Positive Thread: Expecting Good Things From Croft

Donate To GopherHole
D

Dannyboy

Member
Joined
May 7, 2013
Messages
168
Reaction score
0
Points
16
I'll be honest. I had to step away from the game around the end of the 3rd quarter. I came back for a bit after I got a text that Croft was playing. I am really interested in seeing the progression of Croft if he indeed does play a good amount the rest of the season. Where there were passes that were short (Leidner), I hope to see some good, deep throws from this kid. I'm not expecting them all to be caught (or super-accurate), but I am expecting them to be pretty. I think we can all agree that pretty is nice. As many on gopherhole, I have followed Croft since he committed to the U originally. What you see from him is some nicely placed throws. I believe he had some in the spring game and during some practices. He also had a good amount of mistakes. This comes with the territory though.

These are some good things I expect to see out of Croft in the next upcoming weeks:

-An ability to pick up some yards on the ground and scramble once he gets his feet a bit more wet. He has athleticism and I believe he could evade some breakdowns in the offensive line if need be.

-As I mentioned before: pretty passes. That spiral is a thing of beauty. The season is young, but it sure would be nice to see a few passes thrown that don't look like dying ducks. Hopefully towards the end of the season and as he gets some more snaps under his belt, we could see some pretty passes that extend the field a bit. This is a huge advantage when you have RBs like Brooks and Smith that have some pretty nice skill sets. Maybe we will see PA actually be effectively used for downfield passes.

-Sometimes we yell for change, and when we get it the change doesn't reflect our expectations. Will this change (we still don't know what kind of playing time Croft will get, keep in mind) make us win more games? Maybe not. Maybe so. But I believe that after seeing many passes that looked almost like thrown away passes (Leidner), I am going to say that at the very least we may see some signs of life in this offense. I understand that our line is in shambles and many aren't happy the redshirt was pulled--I was pretty surprised myself. But in the end, change can be a whole mixed bag. I'm sure that this is what it will be. Some good, some bad, some really, really, really bad. But we will see.

Like I said. I am cautiously optimistic that this change could be good. In the end, we can complain about all the issues with coaching, Leidner, Limegrover, offensive line, etc. but I believe that Kill is improving the program and we can expect good things from Croft and the future of Gopher football. As a student, I have seen the excitement and improvement of the student section the last few years, and it makes me pretty happy.

Let's be thankful we play Purdue instead of Ohio State next week. I am hoping for the best, but I will surely have a drink handy just in case.
 

It will make the games fun to watch. Let's admit we were all excited to watch the 4th Quarter of this game only because we wanted to watch DC11.
 

I'm hopeful for Croft in the future, he did not look good in relief today. It's easy to see why the coaches keep saying Leidner is the best QB...because he is.
 

Let me see...we're putting in a true freshman QB, behind a beaten up O line. Into a situation where the team he is to lead doesn't have a well defined offensive strategy? This is going to be terrific.
 

ncgo4 said:
Let me see...we're putting in a true freshman QB, behind a beaten up O line. Into a situation where the team he is to lead doesn't have a well defined offensive strategy? This is going to be terrific.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you read my post or just decided to write something negative. All those things were acknowledged. I was focusing on the actual player himself. There will be negative plays due to injuries, offensive line issues, etc. but there could be many positive to take from him playing. We don't know until he plays some more.

What makes me laugh is that people will jump to complain about anything they can possibly complain about, while there are still things to be positive about overall. Not the past couple weeks, but big-picture perspective. Yeah, things look bleak right now. But guess what? Things looked pretty bad when we were heading to Michigan without Kill a couple years ago, and that season turned into a pretty great one. I'm sure many shared their disdain for Kill and wanted him fired. Well the same guy got BIG coach of the year last year.

Many things can change in one season. Croft could play well-enough to give our defense a breather and a chance to be enough in some games. We can only hope. I'm hoping that as we see Croft play more, we can see how he handles different situations. And I'm pretty sure if some of those throws by Leidner were completed to a few wide-open players, the "undefined offensive strategy" wouldn't hold as much water. Let's see what the kid can do, and hope that he can at least help the team out. Good players help mask team flaws. He may not do that right away, but I can hope that he will in the future. That's all I'm saying.
 


ncgo4 said:
Let me see...we're putting in a true freshman QB, behind a beaten up O line. Into a situation where the team he is to lead doesn't have a well defined offensive strategy?
Click to expand...

Yes. (At least I hope that's what we do).

Look, Kill can boot this season without penalty of getting fired. Richard Pitino appeared to make that decision last spring and Kill has built up more goodwill than Pitino. Sometimes you need to hit the reset button.

Leidner is simply too inconsistent to give his team much upside. The coaches seem to have lost confidence in Leidner, the players seem to have lost confidence in Leidner, and, worst of all, Leidner seems to have lost confidence in Leidner. Leidner can still play - as a backup. He might even come in and save a game, but the future of the offense should start now. Let the all-freshman backfield play the games and take their lumps even if the result is a 4-8 season.
 

Having finally seen Croft in person, my initial observations:

the kid really had the "deer in the headlights" look on Saturday. That is not shocking - true freshman making D1 debut against a good defense.

He showed some mobility, and had nice touch on a few passes - but he also threw 2 or 3 balls that could have been intercepted.

