OSU Postgame Thread

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DocfromDarwin said:
Are u dreaming? Without 24 they are average at best
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I totally agree. As much as they throw around "elite" down in dinkytown, this guy truly is. MO would have been top 5 Heisman this year. Although I agree with next man up there is a very significant drop off that will change how defenses can approach us. MO breaks tackles consistently that the other do not. He gets other team to commit more to the box.
 

Defense held OSU to 10 points at halftime. OSU seemed to figure out some things especially when Stroud could hit his wide open NFL receivers. The Howden injury changed the game IMO. They need to give some of the younger guys a chance if that injury is long-term. #1 shouldn't be on the field in passing situations.
 

My takeaway:
The offense will be good (really good if Mo comes back).
oline looked good (from my seat, different than at home), Jackson and Wright are ready to contribute big time, Morgan was solid.
Defense is going to be a work in progress but that is a top flight offense they played
Kesich and Trickert have me excited. Crawford? Eh.
 

National TV game with a loud, wild crowd..great stadium atmosphere that REALLY showcased the program. The Fox Crew kept talking about the great fans...Gophs fought hard..lots of talent there....However, I didn't even notice a single defensive lineman of ours all game...they played like ghosts.
 

Haven't seen it mentioned here at all (I might be blind), but it was great to see TM2 run a couple times. He looked pretty good doing it and I'd like to see that continue this season.

Playing OSU in game 1 offers an opportunity for a team to be exposed in it's areas of weakness. Now, it is on the coaches to take that info and make the necessary changes to fix those issues. I am optimistic about this season, should be fighting for the BTW at the end of the year.
 


Stroud was able to move around when we did get some rare pressure on him. Otherwise he had the pick of receivers to throw to, and they have the athletes to take it the distance. We might have had a half dozen plays that went for more than 10 yards. If we start breaking off big plays in the future that will give you an idea of how good Ohio state is.
Morgan meanwhile was pretty easy to locate and was often pressured when he went back to pass. If he had any mobility he could have rushed for good yardage several times but never did. Ostate defense never worried about Morgan as a runner and that's A significant limitation.
The non call targeting play ended the game and the refs totally blew it. Every defensive back in the country just received permission last night to rip into a receiver helmet first. I would like the conversation by the official to be aired while he's making the decision. Does he have a set checklist to go through for things to indicate targeting or is it more arbitrary and capricious. While the ref was reviewing the play, fox announcers had made up their minds that it wasn't targeting like are they watching the game or just blabbing away mindlessly and feeding us word salads.
All in all the game was frustrating. Nice try gophers, but we still lost. But we had ourselves in position to get the win and it just kind of unraveled. Frustrating like I said.
 

There were a lot of things I really liked which is ironic for me after a gopher loss.

1. Our offense looked pretty good. Outside of a few stupid mistakes and one nice play/bad blocking that led to the strip sack/TD they rolled pretty well on a great defense.

2. Special Teams is WAAAAAAY better than last year. In 2020 we lost 2 games in OT and looked like 4th graders on special teams in other games. This year our special teams will contribute to helping us win more games.

3. The OL looked really good. We were running the ball well and when we weren't Morgan had enough time almost every play to get a ball downfield.

4. We're done playing Ohio St until the Big Ten Championship game.

The BAD

1. Mo's injury. Clearly the worst thing to come out of the game.

2. That defense needs to figure it out. The DL didn't exist. Linebackers were in the wrong spots again all night. The CB's and safeties had their hands full which we knew would happen. Get the big plays under control please.
 

- The kicking game is much improved! They did a great job all night.
- WR's will be ok - I think Wright and Jackson will fill in nicely and CAB's return should be icing on the cake.
- I do not think Potts and Wiley are the answer at RB. Hopefully we have someone else to step in.
- I would rather have lost that game 60-0 and have a healthy Ibrahim the rest of the way. That one hurts.
- Defense looks like it did before Rossi filled in for Rob Smith. Gave up way too many huge plays and defenders out of position. It really looked like Rob Smith was our defensive coordinator again.
- We had a legitimate chance but OSU smelled blood after the stupid personal foul penalty on Olson and the holding call on Dunlap. That was the turning point in the game.

