P.J. Fleck explains Gophers' cautious, run-heavy play-calling from 31-0 victory over Rutgers

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BleedGopher

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Per Randy:

The scoreboard read Gophers 31, Rutgers 0. The time of possession favored Minnesota by a 2-1 margin, 40:02 to 19:58. And the Gophers ran 84 offensive plays to the Scarlet Knights' 45.

Yet late Saturday afternoon, some fans and Gophers observers were left less-than-completely fulfilled with the second shutout victory of the season. Their concern: Where was the passing game?


Indeed, the Gophers ran the ball 53 times and passed it only 21, with quarterback Tanner Morgan completing 14 of those throws for 122 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions. Their longest gain through the air was 21 yards to tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford.

On Monday, coach P.J. Fleck explained his team's strategy against Rutgers. To paraphrase singer Billy Idol, "In the 1:30 p.m. hour, they cried Mo, Mo, Mo.''

"We talked to Mohamed [Ibrahim] and that he might have to be ready to carry the ball 35-40 times, and he did exactly that within a few numbers,'' Fleck said of his star running back, who ran 36 times for 159 yards and three touchdowns. "We knew it would be that type of game.''

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Go Gophers!!
 






RememberMurray said:
I am baffled as to why it is necessary to "explain" anything at all.

It was a 31-0 victory.

Our first shutout of a B1G opponent since 2004.

To say that the game plan was extremely effective is an understatement.
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+1

A vanilla game plan is just fine when you are facing an opponent that you can beat with it, and if it works in the first quarter, no reason to adjust unless and until the opponent makes you. There are plenty of examples of questionable strategies and decisions by Fleck this year, but a 31-0 dismantling of Rutgers is definitely not one of them.
 

Some Gopher fans will always be upset that Fleck is... Fleck.

P.J. Fleck is — like Jim Harbaugh, Kirk Ferentz, Barry Alvarez, Jim Tressel, Bret Bielema — a coach who believes in smash mouth, run-first, control the clock football.
 






Gophers1992 said:
And the funny thing is it never felt like the game was in doubt. Even when it stayed 14-0 for seemingly forever, it never felt like Rutgers was threatening to get back in the game.
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+1000 but according to some of our armchair QBs we should have been throwing downfield and taking risks because yeah, that makes sense.
 

MNVCGUY said:
+1000 but according to some of our armchair QBs we should have been throwing downfield and taking risks because yeah, that makes sense.
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I'm never going to complain about a win but yeah it actually does make sense. Our inability to pass the ball has killed us against better opponents. So yep, it worked against a terrible team and I'm happy it did.

This kind of mindset makes it impossible to ever have an opinion about coaching decisions (which is what I think a lot of people want). If we only bring it up when we lose, we look like the kind of people that only complain about things when they DONT work.

I said the same thing for years about the amount of touches Fleck gives the starting running backs, do you think I was going to post after Potts and Williams got hurt last year and celebrate? I'd MUCH MUCH rather have the Gophers win than be right.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm never going to complain about a win but yeah it actually does make sense. Our inability to pass the ball has killed us against better opponents. So yep, it worked against a terrible team and I'm happy it did.

This kind of mindset makes it impossible to ever have an opinion about coaching decisions (which is what I think a lot of people want). If we only bring it up when we lose, we look like the kind of people that only complain about things when they DONT work.

I said the same thing for years about the amount of touches Fleck gives the starting running backs, do you think I was going to post after Potts and Williams got hurt last year and celebrate? I'd MUCH MUCH rather have the Gophers win than be right.
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Lack of deep passing game is a serious and legitimate concern. We miss CAB more than I ever realized we would IMO. I'm more upset about our inability to throw the ball, not the fact that we didn't throw more, if that makes sense.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm never going to complain about a win but yeah it actually does make sense. Our inability to pass the ball has killed us against better opponents. So yep, it worked against a terrible team and I'm happy it did.

This kind of mindset makes it impossible to ever have an opinion about coaching decisions (which is what I think a lot of people want). If we only bring it up when we lose, we look like the kind of people that only complain about things when they DONT work.

I said the same thing for years about the amount of touches Fleck gives the starting running backs, do you think I was going to post after Potts and Williams got hurt last year and celebrate? I'd MUCH MUCH rather have the Gophers win than be right.
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Nailed it. These are games to practice tactics necessary to beat the better teams.

It's also the kind of game that shouldn't require you to wear down your star RB with 36 carries. Mo's workload should have been 40%-50% less.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm never going to complain about a win but yeah it actually does make sense. Our inability to pass the ball has killed us against better opponents. So yep, it worked against a terrible team and I'm happy it did.

This kind of mindset makes it impossible to ever have an opinion about coaching decisions (which is what I think a lot of people want). If we only bring it up when we lose, we look like the kind of people that only complain about things when they DONT work.

I said the same thing for years about the amount of touches Fleck gives the starting running backs, do you think I was going to post after Potts and Williams got hurt last year and celebrate? I'd MUCH MUCH rather have the Gophers win than be right.
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I don't think anyone can dispute that our passing game needs to improve. But I strongly disagree that we should have been working on it during the Rutgers game when we didn't have to. The team badly needed a win and the gameplan of being run heavy with a short passing game was working so there was zero reason to change it up or try something different.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Yep, there is a portion of our fanbase that will always find a reason to complain. Complaining about a gameplan that led to a 31-0 victory is a new low.
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The same game plan has them 2-3 in conference.
If we could play Rutgers 12 times we wouldnt need a passing game.
Some of us dont think it was a simply a conscious decision to ignore the passing game for one game. Some of us think they dont HAVE a reliable passing game, and believe that to be a serious flaw.
Further, some of us believe the unproductive passing game is ALSO partially due to a conscious decision. "We dont NEED one."
 
