QB competition next year???

Donate To GopherHole
LakerFan said:
We have a new punter coming in. We also need a new kick off guy, being totally unable to put one out of the endzone is risky. As good as this season was, our special teams were a disaster. Watching our kick off unit having to squib kick all the time is like watching someone bowl with the bumpers on. Seems out of sorts with where we are as a team overall for ability and talent. Also was worrisome to me to see Barber out there on special teams, doesn't speak well to depth when your senior MLB is out covering punts.

Not sure if our special teams issues were coaching, talent depth, or just bad kicker related but I hope they address it next year.
Click to expand...
We have the #7 freshman kicker coming in, who has far more leg power than any of our kickers this year. Kicking the ball into the endzone won’t be such a problem with him.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
aside from the 2016-17 year we have had multiple year starters who hold all the school records. Tanner is no Weber/Leidner....yet. We need to see more tho many of you wanna crown him.
Click to expand...
The winning 73-yarder to Johnson: Leidner overthrew that pass on at least a few occasions in big situations--not the least of which was the game against the Badgers where my beer froze.
 


RodentRampage said:
Competition is always good. Every player on the roster should have a fair chance to win a starting job. If someone is able to beat out Morgan for the starting job, it means that they've stepped up to be even better than Morgan.
Click to expand...
I don't think they get much better than Tanner Morgan has been. This guy is so far removed from anything we've had as QB in my lifetime it's not funny. He's the best in the Big Ten IMO save maybe the Ohio State guy. No chance he is removed as starter after the season he just had. I agree competition is good, but this guy has IT. Leader, fighter, winner, plus he's accurate and smart.
 

fair said:
We have the #7 freshman kicker coming in, who has far more leg power than any of our kickers this year. Kicking the ball into the endzone won’t be such a problem with him.
Click to expand...
That works too!

If the Australian can boot it, then he's the kickoff guy. Nice
 


Would this year qualify as a medical waiver for Annexstad? He could theoretically use that and a redshirt to have two extra years of eligibility once Tanner graduates, if he is as good as people are thinking
 

Spaulding!No! said:
webs/leids did not have the coaching, schemes or wrs this team has. they would have similar stats.
Click to expand...

Unknowable for Weber but Leidner was inherently inaccurate/inconsistent so I disagree there. You are correct scheme and cast matters as the current Heisman winner was good but not great last year until their philosophy changed this off season which allowed him and his team to shine and the rest is history.

That said, TM has earned the starting role for his intangibles as well as incredible play. No question on that.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
aside from the 2016-17 year we have had multiple year starters who hold all the school records. Tanner is no Weber/Leidner....yet. We need to see more tho many of you wanna crown him.
Click to expand...

LOL. You're right, he isn't a Weber or Leidner yet. He hasn't been terrible yet at all. He completes almost everything he throws, he's done almost nothing but win.

He is light years better than either of those guys. It's not close, not in the slightest.
 

fair said:
Would this year qualify as a medical waiver for Annexstad? He could theoretically use that and a redshirt to have two extra years of eligibility once Tanner graduates, if he is as good as people are thinking
Click to expand...
This year is a redshirt year for him, since he was a true freshman last year.
 



MplsGopher said:
I assume that the guys listed on the 247 class page are all the scholarship guys. He is on there for the 2019 class: https://247sports.com/college/minnesota/Season/2019-Football/Commits/

So I could be wrong, but I think he is.

That would mean the same for P Crawford in the 2020 class. Or were you talking about someone else?
Click to expand...

Yeah I wasn't sure either on which kickers were scholarship guys or not? The kid I was talking about was Dragan Kesich who I thought said he accepted a walk on spot.

gophersports.com

@fullname - Football - University of Minnesota Athletics

@description
gophersports.com gophersports.com
 

OOOooooh. Thanks for correcting me. I see now. I see the bio says #7 at some kicking camp. I'm not going to debate about kickers. But 247 says #14: https://247sports.com/Season/2020-F...kings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&Position=K

Whatever.