Now, IF he is the starter next week, things could change with a week of practice, and the certainty of knowing he's going to start.

My best guess - Leidner and Croft split time the rest of the year, depending on opponent and situation. If I was a betting man, I would say Leidner starts on Saturday, but Croft plays at least a full quarter if not more.
 

It will be interesting on who starts. I would bet on Leidner. Lose next week and the season is shot.
 

I, too, have a belief that Croft has great potential. The problem for the team is that he might not be interchangeable with Mitch. Mitch is 235 lbs or more and one of his biggest assets is the ability to take a beating while running. Croft is a little over 200 lbs and seems blessed with a stronger and more accurate arm.

My guess is that the two QB's might call for very different game plans. I'm not sure that's possible 5 games into the season with a totally patched together O line and with very young receivers and TE's with virtually no experience.

My guess is they go with Mitch and then bring Demry in to run an offensive scheme that doesn't fit his skill set very well. I'm not sure just how able this team would be redesigning an offense at this point for a new QB.
 



I think they split time, but I foresee Corft rising and leidner falling.

I have resigned myself to believing that this will be a setback season. 6-6, ugh. But I think we gotta give it to the future and let them get their lumps in.

I was at the game, and i effectively gave up on mitch when he had woz open in the end zone and instead threw it to the 10yard line, with no pressure, just plain didn't step into the throw. We can't have that. We are not gonna get anywhere on O with that.

I still don't understand why we don't get our younger speedier players the ball in space. No screens, Bubble Screens, jet sweeps, pretty much anything to change the pace was not there. As a fan in the stadium i guessed correctly on about 75% of our plays. How do we really expect to win any sort of ball game if everyone and their brother knows our play calls. the 0 creativity blows my mind.
 

t-docious said:
I think they split time, but I foresee Corft rising and leidner falling. I have resigned myself to believing that this will be a setback season. 6-6, ugh. But I think we gotta give it to the future and let them get their lumps in. I was at the game, and i effectively gave up on mitch when he had woz open in the end zone and instead threw it to the 10yard line, with no pressure, just plain didn't step into the throw. We can't have that. We are not gonna get anywhere on O with that. I still don't understand why we don't get our younger speedier players the ball in space. No screens, Bubble Screens, jet sweeps, pretty much anything to change the pace was not there. As a fan in the stadium i guessed correctly on about 75% of our plays. How do we really expect to win any sort of ball game if everyone and their brother knows our play calls. the 0 creativity blows my mind.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I can't remember one time yesterday when we stretched the field, sans for Mitch's throw to the "10 yard line" between the two receivers. No slant passes. No crossing routes. No screens. Anything over the middle? Just not very imaginative. The offensive game plan seemed to be "maybe we'll get a turnover on defense"
 

BarnBoy said:
Exactly. I can't remember one time yesterday when we stretched the field, sans for Mitch's throw to the "10 yard line"M between the two receivers. No slant passes. No crossing routes. No screens. Anything over the middle? Just not very imaginative. The offensive game plan seemed to be "maybe we'll get a turnover on defense"
Click to expand...

Yep. Seemed like the game plan was to win the game 10-7. I realize it was windy and Mitch's downfield accuracy has been shaky, but to not take one shot to Gentry or Still is really disappointing.

Croft's play yesterday wasn't surprising to me. We knew he was a better athlete than Mitch and throws a nicer ball. We also know he's a true freshman and won't play with the composure Mitch shows and he won't be able to read defenses as well as Mitch until he gets more experience. The potential is there but it looks like he has a lot of developing to do. I still think Mitch gives us the best chance to win the most games this year.
 

Winnipegopher said:
It will be interesting on who starts. I would bet on Leidner. Lose next week and the season is shot.
Click to expand...

Told my dad the same thing and he called me crazy. I bet it's going to be Leidner with a short leash.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



I think it's going to be Leidner too based on Kill's comments. While he wouldn't actually name a starter, his reasoning for playing Croft is because "he's the backup" and needed experience in case something happened to Mitch. That certainly doesn't sound like he's considering starting Croft yet.
 

Remember all the predictions that Croft would be broken in half if he played?

I love the guy who claimed Croft played against a prevent defense. They blitzed him most of the time.

At least Croft has mastered the art of the spiral. If you don't understand why a spiral is important, I suggest you open up your old physics texts
 




t-docious said:
I think they split time, but I foresee Corft rising and leidner falling.

I have resigned myself to believing that this will be a setback season. 6-6, ugh. But I think we gotta give it to the future and let them get their lumps in.

I was at the game, and i effectively gave up on mitch when he had woz open in the end zone and instead threw it to the 10yard line, with no pressure, just plain didn't step into the throw. We can't have that. We are not gonna get anywhere on O with that.

I still don't understand why we don't get our younger speedier players the ball in space. No screens, Bubble Screens, jet sweeps, pretty much anything to change the pace was not there. As a fan in the stadium i guessed correctly on about 75% of our plays. How do we really expect to win any sort of ball game if everyone and their brother knows our play calls. the 0 creativity blows my mind.
Click to expand...

Contrary to popular opinion here, he was under no great pressure, i counted only two throws during the game. He simply had a really, really bad day.
 

Mason on the broadcast marveled at how good the MN Defense is at tackling. Probably because he never had anything like that when he was coach :)
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom