New Mexico State Pregame Thread

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It will be awesome to finally blow a team out (I hope). When's the last time that really happened? I guess FAU in 2008?
 

NMSU had no rushing attack against Ohio whatsoever. They did pass the ball well. That makes me a little nervous. NMSU doesn't have Barkley/Woods though..
 

This is just the tune up Kill needs to get rhythm in the offense. Shut down the run, find someone to pressure the qb.I have confidence in the secondary. Woods/Barkley are first round picks. The Gopher pk is a little scary. The punter did a great job. Final score 44-6. I am more concerned about Miami, but Kill has played them every year and will know how to game plan them.4-2 going into the bye week. The future is bright.
 

Gophers open up as 23 point favorites.
 


Scary?

popeyoung5 said:
This is just the tune up Kill needs to get rhythm in the offense. Shut down the run, find someone to pressure the qb.I have confidence in the secondary. Woods/Barkley are first round picks. The Gopher pk is a little scary. The punter did a great job. Final score 44-6. I am more concerned about Miami, but Kill has played them every year and will know how to game plan them.4-2 going into the bye week. The future is bright.
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On what basis did you conclude that the pk is a little scary? He attempted 3 field goals of which two were touched and the other went through the uprights. In addition, the pk was two for two on PATs. You might want to expand on your data points before you pass anymore judgements on Hawthorne. He happens to have a very good leg and should prove to be excellent kicker for us.
 

PAT's better not be a judge of kicking beyond POP Warner. Were the 2 misses blocked due to low kicks or line issues? IDK. He just did not seem real relaxed. Hopefully the unit can get it dialed in.
 


NMSU only rushed for 6 yards on 23 carries against Ohio. We should be able to handle this team.

/prayer of no South Dakota-esque meltdown
 



Playing up to your opposition's level is sometimes easier then not playing down to your opposition's level. I really hope coach Kill gets the guys to play at a consistent high level and we smoke these clowns. Barley winning would feel like a let down at this point.
 

popeyoung5 said:
This is just the tune up Kill needs to get rhythm in the offense. Shut down the run, find someone to pressure the qb.I have confidence in the secondary. Woods/Barkley are first round picks. The Gopher pk is a little scary. The punter did a great job. Final score 44-6. I am more concerned about Miami, but Kill has played them every year and will know how to game plan them.4-2 going into the bye week. The future is bright.
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We will throttle NMState. They are the epitome of a "body bag" game opponent. If we improve, correct mistakes, and show up like we did in yesterday's second half, the score you've predicted will be awfully close. I could see us putting 37-44 points on them.

How bad is it there? 4 winning seasons since 1967, 3 Bowl Games (1936, 1959, and 1960) Sun Bowl, small budget for football, and when you type in a Google Search New Mexico State "football" doesn't even appear in the drop down menu (baseball does though).

I was thinking the same about the Miami game (reference to familiarity for Coach Kill) then remembered they have former Mich St. O-Coordinator, Don Treadwell as their new head coach. In addition, they are off this week so they have 2 weeks to prepare.
 

Everyone seems to want to anoint this Gopher team as some type of shoe in for a bowl game because of a gritty and commendable second half effort against USC. The Gophers had nothing to lose against the Trojans and it showed. Now the pressure is on. They're at home against an inferior team. They get to hear all week how good they are from friends and family. That can be dangerous. With that said, I think Minnesota will win, but it will be much closer than people think. Don't forget, there are plenty of players on this team that lost to South Dakota last season. Be happy Gopher fans, but be careful.
 

Neutral said:
They're at home against an inferior team. They get to hear all week how good they are from friends and family. That can be dangerous.
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More importantly, however, is they are going to get their a$$ chewed by Coach Kill and his staff on the mistakes that were made and we will see an improved product next Saturday. I do not consider NMState a land mine game but Miami-Ohio may be one.
 



I haven't seen anyone who thinks that the Gophers are a shoo in for a bowl game. There are people who think we have a chance, at a bowl game, yes. But a shoo in? No.

I want the team to be confident of victory this Saturday. But there's a difference between being confident and not taking the opponent seriously or not giving it your full effort. I don't think Kill is going to let the players get full of themselves.
 

Buck_Buchanan said:
More importantly, however, is they are going to get their a$$ chewed by Coach Kill and his staff on the mistakes that were made and we will see an improved product next Saturday. I do not consider NMState a land mine game but Miami-Ohio may be one.
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Exactly. Kill won't let them buy into the hype. I expect them to cover the spread, and maybe a bit more. I'm thinking 41-13. I believe we will see some marked improvement by the offense. I'm looking forward to it!
 

popeyoung5 said:
PAT's better not be a judge of kicking beyond POP Warner. Were the 2 misses blocked due to low kicks or line issues? IDK. He just did not seem real relaxed. Hopefully the unit can get it dialed in.
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Sorry to get completely off topic but this reminded me of something that was bugging me the entire game. Why was abc's coverage team almost completely unwilling to show a replay? Yours, and several other questions that came from eventful or unusual plays would have been a lot easier to answer had they just shown a normal amount of replays.
 

23 carries for 6 yards sounds like you bullied your 5 yr old cousin on Madden...wow...
 


popeyoung5 said:
This is just the tune up Kill needs to get rhythm in the offense. Shut down the run, find someone to pressure the qb.I have confidence in the secondary. Woods/Barkley are first round picks. The Gopher pk is a little scary. The punter did a great job. Final score 44-6. I am more concerned about Miami, but Kill has played them every year and will know how to game plan them.4-2 going into the bye week. The future is bright.
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let me see if I have this right. after 1 game you are going with already looking past a team?
 

Neutral said:
Everyone seems to want to anoint this Gopher team as some type of shoe in for a bowl game because of a gritty and commendable second half effort against USC. The Gophers had nothing to lose against the Trojans and it showed. Now the pressure is on. They're at home against an inferior team. They get to hear all week how good they are from friends and family. That can be dangerous. With that said, I think Minnesota will win, but it will be much closer than people think. Don't forget, there are plenty of players on this team that lost to South Dakota last season. Be happy Gopher fans, but be careful.
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Good point. This game will show us more about our Gopher team than last week did. Showing up and playing USC tough was good. Now show us you can win a game you are supposed to. Something the previous regime was unable to do, which means this team hasn't yet shown it can do. This game is the one we want to watch. We best come out looking like a mean football team ready to do some damage.
 

I don't feel as confident as many of you about the next game. From the USC game we can see that the Gophers have a strong run defense but a not so great pass defense. NMSU relies on the pass and will not run as much. I'll be happy with a win, and I do expect one - I just don't think it will be the complete blowout that everyone thinks.
 

mattw1067 said:
I don't feel as confident as many of you about the next game. From the USC game we can see that the Gophers have a strong run defense but a not so great pass defense. NMSU relies on the pass and will not run as much. I'll be happy with a win, and I do expect one - I just don't think it will be the complete blowout that everyone thinks.
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The Gophers shut out USC in the 2nd half and they have the best QB and WR in college football!! Im pretty sure we will blow out NMSU!!
 

One (of the many) thing that made me crazy about Brew's teams was the consistancy with which we played down to our opponents. I absolutely 100% positively expect Kill's discipline changes to make this a thing of the past. I don't expect an Iowa (Ferenze) 4th quarter run-up but I expect everyone will recognize the potential was there!
 

scools12 said:
let me see if I have this right. after 1 game you are going with already looking past a team?
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Yes,
UNLV would put NMSU away by halftime, and UNLV is terrible. This is a bad football team. Kill will have this in the bag by halftime and work on many things the second half without giving too much away to Miami. The Gophers hang 40 without injury and NMSU flys home with a fat paycheck for the program. final score 44-6
 

Miami probably will be a tougher opponent than will NMSU, but I'll concern myself with Miami next week. This week, we have the first home game of the Kill regime. I fully expect that we should be able to handle NMSU without too much difficulty, but I'm not looking past NMSU. One of the advantages of having played a tough opponent early is that it let us have a look at our weaknesses. Had we played a team like NMSU in the first game, we would have trottled them, but it wouldn't have exposed our weaknesses. If this was the first game of the season, NMSU may have been able to sneak past the Gophers while things were still being sorted out.

We aren't playing USC this week. They will try to pass, but they aren't going to have as potent a passing attack as did USC. There is always the danger of overlooking an opponent, but I don't think Kill is going to allow that to happen.
 

Make them pass to beat you. NMSU's quarterback ain't no Barkley. 54% completions against Ohio, at home. He'll throw errant passes and interceptable balls. Take advantage, score off turnovers, and beat them into submission in half #1. I'd love to see it since it has been so long,
 


Having followed Jerry Kill's career closely, upsets to inferior teams have been extremely rare. More often they've run wild.

I don't have a handle on how much talent the Gophers have, but I'm assuming a Big 10 team would be superior to a WAC team. They didn't seem overmatched at USC (which has dominated B10 teams when playing in LA), but with the headset problems and first-game jitters, they looked pretty tentative in the first half. The Gophers were flying around and making plays confidently in the second half and they might be farther along than I expected in the preseason.

I'm thinking the Minnesota fans should love this game. Kill and his staff will have them prepared, the game plan will be solid, and this will be a huge confidence boost.
 

After the past few season's I'm not chalking up any victories ahead of time. On paper the Gophers should win by 25, but given it sounds like they can pass the ball and we didn't do very well at all against the pass in the opener.

I like to give Kill the benefit of the doubt but I need to see that unlike previous coaches that we beat the teams we should beat and beat them soundly.
 


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