No kidding, and most of them looked pretty bad too didn't they? So the line of thinking is that "sure we have a terrible passing game but the other teams in our division do too!" I like that.
As for OUR Passing Game, last year shows that we won a single B1G game with lousy passing. Not fair, the passing against NW wan't that bad. The 4 of the 5 games Minnesota
lost featured lousy passing games though.
The Iowa game you mentioned? 12/24 for 135 yards, 1 TD and 2 Interceptions.
Michigan? Better, but only 14/21, 145 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT.
F-ing Sconnies? Horrible. SEVEN for 23, 83 yards, no TD but not INT either.
MSU;
SIX for 18, 77 yards, no TD and 2 Interceptions.
And finally the Orange in the Texas Bowl. They were only 11/22 but for 205 yards, 2 TDs, there first TD since the 1st Half against Wisconsin (!). Mitch was one dropped pass away from a 3rd TD and a victory, that gave us all a lot of hope.
Any semblance of a Passing Game and they win 3 or 4 of those games. Easily probably, because the 4 victories had Passing games ate-up 186, 289, 152 and 112 yards, in reverse order. They didn't though, because teams started to put
8-9 guys upfront and dared the Gophers to throw. Memory and a simple google search supports the theory.
This year the Defense and Special teams have done a great job scoring and setting-up scores. Good for them. The Offense is going have to learn how to move the ball through the air because most of the teams we will play from here on in will all sellout against the run and unlike the Panthers and Blue Raiders, most will have the personnel to do it.
Oh, and we need to hope that the Big Ten West stays bad at throwing the ball themselves. Pretty sure that 6, 8 or 12 completions won't get it done for us if they don't. Unless 5-6 of those passes go for Touchdowns.
