Next Day Perspective

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jaymil said:
Nobody expected us to beat Iowa 51-14 last year. Things change week to week.
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That is true, but before that offensive explosion, we scored the following last season:

42 against Eastern Illinois, 35 against Middle TN, 30 against Michigan, and 39 against Purdue.

So far this season our top score is 27 points and we've failed to crack 20 points in three out of the five games. Things will change but not that quickly. Again, this is not simply a kneejerk reaction over one bad performance. Purdue has averaged 30.2 points per game this year and scored 21 against Michigan State on the road so they're not a likely candidate to be held to 10 or less. This team hasn't indicated so far that it is capable of scoring 30 points (or even 24) against a power five team.
 

jaymil said:
I'm not saying I think it's going to happen, but there is always that possibility and if it happens people will be all sunshine and rainbows around here again. The knee-jerk reactions tend to be extreme around here IMO.
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I hear you. This offense needs a spark and who knows what could happen. They get going and the defense will likely look better as well.
 

cjbfbp said:
That is true, but before that offensive explosion, we scored the following last season:

42 against Eastern Illinois, 35 against Middle TN, 30 against Michigan, and 39 against Purdue.

So far this season our top score is 27 points and we've failed to crack 20 points in three out of the five games. Things will change but not that quickly. Again, this is not simply a kneejerk reaction over one bad performance. Purdue has averaged 30.2 points per game this year and scored 21 against Michigan State on the road so they're not a likely candidate to be held to 10 or less. This team hasn't indicated so far that it is capable of scoring 30 points (or even 24) against a power five team.
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We scored non-offensive TD's against EIU, Middle Tennessee, and Michigan so those values are skewed a bit. That's another thing that should be up for discussion. Our defense and special teams haven't given us very many short fields and that could certainly help get us rolling a bit.

I get what you're saying and I agree the offense hasn't been good enough so far. There is still plenty of time to turn things around though. I just can't stand fans throwing in the towel on a season that isn't even half over. Seems like a lot of people have forgotten we gained 468 yards of offense just 1 week ago.
 


DMB123 said:
Please don't renew your tickets next year. The program doesn't need fans like you.
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Don't worry, with the price increase next year and a possible terrible year on the field. A lot of people won't be renewing their tickets.
 


killme said:
Excellent post, mkAz. I also think that NW was plagued by injuries the last couple of years. It's not an excuse, but could be part of the reason. We don't have the bell cow, and Mitch isn't capable of carrying the offense on his back without help. He's also not as bad as many like to believe. Christian Hackenberg is a highly regarded NFL prospect, but couldn't carry PSU the last couple of years. This coaching staff is building the program on solid foundations and their history suggests they will figure things out and a bright future looms.
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Welcome back, Mrs Limegrover.

Two factors made the offense look better last year than the historical record (high 70s to low 80s on S and P+) since 2010. The turnover margin was near the top of the conference, giving us shorter fields and more possessions. We had two legit NFL skill players in David Cobb and Maxx.

The historical record states that the defense (and special teams) has carried this team. The offense, outside of an average blip last season, has been among the worst in power 5.
 

The reactions to the game is not knee jerk. This offensive and O-line coaching has not been B1G ready for years.

It is ridiculous for the U to let one guy, that looks in over his head, to try and coach both positions.


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I think that limegrover does need to get a lot more creative and "open up the offense", but I don't think everything is all his fault. As a fanbase, especially a day after the game, we need to calm down. We are not a major program and we usually don't have major recruits so there are going to be off years. Heck, even with major programs there are off years. The fact is our offense had four returning starters for this year and a bunch of talent was young. Then we lost a bunch of o linemen, and the o linemen who are playing are generally injured as well. It's just a freak injury year combined with inexperience and a lack of depth at the o line. Combine that with the fact that our starting qb is "meh" at best and it isn't really that big of a surprise that we are doing poorly on offense. Limegrover is trying to call conservative play calling because he is stuck with a bad situation and he thinks playing conservatively is our best chance at winning. I am not saying he doesn't have his faults, but it isn't all his fault. Hopefully our o-line will heal and our young skill players will gain experience, but we are probably in for a rough year on offense.
 

Not a big fan of the rationalizing. Last weeks score was Northwestern 24, Ball State 19. Northwestern certainly has a good defense, but the Gopher offense has been atrocious all year. I believe it's now been 8 or 9 games in a row (going back to last year) that this team has failed to score 28 points which is horrifically bad. The team has lost it's last 4 games against fellow power 5 schools since the impressive win over Nebraska.

I am starting to see a lot of posts that remind me of the Mason years which really depresses me. "We have a tough schedule this year", "We will be better next year", etc, etc. I don't want to look up and find out we gave another coach a DECADE to put up a putrid B1G record like 32-48.

It's year 5, it's time for a lot of the excuses to go away and to start making real judgments about where this program is and where it's going. What we've seen on offense through 4 plus years is nowhere close to good enough, especially in the passing game.
 