We can still have a very successful season - it looked like we were playing an NFL team on both offense and defense and this should be the toughest team we play all year. Even taking that into account, the defense has got to play a LOT better the rest of the way and that continues to be the biggest question mark going forward. A strong second question mark though goes to who will take over at RB. I think if we stick with Potts and Wiley we are probably looking at a lot of 2nd and 8's so Morgan had better be ready to throw - a lot!!!
 




Gophergrandpa said:
But OSU’s average if 10+ yards per play on offense is where the talent differential really shows.
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Yes, but remember we've been here before in the Fleck era. 10.3 yards per play does look pretty terrible but at least this time it was against Ohio State. Last year's team opened up by giving 8.5 yards per play to Michigan and 10.2 yards per play to Maryland. Both of those teams had losing records. in 2018, we gave up 9.0 yards per play and 659 yards to Nebraska and 10.8 yards per play and 646 yards to Illinois. Both of those teams had losing records.

Both the 2018 team and the 2020 team had horrible defensive games but did improve as the season went on. We just have to hope for the same this year. Except for 2019, Fleck's teams do have some history of starting badly on defense.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Not sure we have another Mo behind those guys that we ... just haven't been playing... :(
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Considering we have a true freshman and redshirt freshman (injured last year) who were 4-stars, I'd say it's far too early to make any judgements about what sits in the RB room. If one of the best RBs in the country isn't taking 25-30 carries, it totally changes the opportunities available. Let's see how September plays out. I fully expect this team to be 3-1 heading into Purdue.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Not sure we have another Mo behind those guys that we ... just haven't been playing... :(
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Me either! But I would be taking a strong look at guys like Williams and Thomas this week in practice if I were the coach. Someone needs to step up in a big way - heck I think I could run for 3 yards behind that offensive line we have and I am 57!! (Well - maybe not against Ohio St - lol!)
 

Gold Rush said:
Me either! But I would be taking a strong look at guys like Williams and Thomas this week in practice if I were the coach. Someone needs to step up in a big way - heck I think I could run for 3 yards behind that offensive line we have and I am 57!! (Well - maybe not against Ohio St - lol!)
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That's exactly it. Nobody is going to be Mo and make 7 yard carries out of what should be a 3 yard carry but if we can still get those 3 yard carries from the backups I think the RPO can still be effective.

The receivers and TE play looked good as well.
 




As soon as Olson took that stupid and selfish penalty, I said to my group "I've got a bad feeling that we are going to end up looking back on that play as the turning point in the game." Feels like I ended up being right.

Offense scored what probably should have been enough points (though I guess you probably need to net the strip six against them).

I was generally impressed with our defense's ability to stop them from driving. They burned us on big plays, but I don't remember very many drives where they just marched down the field 7-10 yards a play where we couldn't stop them. Of course, part of that may have been that they didn't have to because so many of their TDs came on big plays. Was it 4 TDs on plays of more than 50 yards? Sometimes tough to diagnose the problem watching it live from one angle, but on the first score, it seemed like we just didn't have anyone responsible for sealing the edge on third down. And on the big passing play, was that a safety left on an island trying to chase down a WR who burned him right out of the gates? Defense did not look positionally responsible. Tough to be confident in any game if your defense is so lost you feel like any play could easily end up being a blown assignment that results in a long TD. Hopefully some of that was just OSU's athleticism.
 

WriterGoph said:
Considering we have a true freshman and redshirt freshman (injured last year) who were 4-stars, I'd say it's far too early to make any judgements about what sits in the RB room. If one of the best RBs in the country isn't taking 25-30 carries, it totally changes the opportunities available. Let's see how September plays out. I fully expect this team to be 3-1 heading into Purdue.
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They wont beat Colorado with this defense
 

I thought having CRAB out allowed others to step up. We had Span-Ford included and Wright and Jackson look to be good options for the passing game. Hoping someone else can step up.

