7. Afterwards, they managed to muster only 290 yards of offense and 3 TD's in just over 2 quarters.
 

Rosemountian said:
The fact that Grays career will end with only about 15 start at QB while Adam weber got 50.
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No doubt. It would be cool to see what Gray could have done with 50 starts at WR. I think he could have been something special, and very likely a somewhat high draft pick. He catches the ball naturally and is a load to bring down. I hope he gets a chance in the league to play either WR or some kind of hybrid TE/WR. He's a special talent.
 

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