Post Game Thoughts

[Governor Sibley]

CSU played hard.

 

[imthewalrus]

Um, no we're not. We have two home games to fix the offense. Hell, right now I'm more concerned with the offensive line than I am with the QB. If there was a good option we would have seen him already.

You are right on the money. The combinations that have been improving the competitive level of the Gopher Team are present. Now, just as last season: the offensive line needs to get healthy...and/or do what they need to do to establish the physical nature of the offense and the running game very specifically. It's a challenge...but...the next two games are coming at exactly the right time. The Gopher needs 250 yards rushing each of the next two games. THAT will make the Gopher a MUCH more competitive Western Division threat! Right now: just WIN the games and IMPROVE that offensive line play!

 

[Go Gophers Rah]

In the final 2014 AP rankings, Minnesota came in at #34 and Colorado State came in at #38. It's not like we were Goliath and they were David. We beat a good team on the road at 5,240 feet of elevation.

Certainly a lot of bugs to get worked out, but what better way to do that than Kent State at home?

Maybe I am a defeatist (I don't think so, though), but knowing that we're just a few years removed from losing to South Dakota (State?) at home makes me appreciate victories like yesterday.

 

[Vandy]

Agreed.

CSU was expected to be a very good road opponent, that had not lost at home in two years.
Adverse altitude and temperatures, take the WIN and move on. Two games left to "tweak" whatever you want to before the B1G opener...It would have been nice to get out of this unscathed by injuries, and hopefully none of those advertised amount to anything of substance.

Take away two horrid unforced fumbles, a mystery defensive holding call on CSU's tying drive, a key 3rd down drop by Holland in the 4th quarter and perhaps we win going away, even with the first half "offensive showcase".

Overall the defensive played fairly well again, and the passing game did perk up a bit in the 2nd half.

I'm happy to assume that the adjustments will be made over the next two weeks and we will be in good shape for the conference opener.

 

[bemidjigopher]

I'll say this. I think the O-Line will be fine once Lauer's and Campion are both 100 percent. I think with leidner the key is getting him in rythem. When Limey scripts his first series get Mitch in a rythem with some quick throws, he's usually better in these situations than use that to establish are nasty ground attack. Also they need to let Strev throw when he comes in otherwise what's the point. He was a good duel threat QB in the state of Illinois in high school. We haven't seen a large sample size of him passing, never really gave him a shot in his one start and his one TD pass was in garbage time at TCU.
I'll give credit where credit is do to CSU, this was their biggest home game of the year and they gave us their best shot without their star wideout. I think if they played our big ten schedule they could go 3-5. Definitely not the easiest road game on our schedule. They should be an eight win team in the Mountain West and I bet they'll beat Colorado in their boarder game.

 

[killme]

You call me immature and uninformed because you don't agree with my opinion? You must be a NFL GM that has some inside info. The general consensus was Gophers made A LOT of mistakes and didn't play good. I think Mr. Kill said that as well but I'm sure he is uinformed as well.

My apologies. I was wrong. It was only my opinion that your statements were uninformed and immature. And, I suppose your statements about the coaches could be true. I wonder why JK was voted COY by his peers and by the media. It's possible you're right and they aren't playing to win.

 

[Killjoy]

CSU played hard.

We tend to forget how important emotion is in a football game. Every team is going to have emotional highs and lows during a season that will effect the outcome of the game. CSU seemed to me was on an emotional high and we were not a their level. Even so we were able to pull it together in the fourth quarter and win the game, yet many of you prefer to piss and moan.

 

[bottlebass]

I'll say this. I think the O-Line will be fine once Lauer's and Campion are both 100 percent. I think with leidner the key is getting him in rythem. When Limey scripts his first series get Mitch in a rythem with some quick throws, he's usually better in these situations than use that to establish are nasty ground attack. Also they need to let Strev throw when he comes in otherwise what's the point. He was a good duel threat QB in the state of Illinois in high school. We haven't seen a large sample size of him passing, never really gave him a shot in his one start and his one TD pass was in garbage time at TCU.
I'll give credit where credit is do to CSU, this was their biggest home game of the year and they gave us their best shot without their star wideout. I think if they played our big ten schedule they could go 3-5. Definitely not the easiest road game on our schedule. They should be an eight win team in the Mountain West and I bet they'll beat Colorado in their boarder game.