If we can somehow finish 6-6 and get into a minor bowl game, this is a season when I'll
be actually excited we made it to a 13th game. Maybe we correct some things, but if we're
in the toilet bowl, I'll be watching and cheering....
 

metrolax said:
If we can somehow finish 6-6 and get into a minor bowl game, this is a season when I'll
be actually excited we made it to a 13th game. Maybe we correct some things, but if we're
in the toilet bowl, I'll be watching and cheering....
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The lowest Big Ten bowl is the Armed Forces Bowl in Ft. Worth, Texas (not a bad town) against a Mountain West Conference also-ran. We could play Air Force or San Jose or even San Diego State!

We can do it! We just need to beat Purdue on the road and Nebraska and Illinois at home.
 

DMB123 said:
The fact that you continue to harp about the defense is mind blowing to me. The defense doesn't even deserve a mention when talking about this team's problems. TCU scored 23 against our defense, in their four games since then they have scored 70, 56, 52, and 50 points. An average defense is not capable of holding a team like TCU to 23. Colorado State has averaged 35 pts/game this year, we held them to 20 at home (and one of those TD's for CSU was due to Leidner and the offense turning it over in our own end again). Then the defense SHUT OUT Kent State at home. And the defense gave up 13 points on the road against Northwestern (I refuse to blame the TD they gave up after the punt return inside their own five). The ONLY game this year where you can criticize the defense is the Ohio game, and that's even a stretch. They gave up 24 at home and only 345 total yards. That's not great but it's not a disaster either. It's the year 2015 where points are scored like crazy at all levels of football, games like the Ohio game simply happen in this day and age.

I'll say it again, our defense was flat out good Saturday against NW. They were the only reason we were still in the game at 13-0 in the 3rd quarter. If the Gopher offense simply has two TD drives through the first three quarters yesterday we probably win the game, thanks in most part to the defense hanging in there and keeping NW off the scoreboard.

Our defense is top five in the conference and still VERY good. Without their stellar play against Colorado State and Kent State this team is 1-4 right now. John Galt, my goodness you need to get a clue.
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If your perspective is that the defense is ok and their problems are not nearly as great as the offense, then I agree and we can carry on. My comments are geared towards the crowd that labels our defense "great" and "superb." Let's look at the stats:

http://espn.go.com/college-football...otal/position/defense/sort/totalPointsPerGame

Points/game: (rank) 41 - behind NW, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio St. Iowa, Penn St., and Illinois
Yards/game: 26 - behind Michigan, NW, Wisconsin, Ohio St., Penn St., Iowa, and Illinois
Sacks: tied for 106 with 6 on the season
Interceptions: tied for 82nd with 3

We have an average defense this year compared with others in the B1G.
 

John Galt said:
If your perspective is that the defense is ok and their problems are not nearly as great as the offense, then I agree and we can carry on. My comments are geared towards the crowd that labels our defense "great" and "superb." Let's look at the stats:

http://espn.go.com/college-football...otal/position/defense/sort/totalPointsPerGame

Points/game: (rank) 41 - behind NW, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio St. Iowa, Penn St., and Illinois
Yards/game: 26 - behind Michigan, NW, Wisconsin, Ohio St., Penn St., Iowa, and Illinois
Sacks: tied for 106 with 6 on the season
Interceptions: tied for 82nd with 3

We have an average defense this year compared with others in the B1G.
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I believe our offense has the highest three and out percentage of any B1G team, so that is going to skew our total point and total yard numbers as our defense spends more time on the field than many other teams. As for sacks and interceptions, I will absolutely agree that we have disappointed in terms of big plays.
 



Ok, I'm getting really sick of people saying we have an "average" defense.

# of TD drives our defense has given up this year longer than 15 yards - 6!
6 TD drives in 5 games!!! - average.

# of TD drives 15 yards or less - 3!!! (A 5yd, a 6yd, & a 15 yd)

2 TD's given up to TCU, one was a 15 yd drive.

Combine this with the way our offense has been performing, and there is absolutely no way the defense is "average".

How people can count touchdowns against a defense when they were not even on the field is the epitome of superficial analysis. I would say this defense has done pretty damn good when you actually look at what has transpired.


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alchemy2u said:
The reactions to the game is not knee jerk. This offensive and O-line coaching has not been B1G ready for years.
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The Gophers were 6th/14 in scoring offense just one year ago.

The Gophers were 6th/14 in total offense just one year ago.

The Gophers scored 24 or more points in every Big Ten game last year. The last time that happened was Bernie Bierman's 1934 team. They only played five conference games.
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If rankings started today, Northwestern would be ranked ahead of Michigan State and Ohio State. Duke and Stanford are both 4-1.
 

Some Day...Is Coming! said:
Ok, I'm getting really sick of people saying we have an "average" defense.

# of TD drives our defense has given up this year longer than 15 yards - 6!
6 TD drives in 5 games!!! - average.

# of TD drives 15 yards or less - 3!!! (A 5yd, a 6yd, & a 15 yd)

2 TD's given up to TCU, one was a 15 yd drive.

Combine this with the way our offense has been performing, and there is absolutely no way the defense is "average".