Just a bit strange ... all the other kickers in that ranking list got scholarships to P5 schools. But this guy wants to walk-on at Minn? His 247 profile shows the walk-on symbol as well. 247sports.com/Player/Dragan-Kesich-46058679/ "Only" a 2-star, but the best kicker is only 3. No idea


I'll say it again, regardless: no more than one scholarship to a place-kicker allowed! Whether that's Lantz or the new guy. And I don't care if it's the K or the P who does kickoffs. Whoever can boot it the farthest.
 

MplsGopher said:
OOOooooh. Thanks for correcting me. I see now. I see the bio says #7 at some kicking camp. I'm not going to debate about kickers. But 247 says #14: https://247sports.com/Season/2020-F...kings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&Position=K

Whatever.

Just a bit strange ... all the other kickers in that ranking list got scholarships to P5 schools. But this guy wants to walk-on at Minn? His 247 profile shows the walk-on symbol as well. 247sports.com/Player/Dragan-Kesich-46058679/ "Only" a 2-star, but the best kicker is only 3. No idea


I'll say it again, regardless: no more than one scholarship to a place-kicker allowed! Whether that's Lantz or the new guy. And I don't care if it's the K or the P who does kickoffs. Whoever can boot it the farthest.
Click to expand...

There's all kinds of financial aid available besides athletic scholarships. It's possible the kid was offered significant financial aid of some other kind. Plus, he'll probably play right away unlike other places. We won't know the full story there.
 

Could be a "Maroon-shirt" as well. Basically a gentleman's agreement that the croot agrees to take a PWO in the first year, and is "guaranteed" a scholarship starting in year 2.
 



ZA will be number 2 on the depth chart, but he'll see playing time. As the cliche goes, he'll be one play away from being the starter, meaning he has a better chance of being a starter here than with some new team. I do think we'll see one of the other backup QBs transfer though, and that may happen fairly soon.
 

Why are we paying the coach many millions of dollars per year? He will make the decision based on his far superior knowledge of the total situation.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
webs/leids did not have the coaching, schemes or wrs this team has. they would have similar stats.
Click to expand...

I would love to have seen what Weber could have done in this system. He got a raw deal during his time here with all the OC changes. Leidner would have been better then he was probably but he was never going to be a great QB, just wasn't in his makeup (not his fault).

The QB gets too much credit when things are good and too much blame when things are bad. Having said that, Morgan just led this team to an 11-2 record with wins over two top 10 teams. If he never takes another snap for this team he will go down as one of the best QBs ever at the U of M and by the time he is done playing here he will most likely have put up numbers that will dwarf anything that came before him.

There are two things that could unseat Morgan from the starting role, injury or another QB beating him out. The former is always possible in football and if the later happens...well that would be amazing because any QB that can beat out Morgan right now would have to be unbelievable.

The thing people need to understand is our QB situation heading into 2020 is very different then our QB situation heading into 2018 or 2019 was.

2018 - Tossup between Morgan and Annexstad - similar skill sets, neither proven.
2019 - Still a tossup as both played during the season and though Morgan looked like the better option overall there was still the possibility that ZA was the better option based on how the staff seemed to view him. ZA's injury cleared up the QB picture, gave Morgan the chance to be the guy and he ran with it.
2020 - Morgan is the starter and the battle is for the backup role

Every position is always open and competition is a good thing. But right now it would take a truly special player at the QB position to take Morgan's job.
 

MplsGopher said:
OOOooooh. Thanks for correcting me. I see now. I see the bio says #7 at some kicking camp. I'm not going to debate about kickers. But 247 says #14: https://247sports.com/Season/2020-F...kings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&Position=K

Whatever.