Coach said the package for streveler does include some passes. I'm assuming they are saving those for the B1G schedule. In his 1 start he completed 1 of 7 pass attempts for a total of 7 yards and had 1 interception.

 

[Ole]

I was at the game. I was frustrated with Mitch, Limegrover, and the whole team.
After watching it on DVR, I'm really more frustrated with the O-line, our WR's, and our DE's.
Leidner was backing up constantly due to pressure up the middle.
I saw at least two really awful missed blocks from Bjorkland that could have been big gainers in the running game.
AND THE DROPS! My god, the drops. KJ, for all his heroics had some atrocious drops in big moments. Ditto Carter.
Holland's drop could have been a huge gain on the slant depending on how fast he is. Nick Hart dropped a TD, don't tell me that was a bad throw when it hit him in the hands.
Mitch had some bad throws, but the offense in general was not sharp. Nobody deserved any more blame than anyone else.
Henrick Ekpe was sleepwalking the first half. The PA he bit on in the endzone could have been a safety if he had just jogged up to the QB. He was running around blocks and missing tackles. As the game went on he did better, but also played less.
Cockran was slow and pretty much blocked all game. Disappointing.

Solutions:
Take the RS off Tyler Moore and maybe even Oseland. The O-line is bad right now, get fresh bodies in there. Once Lauer comes back or the tackle spots look better, move one of the tackles to blocking TE for the season.
Take the RS off Colten Beebe and move him to TE. I'm not even sure we have enough TE's left to run the entire playbook right now.

Find ways to get the ball to the young WR's besides running routes. Reverses, jet sweeps, quick screens, etc. They are obviously too jittery right now, get them the ball in their hands during the next two games and let them calm down a bit because the drops need to stop, and the WR core needs to be deeper.

Run Mitch on the zone read more. He is who he is, but he always plays better when he runs the ball outside a few times early in the game.

On defense I think it's nitpicking, but the outside pass rush was worse against CSU than it was against TCU. Our secondary needs to heal up, but they are playing out of their minds right now.

Special teamswise, the kickers were fine and confident, make sure you get Craig James' head screwed on right because he got spooked after the fair catch TD mistake.

I still believe our defense can carry us all year, but we're going to need to find the power running game eventually or it's going to be Michigan State 2012 for us.

 

[frog86]

Hello again, Gophers!

I didn't see much of your game, but I bailed out of the TCU game at half and went back to the parking lot to tailgate and watch games on TV. I saw the last half of the CSU-Minn fourth quarter and OT, and my interpretation of what I saw is this: Minnesota hung on to win in a tough road environment and still survived after getting royally screwed on a bad call that allowed the game to even go to OT.

Don't sweat one game too much. Emotional low after losing such a tight opener, followed by an unfamiliar foe on the road. Looks like you've got a couple weeks to tune some things up, and I think your defense will carry you to an outstanding season.

Good luck with the next couple -- I'll check back in on the Gophers as Northwestern gets closer.

 

[FireDaveLee]

Always good to let emotion simmer down & look back on it a day or two later. Re-watching the game helps too.

