Sanford will not be back next year - Opinion not news

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diefirma

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Sanford will not be back. Here's why.

There are a few assumptions I think we can all agree on. Fleck is not stupid, Fleck actually watches the games. So far this year, Fleck has watched two games that we absolutely should have won, BG and IL, one game that we certainly could have won, IA, and one game we might have won, OSU. Everyone who has watched those games, this includes Fleck, knows that in the first three games I mentioned, the offense sucked! Just as bad, in my mind, there doesn't seem to be any ability to adjust the offense during the game. PJF has also watched a good college quarterback regress. Say what you will about TM but in 2019 he was deadly accurate. He has shown flashes of that this year but he is not the same TM who played in 2019.

According to Sanford, PJF has a culture of accountability. With players, PJ seems to forgive or understand mistakes as long as the player learns from the mistake. Watching the Illinois game it seemed clear to me that Sanford had not learned from his mistakes. I think PJ went for a field goal from the 2-yard line against Iowa because he doesn't trust Sanford to make a good play call or Tanner and a WR to execute.

I am sure that PJ hates to lose and I think the Iowa game was the straw that broke the camel's back. The Gophers have enough talent to win the Big10 west but losing to Iowa dashed PJ dream of winning the west A good OC would have won that game. In addition, PJ seems to genuinely care about Tanner. I am sure that it pains PJ to watch Tanner struggling when, with a different OC, Tanner could be setting himself up to get drafted.

Lastly, I think PJ wants to stay in Minnesota. He needs a good OC to make that happen. Fleck is not a fool, after the season he will get a new OC.
 

diefirma said:
Sanford will not be back. Here's why.

There are a few assumptions I think we can all agree on. Fleck is not stupid, Fleck actually watches the games. So far this year, Fleck has watched two games that we absolutely should have won, BG and IL, one game that we certainly could have won, IA, and one game we might have won, OSU. Everyone who has watched those games, this includes Fleck, knows that in the first three games I mentioned, the offense sucked! Just as bad, in my mind, there doesn't seem to be any ability to adjust the offense during the game. PJF has also watched a good college quarterback regress. Say what you will about TM but in 2019 he was deadly accurate. He has shown flashes of that this year but he is not the same TM who played in 2019.

According to Sanford, PJF has a culture of accountability. With players, PJ seems to forgive or understand mistakes as long as the player learns from the mistake. Watching the Illinois game it seemed clear to me that Sanford had not learned from his mistakes. I think PJ went for a field goal from the 2-yard line against Iowa because he doesn't trust Sanford to make a good play call or Tanner and a WR to execute.

I am sure that PJ hates to lose and I think the Iowa game was the straw that broke the camel's back. The Gophers have enough talent to win the Big10 west but losing to Iowa dashed PJ dream of winning the west A good OC would have won that game. In addition, PJ seems to genuinely care about Tanner. I am sure that it pains PJ to watch Tanner struggling when, with a different OC, Tanner could be setting himself up to get drafted.

Lastly, I think PJ wants to stay in Minnesota. He needs a good OC to make that happen. Fleck is not a fool, after the season he will get a new OC.
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We can certainly hope so. I hope so. And I agree that Iowa may have been the bullet. Fleck sounded dejected after the Bowling Green and Iowa games....obviously....we lost games in which we were big favorites. On Saturday night.....he sounded like someone ran over his dog. Now 1-8 in trophy games and winless in five years against Iowa. I really think he wanted this one....especially after last year's game and Ferentz's comments about taking the pig and leaving the timeouts.
 





Like others was a little bummed to see it wasn't based on actual info but just opinion. That said, I won't be shocked to see Sanford take a job somewhere else in the off season. I don't know that Fleck will flat out fire him but that doesn't mean he won't be strongly encouraged to actively seek other opportunities.
 

Mason on kfan said Sanford did a great job in the ia game. Mason also said he wasn’t married anymore
 
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Spaulding!No! said:
Mason on kfan said Sanford did a great job in the ia game. Mason also said he wasn’t married anymore
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I’m not saying I agree with Mason, but the Iowa game fell primarily on Morgan’s shoulders imo. Bowling Green and Illinois are far more embarrassing, and both of those belong primarily to Sanford.
 



Did anyone else notice how PJ in the Iowa Half time interview mentioned how good the play calling of "Matt and Mark" are making in the 1st half. Thought it was telling he mention Matt first, considering PJ has never mention him before and now he was mentioning him first.
 
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This has been discussed ad nauseum, but when Coordinators get canned, it many times is a sign that the HC is looking for a scapegoat.

It's foolish to believe the Boss doesn't have input into the game plan and play calling. So anything that the OC and DC is doing is being done with the approval of PJF.
 

If Sanford Jr. lingers on, GH will implode.

