Lots of thoughts about this game. I literally come away from the game with one positive and that was the Gophers being able to run the ball effectively against a team full of good athletes.
The special teams were awful, but I feel like we need to see what they look like with the starting K and P before we know for sure they are a long term problem.
I couldn't be more concerned about the defense. From the start, there were a couple East-West runs where last years team would stop them in the backfield for a loss and tonight the runner would get the corner on us and get positive yardage and often a big gain. We couldn't stop anything either up the gut or on the perimeter and made it so an inexperienced QB never had to make a difficult throw to beat us. Outside of Boye Mafe's early sack, I am not sure we forced another negative play until garbage time in the 4th quarter. When we are neither fast enough to make a play in space nor strong enough to get off blocks, things are not going to go well. It didn't show up as much because of the issues with the running game and short passing game, but when Michigan tried to go down the field, guys were often open there as well. Much of this game looked liked the Robb Smith era on defense and we won't contend in the West if it's not much, much improved from here.
Offensively, I am concerned by a few things. The first is the lack of deep shots taken against this defense. The announcers correctly pointed out that the shots were there and we weren't taking them. Can nobody separate on the outside in this offense? It was notable that we had Bateman in the slot on a number of his successfull plays. We need Rashod to win on the outside so someone else can win in the slot as its simply much easier to win from the slot than from outside the number. CAB had a big gain on a deep shot early, but he had no separation and simply made a great adjustment and catch. The other possibility is guys were getting open and Morgan wasn't seeing them. I was really disappointed in Morgan's play tonight after hearing what a fantastic offseason he had. He is still very bad at feeling pressure and also still has the habbit of scrambling out of the pocket and creating pressure that wasn't there. He had the one bad interception in garbage time, but in the first half he threw 2 or 3 balls that he was lucky were not picked. If you remember from last season, there was almost always a pick or a ball that should have been picked early in almost every game..and for the most part Tanner would be on point after that. The offensive line broke down in pass protection a lot late in the game and I was worried about the hits Tanner was taking especially since the game was out of reach.
I go back to how this team played against South Dakota to open last year and if we had played Michigan that night we would have been absolutely crushed. If anyone would have said we'd be in the CFP conversation and have to absolutely choke to miss the Rose Bowl in November, we all would have laughed. I am not saying history will repeat itself, just that I am not willing to write any possiblity off yet.
One final thought: For me, this result sucks because I really want validation that I can believe in this program. College GameDay at home against a helmet school in prime time was a perfect opportunity for Minnesota to show it was for real and last year was not just an aberration. I personally still have that fear that we will look back at '19-'20 and curse laying an egg in Iowa City for decades as we go back to being 8-4 in a "good" year. Losing tonight, especially in this manner, just amplifies that fear whether it is warranted or not.