Also, as much as as the DL was hyped as improved, very little pressure on the QB. Was there a sack all game?

Losing Howden and being forced to go with Swenson was a big drop off. Good for a 6th year, former walk-on getting action, but not very impressive and definitely burned on a couple plays.
 
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D line has to be better. Even PJ thought we could turn them one dimensional so he expects better as well. If we can stop the run and get pressure on the qb the corners will be acceptable. Imo Swenson shouldn't be our safety though. Showed we could hang at least for a little while with the big boys but they are just too explosive. Don't see that explosiveness from our offense but maybe that changes when CAB gets back with Jackson and Wright too. Once we opened it up we were able to pick up yards pretty quick. Clearly original gameplan was to control the ball and clock and see who had it last to score last.
 


Was really encouraged by Trickett and Dylan Wright.

The look with Treyson Potts at QB in a Seth Green type role also seemed effective.
 



WriterGoph said:
If one of the best RBs in the country isn't taking 25-30 carries, it totally changes the opportunities available. Let's see how September plays out. I fully expect this team to be 3-1 heading into Purdue.
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That's a good point. Last year Mo averaged 28.7 rushing attempts per game. That was the highest average in the nation among all backs with 100 attempts or more.

The next highest in the Big Ten was Stevie Scott of Indiana with 19.5 per game. Rounding out the top 7 in the conference on that average, we have:

3rd: Tyler Goodson, Iowa, 17.9
4th: Master Teague, Ohio State, 14.9
5th: Trey Sermon, Ohio State, 14.5
6th: Chase Brown, Illinois, 13.0
7th: Isaih Pacheco, Rutgers, 12.9

According to Sports Reference, no other Big Ten back had over 100 attempts.

If running one guy 29 times per game is such a good idea, then why didn't anyone else in the country do it? In the Big Ten, the 5th place guy had only about half as many attempts per game as Mo did. Many teams handle the running back duties by committee so we might have to do the same.

Since his redshirt freshman year, Mo has been one of my favorite players on the team (I thought he earned the right to start over Rodney after his redshirt freshman year) but Fleck has relied too much on him and that came at the expense of developing other players and other aspects of the offense.
 


salzie said:
No, because you're a putz.
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Lol..ok...First road game against a quality power 5 team is 50/50 at best....Defense would have to improve a ton in two weeks to pull out a win. ...Call me whatever you like, we can revisit after that game.
 

Anyone who taped the game, go back and count the number of times Kieft whiffed on his block. We have to have someone better.
 

GopherGangsta said:
Lol..ok...First road game against a quality power 5 team is 50/50 at best....Defense would have to improve a ton in two weeks to pull out a win. ...Call me whatever you like, we can revisit after that game.
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I'll be here.
 

Like many of you have said, the Def needs to get much better as I think we allowed at least 4 explosive plays of 45 yards. Just Olave alone was ridiculous, but we won't see another guy or receiver room like that in reg season. However, in their defense they won't face another offense like this unless we go to the Big Ten Championship. Rossi has shown he can round defenses into shape over the season as we were much better the back half the last two years than the first 3-4 games.

I think the offense acquitted itself pretty well as again, if you can put up 31 on OSU who else in the Big Ten are we going to face that will be better than them up front. As for Mo, I'm just hoping it's not something major and we can get him back for the back half of the Big Ten schedule. I think Potts and Wiley have the opportunity to hold it down for the next 5 - 6 opponents. Also with CAB back in the mix with what Wright showed last night I'm more optimistic about WR room. Plus I thought Jackson and Brown-Stephens did some good things and it was nice to see Spann-Ford in the mix.
 


UpAndUnder43 said:
Forgot to mention…BSF88! He exists!!
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For several years, we have been waiting for him to show that he could be a difference maker. Last night he showed that. He averaged 14.7 yards per catch last night, pretty good for a tight end; only 9 tight ends in the country average more per catch than that in 2020.
 
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