It is doubtful Kirk Ciarrocca wants to return unless his wife wants to come here.
 

gophernut1 said:
Did anyone else notice how PJ in the Iowa Half time interview mentioned how good of play calling "Matt and Mark" are making in the 1st half. Thought it was telling he mention Matt first, considering PJ has never mention him before and now he was mentioning him first.
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Things that make you go hmm
 




Boomtime said:
This has been discussed ad nauseum, but when Coordinators get canned, it many times is a sign that the HC is looking for a scapegoat.

It's foolish to believe the Boss doesn't have input into the game plan and play calling. So anything that the OC and DC is doing is being done with the approval of PJF.
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Good lord man get some new material. You don't have to keep on telling us how much you dislike Fleck, we get it.

Of course Fleck has input into the game plan....but the duties of a head coach don't allow him to be intimately involved in all the details of game planning on a weekly basis. That falls on the coordinators and when one side of the ball fails the blame for that falls on the coordinators first.

But we get it. You want to blame anything and everything wrong with the program on Fleck. You don't need to remind us in every post. And if you plan to keep posting the same crap over and over again till Fleck gets fired you have a long couple years in front of you pretending to be a Gophers fan.

Your dedication is impressive though, you stick with the bit like few others do.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Oh no! No more free teeth whitening for those chompers.

I miss Mase on the BTN. The cast this year is not cutting it. Put him in, coach.
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It is just a shame that BTN Mason didn't show up while he was coach here. That guy would have been able to win over the media and administration better and maybe could have gotten things right as the coach.

As it was, he lost his fire for coaching when Ohio State turned him down and he knew he was likely to never got a shot at his dream job. Really enjoy his appearances on KFAN. He has a really good perspective on things and fans would do well to listen to what he says because he gets it.
 


diefirma said:
Sanford will not be back. Here's why.

There are a few assumptions I think we can all agree on. Fleck is not stupid, Fleck actually watches the games. So far this year, Fleck has watched two games that we absolutely should have won, BG and IL, one game that we certainly could have won, IA, and one game we might have won, OSU. Everyone who has watched those games, this includes Fleck, knows that in the first three games I mentioned, the offense sucked! Just as bad, in my mind, there doesn't seem to be any ability to adjust the offense during the game. PJF has also watched a good college quarterback regress. Say what you will about TM but in 2019 he was deadly accurate. He has shown flashes of that this year but he is not the same TM who played in 2019.

According to Sanford, PJF has a culture of accountability. With players, PJ seems to forgive or understand mistakes as long as the player learns from the mistake. Watching the Illinois game it seemed clear to me that Sanford had not learned from his mistakes. I think PJ went for a field goal from the 2-yard line against Iowa because he doesn't trust Sanford to make a good play call or Tanner and a WR to execute.

I am sure that PJ hates to lose and I think the Iowa game was the straw that broke the camel's back. The Gophers have enough talent to win the Big10 west but losing to Iowa dashed PJ dream of winning the west A good OC would have won that game. In addition, PJ seems to genuinely care about Tanner. I am sure that it pains PJ to watch Tanner struggling when, with a different OC, Tanner could be setting himself up to get drafted.

Lastly, I think PJ wants to stay in Minnesota. He needs a good OC to make that happen. Fleck is not a fool, after the season he will get a new OC.
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Thanks Oldgo4 :)
 


The Gopher offense, at Iowa last week:

Gophers had 23 first downs, to Iowa's 12.

Gophers: 409 yards total offense, Iowa 277.

Gophers were very balanced on offense: 220 yards passing, 189 yards rushing.

Time of possession was Gophers, 40:19; Iowa, 19:41.

Somebody — Sanford or Simon, I would assume — came up with a new wrinkle that worked really well all during the game: the wide toss to the running back.

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I'm not saying there aren't issues on offense; obviously, there are. But the offense actually performed pretty well on the road against a very tough Iowa defense.
 

RememberMurray said:
Somebody — Sanford or Simon, I would assume — came up with a new wrinkle that worked really well all during the game: the wide toss to the running back.
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Even the commentators were like "what are they seeing with this play??"

Wild guess: they saw some other team do it against Iowa on film, liked it, and simply took it for their own.
 

RememberMurray said:
The Gopher offense, at Iowa last week:

Gophers had 23 first downs, to Iowa's 12.

Gophers: 409 yards total offense, Iowa 277.

Gophers were very balanced on offense: 220 yards passing, 189 yards rushing.

Time of possession was Gophers, 40:19; Iowa, 19:41.

Somebody — Sanford or Simon, I would assume — came up with a new wrinkle that worked really well all during the game: the wide toss to the running back.

-------------

I'm not saying there aren't issues on offense; obviously, there are. But the offense actually performed pretty well on the road against a very tough Iowa defense.
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Yeah, I'm not one to defend Sanford but this game isn't exactly the one to go after him for.
 

Gophers1992 said:
Yeah, I'm not one to defend Sanford but this game isn't exactly the one to go after him for.
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Exactly. People here on GopherHole who have been screaming for a more balanced attack can't complain about the balance in the Iowa game.

Sometimes two teams are very evenly matched, and they play a close, hard-fought, back-and-forth game. That's what happened in Iowa City.

I have been very concerned about the fact that the Gopher offense overall in 2021 looks strangely sluggish compared to 2019. However, that doesn't change the fact that the offense looked pretty solid in Iowa City last Saturday.
 


Alright, we agree the run attack looked pretty good against Iowa. Someone explain to me what what happening versus Illinois. What was happening versus Bowling Green. Was Sanfords scheme and attack explainable? I haven’t heard anyone able to give a coherent answer. Not one.

Add that to TMs regression, the overall disjointed, extreme run heavy, predictable nature of the offense and it’s more than concerning. I’ve seen enough.
 

RememberMurray said:
The Gopher offense, at Iowa last week:

Gophers had 23 first downs, to Iowa's 12.

Gophers: 409 yards total offense, Iowa 277.

Gophers were very balanced on offense: 220 yards passing, 189 yards rushing.

Time of possession was Gophers, 40:19; Iowa, 19:41.

Somebody — Sanford or Simon, I would assume — came up with a new wrinkle that worked really well all during the game: the wide toss to the running back.

-------------

I'm not saying there aren't issues on offense; obviously, there are. But the offense actually performed pretty well on the road against a very tough Iowa defense.
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Maybe it's just me, but I'm not sure a ton of people are throwing Sanford under the bus for the Iowa game specifically. I've said it before, but I thought the offensive gameplan gave us a chance to win. Some poor choices by PJ, and lack of excecution in the passing game is what did the team in, IMO. Yes, the D gave up some chunk plays with missed tackles. You can certainly count those as well.

The problem is that if Sanford wasn't the QB coach, I think he'd be off the hook for the IA game. However, with Tanner obviously regressing on a massive scale, you have to look to the QB coach. So gameplan, Sanford (and maybe Simon was involved more in this game, per PJ's comments at half?) did pretty well. QB coach Sanford certainly still deserves heat. And of course, games don't happen in vacuums. These things aggregate over the year. The passing game has been garbage all year, and you can't win consistently in modern day football without a passing game. Obviously, there are exceptions to every rule -think Wisky, but they have an elite, lock-down defense to compensate.
 

forever a gopher said:
Yes, the D gave up some chunk plays with missed tackles.
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"Some chunk plays" :sneaky:

On three separate plays, one guy on the defense screwed up, and it either directly resulted in a TD or directly setup a TD.
 

RememberMurray said:
Exactly. People here on GopherHole who have been screaming for a more balanced attack can't complain about the balance in the Iowa game.

Sometimes two teams are very evenly matched, and they play a close, hard-fought, back-and-forth game. That's what happened in Iowa City.

I have been very concerned about the fact that the Gopher offense overall in 2021 looks strangely sluggish compared to 2019. However, that doesn't change the fact that the offense looked pretty solid in Iowa City last Saturday.
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Totally agree. I thought the offensive game planning was MUCH better for the Iowa game, even though we lost. I have been one that has complained quite a bit about the poor game planning on offense, especially during the losses against Illinois and Bowling Green. I think I had good reason to, actually!!

Look, I know the game planning isn't always going to work and other teams will take some things away on defense but you need to be able to make changes and adapt, especially if they are cheating on you. However, you can't blame the OC when the play is drawn up perfectly and then the QB throws the ball 10 feet over the wide open receiver's head. That's not his fault!

I liked the balance they showed vs. Iowa and it wasn't so predictable. If you run the same play and they can't stop it, that's one thing. But to keep running the same play with 1 or 2 yard gains is just not going to cut it!!

And I will add this -- if you can get Tanner Morgan into a little bit of a groove in the passing game, let him keep on throwing because I think it will do wonders for his confidence and performance. There was one series when he hit a few passes in a row, then they took him out, ran the wildcat for like 1 or 2 yards, then he got out of his groove.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
Alright, we agree the run attack looked pretty good against Iowa. Someone explain to me what what happening versus Illinois. What was happening versus Bowling Green. Was Sanfords scheme and attack explainable? I haven’t heard anyone able to give a coherent answer. Not one.

Add that to TMs regression, the overall disjointed, extreme run heavy, predictable nature of the offense and it’s more than concerning. I’ve seen enough.
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That was the point Murray and others were making. There is plenty of reason to go after the offensive coaches for what has happened this season but the Iowa game was actually a pretty impressive performance on their part game plan wise.

The biggest issues in that game were failures to get TDs in the redzone and for this one game, the defense really let us down with some missed opportunities and big plays allowed to a very mediocre Iowa offense.
 

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