-I thought Leidner was more than what we needed after the 1st quarter. Yes, he had some misfires after that point too, but that's football. If he can get it to a rhythm, he is effective. The coaches need to do this more. It's not fair to him to have him be in 3rd & long situations and expect him to convert it, which the 1st half seemed to be often prior to the first 1st down.
-The Streveler experiment needs to either be scrapped or the play options needs to be expanded. If we have a pass package for him & we're saving it, then that's foolish. This was never more than a one possession game. I think it 's less of saving it & more confidence in Streveler. Personally, I'd rather see some easy play action rolls and the quick easy toss to the TE than scraping it all together.
-Other than a few breakdowns, I thought the D was extremely good. Need to bring it every play though. One breakdown & they had a long TD. Last year @ WI, one breakdown in the 2nd quarter & the game completely changed. It's hard to get on the D, but there's always room for improvement.
-Not Craig James' finest day. Needs a bit better sense, both with the fair catches & when to catch the ball. The Gophers did not have a lot of great field position throughout the game, minus after the fumble.
-I was curious why there were no jet sweeps, but Derek Burns' breakdown did a good job of explaining. If anyone isn't following Derek Burns on Twitter, I HIGHLY recommend it.
-I'm concerned about the health of our OL & our TE's. I disagree that Ohio is a gimme, but Kent State should be if the Gophers come to play. This game couldn't have come at a better time, considering what is down the road.
-There's nothing to not like about Rodney Smith. And Nugget was better too.
-I think hearing Bobo after the game is eye opening, who while disappointed in the loss, seemed pleased with his team's effort & play. Yes, they were missing a key player, but this is also respectable team. Look at all the conferences opponents this week, and after Oregon & Bowling Green, I'd argue CSU was the next best, even over ISU, Oregon St. & Wash. St. On the road, pulling out a win like this is never anything to apologize for. I forget if it was Loon or Wren that said it, but it's true: "Wins are good & Losses are Bad!"

Get healthy, get better this week.

 

[GophersInIowa]

-The Streveler experiment needs to either be scrapped or the play options needs to be expanded. If we have a pass package for him & we're saving it, then that's foolish. This was never more than a one possession game. I think it 's less of saving it & more confidence in Streveler. Personally, I'd rather see some easy play action rolls and the quick easy toss to the TE than scraping it all together.

Agreed, get him out on the edge where he can make a simple throw or just tuck it and run.

 

[Iceland12]

The Gophers were down in the 4th. They won the game. Yeah, the crew watching it where I was were all pretty happen then. Much, much happier than when they were down in the 4th Quarter against TCU and lost. Bring on Kent State.

 

[gopherdudepart2]

Um, no we're not. We have two home games to fix the offense. Hell, right now I'm more concerned with the offensive line than I am with the QB. If there was a good option we would have seen him already.

A W is a W and we have lost plenty of games in miraculous ways where the team outplayed and deserved to win and the ball bounced against the Gophers.
We need five healthy strong body's at offensive line. Right now we do not resemble the Big 10 offensive line we did last year. Everything starts up front in the offensive and defensive lines. If you cannot control the line of scrimmage it becomes much more difficult to win games and reduce deficiency's elsewhere. I wish we could get our left tackle Lauer back and move Pirsig back to right tackle. Everything would start to get better on offense overall if those two things would happen. Lauer is a hell of a player when he is healthy.

Hard to develop your blocking schemes and improve there when you cannot get the same people playing snap to snap let alone game to game.
Mitch knows he needs to play better, nobody is probably harder on Mitch than Mitch himself. The kids from Lakeville people need to put down the pitchforks and realize he is a Gopher, and not playing for the other side. We can win with him at QB but it will take an offensive line that can give him some time to do so. We have the Pig and Jug those didn't just happen by accident or just because we had a great back and a non-D 1 QB as some have asserted. He made plenty of plays those games. Need to get our offensive line healthy and playing together that is first and foremost on getting better on offense. Mitch needs to finish his throws off with better fundamentals, and lose the Yips of being hit or thinking he is always going to get hit.

It's not easy to win on the road never is and CSU played hard and improved a lot when they switched to the other QB. The Gophers will get tough games against Northwestern and Purdue before we even get a Big 10 home game. We are lucky we are playing Ohio U before the Northwestern game they run a similar offense and it will help us get better for that game and give us a chance to win at home and than maybe on the road against Northwestern. Ohio is going to be a good game, will be fun to see the Gophers finish up 3-1 and than on to beating the Cats from there.
Go Gophers always!