Before the season began, I expected to be better than what we were last year on both
offense and defense. This was reasonable because the coaching staff has been intact for
three years (for the most part!) so you have some continuity, plus the addition of Carufel and Royston gave us two extra starters. We returned more starters than anyone else in the Big Ten, so the expectations should be that with the added experience we should be a little better,
even if it did not show up in the wins and losses due to a brutal schedule.
Agree with the play better part and given the Gophers more difficult schedule, I don't think 4-3 is such a bad record. They beat who they should have and basically lost to who they should have, though Becky would have been an enjoyable upset. Over the course of the game, Becky did play better though while MN got a hot stretch. As for Penn State, would have been nice to see a better offense on the field and they need to do a little less bend but not break on defense. The continual long drives where PS converted on 3rd and long left the defense on the field way to long.
Concerning the coaching staff, the replacing of Coordinators with a new offense pretty well plowed through any sort of continuity they may have had. They started tinkering with it following the end of last season and prior to the bowl game. It went through a major overall and they do not have the quality OL or RB to fully impliment it at this time. Kinda depends on patience and perspective. Those two say it is a work in progress and will take a year or two.
I did NOT expect Weber to be worse than last year. I did NOT expect stupid penalties to
continue to be just as bad as last year and I thought with the addition of Bennett and Whaley
we would have a better rushing attack. I did not expect to give up all the third and longs or
be completely dominated in time of possession. Is that unreasonable??
The only thing I can figure is someone really is messing up Weber right now. Instead of
building on what he did right last year and getting better, he is regressing. This offense
looks absolutely lost right now. I have been following Gopher football for almost 40 years
and I have never seen the offense as bad as it has been for three consecutive years as
I have these last three.
Concerning Weber, in pre-season everyone in the nation was expecting much better from Weber and I agree, they have probably been tinkering with his delivery. If Weber was going to go pro, his previous throwing motion seemed like a poor teams David Carr. He dropped down to much. Given the pro experience of Fisch and Brew, they would have had a hard time resisting the urge to correct that. One of the main reasons Childress wanted nothing to do with Carr when he became available.
Agree on Bennett and Whaley, though the OL and the schemes in general seem like they simply need to get more experience with.
Penalties show a definite lack of discipline on the players and they just do not seem to get that that they are hurting the team more then helping it.
Although scheduling USC seemed like a great thing at the time for Tim Brewster, we simply
are not ready for this caliber of opponent yet. I think it is absolute folly to put a guaranteed
loss on the schedule when his job will most likely be on the line after year 4 or 5 and he is
going to have to show some positive results. If he gets fired, he will not see a head coaching job for quite some time, if at all. He will either be an assistant or recruiting coordinator if he gets any job offers at all.
So my long winded conclusion is to say my expectations are that we show some type of
improvement this year and a step back is a major red flag for Tim Brewster's future here. His
job isn't on the line yet, but Maturi will probably be forced to fire him after year 4 or 5 if he
doesn't start showing some improvement very soon. Keep in mind that Glen Mason finished
his third year here with an 8-4 record, 5-3 in the Big Ten and ranked #18 (AP) in the country.
With all that said, I hope Brewster is successful here and stays on for a long time. We really
need some continuity - that is how you build programs.