Personnel thoughts?

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Ole

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So it sounds like Edwards may redshirt.
Streveler may play.
Lauer will start.
Our passing game has been weak despite Harbison/Jones/Wolitarsky playing last week. Have we been holding back or what?

Thoughts on these?
Mine:
Edwards will redshirt. Kill seems to favor veterans who can make the right decisions, and clearly holds things other than just running in high regard for the position(Cobb)
I think unless we end up with another rash of injuries, Edwards redshirts and makes a Maxx Williams like impact early next year with the stable of senior power backs full and a true vet at QB.

I expected Streveler to play regardless, he's got speed, he's been here since the spring. It won't hurt the depth of the program because he can play multiple positions if needed.

Lauer looks pretty good, granted against FCS last week, but he's a big guy out there. I think Lenkiwitz maybe has lost too much weight early and they're concerned about B1G season with E Olson already out for awhile. Get the kids reps and let him sink or swim.

The passing game likely isn't magically going to get better. I think we have underestimated Barker's route running last year, which is what separated him from the pack. BUT I think as the offense develops the receivers will find themselves more open.
I do think Kill/Limegrover have made a conscious decision to run the ball early in the season to develop an "attitude" of the offense.
They want the entire unit to be able to hammer when it's needed, and that's why we haven't seen much spread/passing, even when it might have been a smarter playcall.
 

Ole-

First of all...THANK YOU! An actual thread to talk football. A welcome relief this week.

Edwards should and hopefully WILL redshirt at this point. I disagree on Streveler. Keep him redshirted so you have 1 scholarship QB in each class.

The offensive line continues to be a huge question mark in my mind. For 3 years many have felt we recruited well and were adding great depth, but for whatever the reason, this group has not played particularly well so far this year. We need that to change and we need it to change in a hurry.

The passing game is a major, major, major concern for me. Did I mention that I am concerned? We cannot complete a pass down the field to a wide receiver. It is beyond frustrating. I am not sure what the answer is at this point, but in the UNLV game our WR's could not take advantage of 1-on-1 matchups. Aggievision precludes making any judgement about what happend against NMSU and last week we played so crappy in the first half that I feel like they just went bread and butter on offense to get the win. We need to be able to throw the ball down the field in order to have ANY chance in Big Ten games, especially early against Iowa.
 

Caught part of Kill's show on KFAN over the noon hour and passing game will develop as the season goes along. Harbison will get more work every week since he was held out, Jones is a work in progress, and I thought I heard Kill say Wolitarsky has been hurt so not playing to his full potential so far. Right now we just don't have anyone healthy enough or ready to carve up the secondary. As the year goes on we'll see more and more. I'm hoping they continue to use Max and other tight ends. That seems to work well for the gophers when they are featured in the passing game.
 

I really hope Streveler doesn't have to burn his redshirt on Saturday. It would be really nice to keep an RS on a QB for a change.
 

Redshirting.

My take is no different than it's always been, whether it's Berkley or Streveler or whomever; if they mean the difference in winning ONE GAME, it's worth it to pull the RS. Period. Next year is no guarantee for anyone, much less FOUR years from now. There's only 12 games in a season. If a kid can help you win even ONE of those, it's worth it. Period.

I'm not worried about the O-Line. So it appears the Gophers starting 5 O-Linemen have NOT been able to completely overpower and overmatch 7, 8, and 9-man fronts on defense. This is shocking? I expect there to be more holes between the tackles for the RB's this week for the simple fact that Mitch keeps the ball on the read option more than Nelson, at least early in the game(s).

With Mitch at QB, I'm SLIGHTLY worried that the Gophers last week showed a LOT of what Mitch is comfortable with. With Nelson, I'm still convinced they've run 25-35% of the playbook and are establishing tendencies out of certain formations to exploit later this season. But when Mitch went in, and they needed him to win the game and be as comfortable as possible, I'm worried some of that went out the window and they went with the play selection that he's most comfortable with, which if I were SJSU, that would be about the only damn game film I would watch in preparation for this Saturday.

Offensively in general, both passing and running the ball, I'm STILL reserving my judgment until at least the end of the Iowa game. I'd be shocked if it is, but if the playcalling through the Iowa game looks the same as it has so far and the offense as anemic as it has so far, I will be incredibly concerned about the remainder of the season. I doubt it will be though.
 


If I'm not mistaken, I believe Jones didn't play last week and Harbison only played on special teams. Could be wrong though.
 

Harbison definitely played from scrimmage, but I only noticed him for certain once.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Harbison definitely played from scrimmage, but I only noticed him for certain once.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember him playing maybe 2 or 3 plays on offense. I expect him to play more this week, wasn't it Leidner throwing to him in the spring game? They looked like they had some chemistry. It'd be nice to get a little more athletic at the WR position, having Harbison come around is important.
 

In general have you guys been pleased with play the at LB so far? It's early and the competition has not been strong, but Aaron Hill and others have stood out in a positive way to me. I would say that it will be less of a liability this year than last year. I am concerned about the SJSU game, but what I keep thinking about is stopping Weismann the following week. I would love to see us stuff that Iowa running game.
 



nokomismod said:
In general have you guys been pleased with play the at LB so far? It's early and the competition has not been strong, but Aaron Hill and others have stood out in a positive way to me. I would say that it will be less of a liability this year than last year. I am concerned about the SJSU game, but what I keep thinking about is stopping Weismann the following week. I would love to see us stuff that Iowa running game.
Click to expand...

One game at a time, but I've been pleased with the overall speed of the linebackers.
Hill seems to be making all the plays he typically does, but without the penalties he has had in the past. He's around the ball alot.