How people can count touchdowns against a defense when they were not even on the field is the epitome of superficial analysis. I would say this defense has done pretty damn good when you actually look at what has transpired.


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bump
 

John Galt said:
bump
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Come on John. Even you know 1 data-point doesn't prove anything. If it did, what does yesterday's game say about Mitch? Should we "bump" every negative post about ML7?

Let it play out.
 


Here's my 2-days-later perspective.

I think Nebraska is probably a better team than they were being given credit for. I was much more disappointed by the Northwestern game. Nebraska is a very deep team. I think that our 1's are not far behind their 1's, but their 2-deep and 3rd string are likely a lot better than ours. This becomes especially apparent when there are a lot of injuries to starters.

I think our defense played a very disappointing game. But I think that is a bit of an aberration. The defense has been solid for the last couple of years.

I think that this team is not as good as last year's overall (which I think everyone agrees with). I would say that the passing game has improved, but the running game has diminished by a larger margin; resulting in a net decline on offense (as evidenced by this year's ppg of 20.4 compared to 28.4 last year).

I know that everyone has injuries, but I think the Gophers have been hit a little harder than most teams.

The things that I am most disappointed with:
Lack of adequate run blocking.
The read-option is not used as frequently or as effectively.
Uber-conservative offensive play-calling (not new in 2015 - this was the case last year too).
Excuses, whining and petulance by the head coach.
Lack of interceptions.

Things I am most pleased with:
Increased pass plays which have a higher chance of success.
I do think Leidner's accuracy is improving.
Shut-down corners.
Punting and field-goal kicking.
 




GophersInIowa said:
Then I could also say what the defense did against TCU this year shows our defense is above average.
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Like Ice said, it certainly appeared to be good when we played TCU. It's been trending pretty bad, don't you think?
 

Some goofy stuff yesterday.

The big run in the first quarter was the result of a bizarre run-blitz by Myrick, which left Johnson totally exposed. That was baffling good luck for Nebraska, and just the start of it.

Nebraska scored a TD on the long third down after Duke fell down at the last second. And Nebraska converted on third down after a freaking fumble.

And then there are the tipped passes and jump balls.

A weird game, in which every single break went their way.

Still, we got totally out-schemed.
 

I'm already looking toward next season. Just don't see much changing. On D we have Richardson, Travis,if he redshirts, probably Myrik and I don't see much else to count on. Offense should be better if we ever find enough capable receivers. Just disappointed many guys who I felt would step up haven't. Epkes have been huge disappointments to me along with many others I really had hopes for. Maybe some guys step up the rest of the season and I can be more optimistic.
 

Studwell55 said:
Some goofy stuff yesterday.

The big run in the first quarter was the result of a bizarre run-blitz by Myrick, which left Johnson totally exposed. That was baffling good luck for Nebraska, and just the start of it.

Nebraska scored a TD on the long third down after Duke fell down at the last second. And Nebraska converted on third down after a freaking fumble.

And then there are the tipped passes and jump balls.

A weird game, in which every single break went their way.

Still, we got totally out-schemed.
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I don't think it was just a weird run blitz by Myrick either on the counter, Lynn instead of staying in his lane or fitting his gap slid down to the right like almost a called stunt by the entire defense, took the defense out of position and left Johnson totally exposed. Couple that with Duke Mghee having his cleats slide and losing his footing in the end zone and falling down and you get an easy touchdown for Nebraska. The weird fumble bouncing back to the Nebraska fullback for a conversion of a first down and you could see that Saturday was not going to be the Gophers day. I still believe we have a good defense, just didn't have it on Saturday emotion wise or scheme wise. Nebraska seemed one step ahead of the Gophers all day Saturday. Give Nebraska credit, they found a way to call plays at the right time and just beat the Gophers on Saturday. No Big 10 win ever seems to be an easy win at least when your not at the recruiting level of the helmet schools. Wisconsin got lucky to beat Nebraska, and there other losses were all under 15 seconds with the lead so you can see why they wanted and needed a win Saturday. Could be that I also overestimated the Gophers defense ability to hold the other teams and allow them to score enough points to win. Seeing all of those minutes they have already played takes a toll, especially when your a little undersized in the defensive front. Hopefully the offense can build some momentum and we will see the Gophers become a better team as the season wears on.
 

John Galt said:
Like Ice said, it certainly appeared to be good when we played TCU. It's been trending pretty bad, don't you think?
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How can it be trending bad? Keith didn't play, Campbell barely played, Poock didn't play, Travis didn't play, Boddy-Calhoun didn't start. Shouldn't the defense have improved?
 

John Galt said:
Like Ice said, it certainly appeared to be good when we played TCU. It's been trending pretty bad, don't you think?
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Yep, but that doesn't mean the defense wasn't above average earlier in the year and last year, that's all.
 

I would like to see a decent on-side kick for once. All of them have been gimmes for the opposition... One or two easy bounces and an easy catch!
 

book said:
I would like to see a decent on-side kick for once. All of them have been gimmes for the opposition... One or two easy bounces and an easy catch!
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That's because the rule was changed because Ferentz whined after we recovered a few against them. It is a lot harder to recover them now.
 

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