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MNVCGUY said:
I don't think anyone can dispute that our passing game needs to improve. But I strongly disagree that we should have been working on it during the Rutgers game when we didn't have to. The team badly needed a win and the gameplan of being run heavy with a short passing game was working so there was zero reason to change it up or try something different.
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+1

The goal against Rutgers should have been to beat Rutgers. If we try a similar gameplan against any one of our next four opponents, it doesn't work, and we don't adjust in game, that will be a problem worth complaining about.
 

MNVCGUY said:
+1000 but according to some of our armchair QBs we should have been throwing downfield and taking risks because yeah, that makes sense.
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I didn't have a problem with the Gophers winding down the clock before halftime...they gave it a shot but the first two plays put them in a rough spot to be aggressive..I think PJ made the right call. Then during halftime I start getting texts from some friends all bitching about Fleck not trying to score. Most of my friends can only name two players on the team - Tanner Morgan and Mo; and they all think Tanner is terrible, yet somehow think now is the time he can drive the team down in under 2 minutes and score a touchdown.
A lot of people aren't happy unless they're angry.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I don't think anyone can dispute that our passing game needs to improve. But I strongly disagree that we should have been working on it during the Rutgers game when we didn't have to. The team badly needed a win and the gameplan of being run heavy with a short passing game was working so there was zero reason to change it up or try something different.
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I wasn't implying it was just a practice game. We were one dropped pass away from being in an absolute nail biter with a team we dominated. We passed the ball 11 times (more than half our passes) in the first two drives of the game. We were up 14-0 with 5 minutes left in the first half then we went into an absolute shell. We had rhythm in our passing game because we simply called plays. We opened it up on first down occasionally.

I'm not asking us to become Purdue, I'm simply saying that going into that shell isn't why we won.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
+1

The goal against Rutgers should have been to beat Rutgers. If we try a similar gameplan against any one of our next four opponents, it doesn't work, and we don't adjust in game, that will be a problem worth complaining about.
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We threw the ball 22 times and ran Mo 30 just the week prior, a game we trailed virtually the whole game and gave up 45 points.
We threw the ball 18 times for under 40 yards in a loss at Illinois.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
+1

The goal against Rutgers should have been to beat Rutgers. If we try a similar gameplan against any one of our next four opponents, it doesn't work, and we don't adjust in game, that will be a problem worth complaining about.
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So should we just not look at the Illinois or Purdue games? It didn't work then.

The goal against Rutgers was to win the game and we came out and opened it up in the first two drives and scored two TDs. Then we went into a shell and got ourselves into a nail biter until the 4th.

We won against Rutgers in spite of going into the shell not because of it.
 

USAF said:
The same game plan has them 2-3 in conference.
If we could play Rutgers 12 times we wouldnt need a passing game.
Some of us dont think it was a simply a conscious decision to ignore the passing game for one game. Some of us think they dont HAVE a reliable passing game, and believe that to be a serious flaw.
Click to expand...
Gameplan is different every week but one thing that doesn't change is when Fleck gets a lead he is very good at making it really hard for the other team to have any chance of coming back. He does that by controlling the clock, running the ball and being efficient with the passing game.

6 of our 14 completions led to first downs that extended drives. 4 of our passing attempts were dropped including one by BSF that probably would have been a TD. We threw 21 passes in the game, it isn't like we never put the ball in the air against them.
 

The fact that you were playing a good defense and one that was good against the run and you told your RB that he was going to get close to 40 reps, tells me that you don't have a passing attack that you trust at all. Something needs to change.

It was 14-0 going to the 4thQ and Rutgers had a bunch of open WR's that could have made the game completely different. Iowa and Wisconsin will kill us with this thought process.

It can't be the plan every week.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Gameplan is different every week but one thing that doesn't change is when Fleck gets a lead he is very good at making it really hard for the other team to have any chance of coming back. He does that by controlling the clock, running the ball and being efficient with the passing game.

6 of our 14 completions led to first downs that extended drives. 4 of our passing attempts were dropped including one by BSF that probably would have been a TD. We threw 21 passes in the game, it isn't like we never put the ball in the air against them.
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And he's shown when we don't get the lead, the game is basically over.
 


RememberMurray said:
To say that the game plan was extremely effective is an understatement.
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I agree with the sentence, but the problem is that the game plan will never work against good competition. When you can't pass the ball for sh*t and you are playing inferior competition, most people would find that a good time to work on your passing game. Or, at a bare minimum, give a different RB some carries. If we need Mo to be back there for 30+ touches to beat Rutgers then PJ has failed at recruiting RB depth.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Gameplan is different every week but one thing that doesn't change is when Fleck gets a lead he is very good at making it really hard for the other team to have any chance of coming back. He does that by controlling the clock, running the ball and being efficient with the passing game.

6 of our 14 completions led to first downs that extended drives. 4 of our passing attempts were dropped including one by BSF that probably would have been a TD. We threw 21 passes in the game, it isn't like we never put the ball in the air against them.
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do we have a stat of how many dropped passes we have on the season? i mean not that i really want to know but man it seems like there are multiple drops in every game
 

BleedGopher said:
"We talked to Mohamed [Ibrahim] and that he might have to be ready to carry the ball 35-40 times,
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This is concerning. You should never have to rely on him that much to beat Rutgers.

Similar to 2020, PJ seems to know his team is bad. I agree with him.
 


Gophers1992 said:
And the funny thing is it never felt like the game was in doubt. Even when it stayed 14-0 for seemingly forever, it never felt like Rutgers was threatening to get back in the game.
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The Rutgers QB was BAD. One of the worst I've seen in a while.
 

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