I think most of us expect more from the passing game, but if we continue this offensive trend of just pounding the ball in a semiboring way, AND we're 5-0 after iowa, I'm not sure what there is to be worried about? If we get exposed this week then we're in trouble, but I'm just not sure we're there yet, regardless of the passing numbers.
 

I'm all for redshirting unless the player can make an impact. If Edwards can provide something for our offense and make us better than he needs to play. Injuries happen and you have to make the best of them. I'd rather have a healthy Streveler playing than an injured Nelson if Leidner goes down.

I am concerned about our O-line. They have not dominated the way the should have against inferior teams. They have been ok in the first halves of the games and good in the second halves, but that is when they have physically worn down lesser players. It may not be a problem this week since we should be able to do the same, but I am concerned about conference games.

The passing game hasn't been great, but we haven't tried to pass imo. I think it will improve throughout the year, but we should not rely on it to win games; which no one should have been doing coming into the season. Ogee, I agree with you on a lot of things but I have a hard time believing that the coaches are not using 75% of the playbook. I don't think we're good enough to do that. This is a team that is going to win with good defense and a running game. keep the game close and win it late.

I think that is the recipe for another win on saturday. It won't be pretty, but it will be a W.
 

nokomismod said:
In general have you guys been pleased with play the at LB so far? It's early and the competition has not been strong, but Aaron Hill and others have stood out in a positive way to me. I would say that it will be less of a liability this year than last year. I am concerned about the SJSU game, but what I keep thinking about is stopping Weismann the following week. I would love to see us stuff that Iowa running game.
Click to expand...

The LB's have not been the glaring weakness they were last year but I think it is tough to pass much judgment until we get to see them against a quality opponent. The good news for the unit as a whole is that the bar was set really low last year so any improvement will be a step in the right direction.
 

Agree with Ogee 100% on redshirting. As does Kill for that matter, since he has shown no hesitation to pull off red-shirts up to game 6/7 if it will help the team. If Edwards does redshirt, it's either because he's still not completely healed and/or Cobb is playing better. As for Streveler, he needs to play if Leidner goes out. The staff said in August that he was pushing Mitch for the 2nd team QB. For anyone that thinks he needs to redshirt, who would you recommend play QB if Leidner has to go out in the 2nd quarter? Should the staff play KJ Maye and basically throw the game to keep Streveler redshirted? It's preferable for him to redshirt, but it was likely that he was going to be needed this year since Shortell transferred. Barring transfers, this will be the last year it happens as McKinzy will have 3 scholarship QBs plus Rhoda/Conway in front of him next year.

As for the O-line, keep in mind that Kill still only has 4 kids that are all his, meaning that he got to recruit them for an entire year (Lauer, Pirsig, Hayes, Mayes).
 



MNVCGUY said:
The LB's have not been the glaring weakness they were last year but I think it is tough to pass much judgment until we get to see them against a quality opponent. The good news for the unit as a whole is that the bar was set really low last year so any improvement will be a step in the right direction.
Click to expand...
FWIW we really don't know whether UNLV, NMSU, or WIU are any good or not yet. We just assume they have been weak.
UNLV just beat Central Michigan, who won a bowl game last year.
WIU is FCS, but they sure didn't look as bad as New Hampshire did last year, and they've got some FBS transfers playing this season under Nelson, who's had a history of quick turnarounds. There's not much difference between D2 and FCS, I could see them winning more than they lose.
Funny, we get to see these two play next week.
Aggievision looks to be in for a tough year, but that game was on the road in some strange conditions so I'm not exactly worried about our slow start down there.
 

personally i'd like edwards and streveler to redshirt this year. honestly i think what this team needs is reps. reps. reps. and more reps. look at all the young guys we're throwing out at WR who most likely are used to just running away from people with little to no conscious thoughts to their routes or where/when to sit down. if we keep diluting it with other players hoping someone just magically will figure it out, we're fooling ourselves. i feel like jones, wolitarski, and even harbison just need to be out there getting their snaps in. heck even in the backfield prior to this year, cobb had only had 11 carries and williams 57. these guys need to see the field and see touches so that they develop with the mental aspect of the game. we have to face it, we don't have a guy who's come in and is an instant game breaker. developing them now is the key and i feel like diluting it will only hurt, hence why we're kind of running a vanilla playbook right now so that we get our base, important stuff down pat.

as far as the lb's go, i've been pleased. we have guys who can get to the ball and aren't afraid to lay the wood to the ball carrier or lead blocker and still get off to make a play. its been awhile since we've seen that
 

Streveler could redshirt next year. We will still have Mitch and Philip.
 

The whole redshirt thing is pretty simple as others have pointed out. If we need them we play them if we don't they redshirt. Perfect world Streveler and Edwards are not needed this season and get to redshirt but if they need to play so be it. As much as we may be laying the foundation for the future coaches still want to win now and if a kid can help you win now you don't worry about 5 years from now.
 

Battle of the Gopher Cupcakes W Illinois plays UNLV this week. Will be interesting to see how this one shakes out.
 


My personal thoughts haven't changed since my first post this Fall after I went to 3 Fall practices + the scrimmage... We have no WR threat to open the field. The response then was "Engel and Fruechte" and I think most agree now that aint gonna happen. I was happy we moved Jones to WR, but wasn't encouraged that he didn't see the field last week. My hope is there is more to it than "he didn't fit the scheme" as the coaches are saying (maybe teaching him some lesson? Maybe he got 'dinged'?), because otherwise that isn't very encouraging.

I'm OK with the OL, RB, and defense as a whole. The ST look solid. D.Wilson has been extremely impressive, IMO. The WRs ability to get open, spread the field, and make our QBs look better has been disappointing. Limegrover needs to be creative and figure something out. I think Harbison and Maye can play the slot, Maxx is clearly a stud at TE, but again, WHO can line up on the flank and spread the field? If it isn't Jones then we are in big trouble.
 

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