Post Game Thread: Gophers Destroy Indiana

I expected GH to be rejoicing and praising the coaching staff because #aggressive

1) PJ went for it on 4th in the redzone
2) PJ went for a TD before half
3) PJ had sufficient timeouts to go for the TD
4) Morgan attempted several deep passes
5) No sissy FG attempts

In all seriousness, I was pretty down after the first quarter, but man the team stuck with the script, D made adjustments, and the game ended up the way I predicted. But that first 15 min was dicey.
 


He was one of those players I truly respected for his talents. And yes he did have some memorable performances against us.

We show up in there a few times. He was amazing to watch and I can't imagine what it was like to be a defensive player against him.
 

I expected GH to be rejoicing and praising the coaching staff because #aggressive

1) PJ went for it on 4th in the redzone
2) PJ went for a TD before half
3) PJ had sufficient timeouts to go for the TD
4) Morgan attempted several deep passes
5) No sissy FG attempts

In all seriousness, I was pretty down after the first quarter, but man the team stuck with the script, D made adjustments, and the game ended up the way I predicted. But that first 15 min was dicey.
You forgot that Annexstad returned some punts too.
 



You are correct. That was 2000 and the score was 51-43 (had to look it up).

Listened to it on the radio while raking leaves. We just had no answer that day. Ron Johnson was in that game too I believe.

These days overlapped with Drew Brees at Purdue. The State of Indiana was tough on the Gophers in those times.
IIRC Willie Middlebrooks got hurt. Defense struggled after that.
 


This weekend changed the perspective on the season: first, Illinois is a good team. Bielema is doing an impressive job - wait 'til he begins recruiting the greater Chicago area, the West division will be even more competitive; second, our losses to Ohio State, Iowa and Illinois don't look that bad - Bowling Green remains an embarrassment - but for it, The Gophers would be 8-3 and ranked; third, Rossi can make adjustments and Sanford/PJ can call a more diverse offense. I'm hoping the Nebraska struggle took enough out of the Badgers to give us a little edge next week, and the Huskers on Friday may finally win a big one, while Purdue should also win. Things are looking up late in the season.
 

I was happy to see the passing game get going a bit. Autman-Bell had two special touchdown catches and Morgan settled in and threw it well.
The Indiana middle line backer and all of their seniors on both sides of the ball played really hard and you have to feel for them with the expectations they had for this year.
One small thing I noticed was Morgan lining up under center on a 4th and short play. I was hoping to see a QB sneak out of that, but you the 4th down conversion was successful.
 



I was happy to see the passing game get going a bit. Autman-Bell had two special touchdown catches and Morgan settled in and threw it well.
The Indiana middle line backer and all of their seniors on both sides of the ball played really hard and you have to feel for them with the expectations they had for this year.
One small thing I noticed was Morgan lining up under center on a 4th and short play. I was hoping to see a QB sneak out of that, but you the 4th down conversion was successful.
I keep expecting LeCaptain to at least be on the field in short yardage situations.
 

Impressive adjustments by Rossi after the defense looked atrocious to start the game. At times on that first drive it looked like we must only have 8-9 guys on the filed with the room the Hoosiers QB had to run. To go from that to completely shutting down a team to the point where a single first down was a victory for them was impressive.

PJ going for that 4th and 1 on the first drive was annoying after last weeks decisions. It really does seem to me like PJ is fine going for it when he's confident we're much better than our opponent, but won't go in games he feels are tighter. If there was one constant gripe with this game it was that the 3rd and 4th and shorts all seemed really ugly when the Gophers tried to go for them. If you claim you are a running team, these 3rd and 4th and shorts should be close to automatic and you shouldn't need to go to smoke and mirrors to try to pick them up...a huge difference between Minnesota and Iowa/Wisconsin in this area.

Morgan had 3 balls that could have been picked on that opening drive. I am sure a lot of people on here were quite angry at that time. He also had a very poor decision to try to throw a ball to CrAB in to double coverage in the end zone later. Last I checked he was 14-20 so it's odd that at least 4 of the 6 incompletions were really, really dicey situations.

Would have liked to see the Gophers either A. Step on Indiana's throat and actually practice throwing the ball once it was 28-7 or B. Get some backups in (including at QB) to get guys some game experience and rest up some key players for what could be a huge game next week. I am not sure what was gained by continually running the ball and just punting it back to Indiana and forcing the starting defense to play more snaps...but PJ seems intent on trying to run out the clock at all costs.

Go Nebraska
If you’re waiting to see a PJ Fleck team pass when we’re up 28-7, you’ll be waiting a long, long time.
 

In the end though, not all that concerned about whether or not we get to Indy....just want the win over the Badgers.

Yes, my favorite option would be beating Wisconsin and Iowa beating Nebraska. I have no enthusiasm for being the Western Division's sacrificial lamb for Ohio State. Let Iowa go there, get their butts kicked, then go to the Citrus Bowl and get their butts kicked by a high ranking SEC team.
 

Or better yet, throw the ball a few times and let the offense get into a groove and practice some. I am thoroughly convinced that because they pass so little, Morgan and the WRs aren’t able to get into a decent rhythm, and that is further hampering the passing game.

Well, Tanner threw 20 passes yesterday. While that's not a lot, that's more than he's thrown in 6 of the 11 games this season. Since he earned his highest game QB rating of the season against Indiana, I'd say the number of passes was about right.
 



So once again BTN is refusing to air our game on the 60 minute replay. Every other game is on several times this week.
 




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