People are very glad we stomped Rutgers. And they recognize that PJ is one hell of a coach, a coach who creates good players and good citizens. (By the way, I believe Bret Bielema uses the passing game in a complimentary fashion to his run game—for all four quarters. He isn’t just smash mouth. Re-watch our most recent game with Illinois.)
Anyway, I don’t think the mild upset you comment on is about the Rutgers game per se. It is about the larger picture. PJ’s preference for the run is so overwhelmingly strong that might be the principal factor impeding the development of a decent, reliable passing game. His mantra seems to be “why pass when we can win by running?” But he would never say “why run when we can win by passing?”
A decent passing game requires timing, coordination and communication in tough game conditions. It has to be developed each year as personnel changes. If you run a grossly unbalanced offense, you develop your run game during the course of the season while simultaneously “undeveloping” your passing game. This approach works great against teams that can’t stop your run game (and you’ll be a bowl team most years), but it often has you hitting a brick wall when your play better teams that won’t be beaten by your run game alone …teams that force you to rely on your neglected, undeveloped passing game to win.
So, to me, the folks who see Rutgers as a missed opportunity to develop needed passing game experience and confidence under game conditions are looking at the larger picture. They see the success of the passing game in the first few series against Rutgers and think that this would have been a good game to work on further development of our pass game, to work on patterns, timing, coordination, screens, taking a few deep shots, etc. To help get our passing game ready for the run stopping defenses we will face in some upcoming games.
PJ’s desire to hyper-develop our run game during the season at the expense of developing a complimentary passing game—leaving us with one extremely powerful arm and another withered one—will win us a lot of games against lesser teams. But it also consigns us to great frustration against teams that can successfully defense our run game, forcing us to dust off and rely on our purposely neglected and undeveloped passing game. And it creates a feedback loop that makes it harder and harder for PJ to recruit decent WRs. Why would a top receiver play for a coach who has so little respect for the complimentary offensive benefits of the passing game?
So, to me, it isn’t about the Rutgers game. Not at all. It is about how little PJ cares about taking clear opportunities to develop our passing game as a co-equal element of our offense. In the modern age of football, where rules favor the passing game, PJ’s desire to avoid the passing game whenever possible limits the Gophers’ upside potential (and perhaps their ability to overcome 10 point deficits). “Use it or lose it” is a real thing.