Just a bit strange ... all the other kickers in that ranking list got scholarships to P5 schools. But this guy wants to walk-on at Minn? His 247 profile shows the walk-on symbol as well. 247sports.com/Player/Dragan-Kesich-46058679/ "Only" a 2-star, but the best kicker is only 3. No idea


I'll say it again, regardless: no more than one scholarship to a place-kicker allowed! Whether that's Lantz or the new guy. And I don't care if it's the K or the P who does kickoffs. Whoever can boot it the farthest.
Click to expand...
Already have two kickers on scholarship as Ryerse has one.
 




btowngopher said:
You can’t just make a guy give up his scholarship. That’s not how it works.
Click to expand...
You can't take it away if it was given as a freshman. That is the rule since 2016. So you are correct about that.

But it would horrible mismanagement of the precious limited scholarship resources that we have to be stuck with two kickers, neither of which is good enough to be able to both kick-off and kick FG/PAT.

Maybe the new guy coming (obviously we couldn't offer him a scholly since we have two tied up) will beat them both out. Unbelievable. Bench two scholly placekickers, so a walk-on can win the job.
 

MplsGopher said:
You can't take it away if it was given as a freshman. That is the rule since 2016. So you are correct about that.

But it would horrible mismanagement of the precious limited scholarship resources that we have to be stuck with two kickers, neither of which is good enough to be able to both kick-off and kick FG/PAT.

Maybe the new guy coming (obviously we couldn't offer him a scholly since we have two tied up) will beat them both out. Unbelievable. Bench two scholly placekickers, so a walk-on can win the job.
Click to expand...

I agree that would suck, but it is what it is. I think Lantz is an above average fg kicker so it would mean the walk-on is quite good at least.
 


I have a sneaky suspicion that ZA might be transferring .....
 

Can't believe this is even a discussion. TM was one of the top 5 or 10 QBs in the country and will start every game next year barring injury or complete regression
 

MplsGopher said:
Sorry, but one or two of these guys needs to give up their scholarship if they can't do both jobs of kickoffs and FG/PAT!
Click to expand...
I’m not thinking they’ll be excited about giving up 30k worth of education a year.
Nevertheless Lantz has a decent year for a frosh place kicker and drilled a big FG yesterday. Ryerse has been a major disappointment since signing out of Woodbury(?) but achieved touchbacks of half his kicks this year- did he kick off yesterday?
 

Oregon Gopher said:
I’m not thinking they’ll be excited about giving up 30k worth of education a year.
Nevertheless Lantz has a decent year for a frosh place kicker and drilled a big FG yesterday. Ryerse has been a major disappointment since signing out of Woodbury(?) but achieved touchbacks of half his kicks this year- did he kick off yesterday?
Click to expand...
Whoever was kicking off yesterday didn't get it done. Short kickoff (and bad coverage of course) led to a runback TD. After that, they squib kicked the entire game.
 

mcal24 said:
Can't believe this is even a discussion. TM was one of the top 5 or 10 QBs in the country and will start every game next year barring injury or complete regression
Click to expand...
He's too tough to regress. This guy is a worker. He has the chip on his shoulder. No one believed he could be what he is. If anything, I expect him to be better next year. Losing TJ will hurt him, but Autman Bell is no slouch either and there will likely be others to step up.
 

Small point on the kick-offs. Was at the game yesterday and even the Auburn kicker (Carlson I think), did not get a touchback when he kicked towards the south end zone. Douglas fair caught it at about the 5. Our kicker never got to try and kick it deep towards the north end zone because by that time we had decided to squib everything. Ball definitely carried further from south to north.
 

RodentRampage said:
Competition is always good. Every player on the roster should have a fair chance to win a starting job. If someone is able to beat out Morgan for the starting job, it means that they've stepped up to be even better than Morgan.
Click to expand...
Yep. Agree it will open as a competition with the understanding that it is Tanner's to lose. ZA will have to definitively separate himself from Morgan. Without the injury, I'm pretty sure ZA would have gotten a decent number of snaps this year...
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom