Scoggins: Now that P.J. Fleck has a QB he can trust, it’s a whole new ballgame for Gophers

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Per Chip:

Fleck is showing his wild side.

The Gophers have more passes than runs through eight games, slightly higher at 51% of their total plays.

In Fleck’s seven previous seasons at Minnesota, the offense never finished a season with a passing ratio higher than 40% of their plays.

The Gophers average 31.3 passes per game (easily the highest in Fleck’s tenure), which ranks sixth in the Big Ten and 62nd nationally.
By comparison, here is their season national ranking in pass attempts per game previously under Fleck: 123, 126, 127, 105, 111, 106, 124.

Fleck’s offenses traditionally are known for running. They have finished Top-5 in the Big Ten in rushing average four times in his tenure and never lower than eighth. The Gophers currently rank 17th in the conference in rushing.

Their entire offensive approach has been flipped upside down because Brosmer has given the Gophers an accurate, savvy quarterback who is able to process what he sees on the field quickly.

www.startribune.com

Scoggins: Now that P.J. Fleck has a QB he can trust, it’s a whole new ballgame for Gophers

Few teams passed less than the Gophers over P.J. Fleck’s first seven seasons with the Gophers, but senior quarterback Max Brosmer has given them a new identity.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 







Fleck's main QBs at Minnesota:

Tanner Morgan

Athan Kaliakmanis

Max Brosmer

---

How would you design your offensive game plan with each of these? Would you decide — in advance — that you were going to run a pass-heavy offense, no matter what your personnel's strengths and weaknesses, or their levels of experience? Would you take a "one way, no matter what" approach?

Or... would you plan based on your current players' unique abilities?

To be clear: Fleck is showing flexibility and adaptability based on each of his current players. And that's exactly what's required.

By the way, I seem to recall Chip writing columns last season begging Fleck to, in effect, 'let Athan cook'! Now, I've seen a fair amount of Rutgers football this season, and based on that I'm quite glad Fleck didn't follow Scoggins' advice.
 
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RememberMurray said:
Fleck's main QBs at Minnesota:

Tanner Morgan

Athan Kaliakmanis

Max Brosmer

---

How would you design your offensive game plan with each of these? Would you decide — in advance — that you were going to run a pass-heavy offense, no matter what your personnel's strengths and weaknesses, or levels of experience? Or would you call each game based on the players' unique abilities?

To be clear: Fleck is showing flexibility and adaptability. And that's what's required.

Bu the way, wasn't Chip writing columns last season begging Fleck to, in effect, 'let Athan cook'? If Fleck had followed that advice, I have grave doubts it would have turned out well.
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"Let Athan cook", that made my day.
 

Even MN fans thought Fleck would return to form until very recently. Brosmer and Harbaugh have been a revelation with the calls, adaptability, and spreading the ball around. Not quite an aerial circus but these are definitely uncharted waters and combined with the changes on special teams and chaos defense has been pretty fun and unpredictable to watch.
 



The Gophers are 32nd in pass play percentage after never ranking above 100 in the Fleck era.

Half of this is having a good senior QB, the other half is a frustratingly inconsistent running game, probably the weakest since Fleck's been here.

This season does prove the "whole new ballgame" that Fleck's not ideologically committed to running the 4th service academy team at Minnesota, and will embrace whatever his team's good at.
 

Another example of being flexible and adaptable based on personnel:

Darius Taylor played both running back and wide receiver in high school. He has been a valuable asset in the Gophers short passing game this season.

I'm not sure it would have been a good idea to have tried to utilize Mo Ibrahim in the same way.
 

fmlizard said:
The Gophers are 32nd in pass play percentage after never ranking above 100 in the Fleck era.

Half of this is having a good senior QB, the other half is a frustratingly inconsistent running game, probably the weakest since Fleck's been here.

This season does prove the "whole new ballgame" that Fleck's not ideologically committed to running the 4th service academy team at Minnesota, and will embrace whatever his team's good at.
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Have been making this point for a while that Fleck will be willing to run an offense that fits his personnel but there have been a lot who have refused to believe it insisting we would revert back to the service academy style eventually.
 

GopherPete said:
The announcer in the Maryland game kept calling MN a running team, guessing he hasn't watched much this season.
Click to expand...
Think it was more the color commentator that was hung up on this idea that we were a run first,second and third team. It was annoying the crap out of me during the broadcast because it really felt like they must not have watched much film on us at all this year if they truly believed that.

We won't be confused with air raid anytime soon but we also aren't the burn the whole play clock and grind it out style offense we have been in recent years either.
 



Pompous Elitist said:
Even MN fans thought Fleck would return to form until very recently. Brosmer and Harbaugh have been a revelation with the calls, adaptability, and spreading the ball around. Not quite an aerial circus but these are definitely uncharted waters and combined with the changes on special teams and chaos defense has been pretty fun and unpredictable to watch.
Click to expand...
It's taken some time, but they are improving their best every week. Throwing to the RBs is a whole new thing that takes timing and progression. Taylor has more catches this year alone than the RBs season total ever I believe. That was before Maryland.
 

fmlizard said:
The Gophers are 32nd in pass play percentage after never ranking above 100 in the Fleck era.

Half of this is having a good senior QB, the other half is a frustratingly inconsistent running game, probably the weakest since Fleck's been here.

This season does prove the "whole new ballgame" that Fleck's not ideologically committed to running the 4th service academy team at Minnesota, and will embrace whatever his team's good at.
Click to expand...

The service academies, as of today:

ARMY: 7-0, ranked #21

NAVY: 6-1

AIR FORCE: 1-6

Total: 14-7
 


fmlizard said:
Half of this is having a good senior QB, the other half is a frustratingly inconsistent running game, probably the weakest since Fleck's been here.
Click to expand...

That's exactly right. If he would have waited until the running game got going we'd have a losing record now.

The decision probably was helped by our first two conference games where we fell behind by a lot and had to pass. Then, the running game worked pretty well against USC and we had more runs than passes but the passing was excellent in that game. The next game (UCLA) we were back to the anemic running game and our only chance was to pass most of the game after falling behind.
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
That's exactly right. If he would have waited until the running game got going we'd have a losing record now.

The decision probably was helped by our first two conference games where we fell behind by a lot and had to pass. Then, the running game worked pretty well against USC and we had more runs than passes but the passing was excellent in that game. The next game (UCLA) we were back to the anemic running game and our only chance was to pass most of the game after falling behind.
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Losing the middle of the line and #88 have proved pretty big in the running game.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Losing the middle of the line and #88 have proved pretty big in the running game.
Click to expand...

Yes.

That being said, the line as it is currently set does a fairly good job in the short passing offense. And, while I loved Brevyn Spann-Ford, I must say I believe Geers is actually a better pass catcher. Smoother and more fluid, to my eye.
 

On the flip side; there is the offensive line. Seen several games where they’re getting manhandled on the run.
 

While I agree we aren’t a run-first offense this year, it doesn’t seem like teams are changing how they defend us. Very few two-high safety looks and consistent run blitzing.

It is refreshing to see Fleck/Harbaugh take what the defense gives us, but it’s partly because of our inexplicable inability to run the ball. We throw as much as we do because we can’t run it (inverse of virtually all Fleck teams).
 

RememberMurray said:
Fleck's main QBs at Minnesota:

Tanner Morgan

Athan Kaliakmanis

Max Brosmer

---

How would you design your offensive game plan with each of these? Would you decide — in advance — that you were going to run a pass-heavy offense, no matter what your personnel's strengths and weaknesses, or their levels of experience? Would you take a "one way, no matter what" approach?

Or... would you plan based on your current players' unique abilities?

To be clear: Fleck is showing flexibility and adaptability based on each of his current players. And that's exactly what's required.

By the way, I seem to recall Chip writing columns last season begging Fleck to, in effect, 'let Athan cook'! Now, I've seen a fair amount of Rutgers football this season, and based on that I'm quite glad Fleck didn't follow Scoggins' advice.
Click to expand...

Max is the first QB you game plan around in my opinion.

Tanner could throw, but it appeared the real success they had was game planning around their receivers.
(Some/most of this could be the fault of the OC, I don't know)
 

RememberMurray said:
Fleck's main QBs at Minnesota:

Tanner Morgan

Athan Kaliakmanis

Max Brosmer

---

How would you design your offensive game plan with each of these? Would you decide — in advance — that you were going to run a pass-heavy offense, no matter what your personnel's strengths and weaknesses, or their levels of experience? Would you take a "one way, no matter what" approach?

Or... would you plan based on your current players' unique abilities?

To be clear: Fleck is showing flexibility and adaptability based on each of his current players. And that's exactly what's required.

By the way, I seem to recall Chip writing columns last season begging Fleck to, in effect, 'let Athan cook'! Now, I've seen a fair amount of Rutgers football this season, and based on that I'm quite glad Fleck didn't follow Scoggins' advice.
Click to expand...
What they didn't count on was that Kaliakmanis is a great practice QB and an average to poor game QB. You'll never find out until it's too late.

When you never get pressured or tackled in practice and then think the game will be the same you will fail. It was almost like a touch-football QB playing in a tackle game for the first time. He's still like that.

You think the Gophers might blitz him a bit on November 9th?
 

RememberMurray said:
Yes.

That being said, the line as it is currently set does a fairly good job in the short passing offense. And, while I loved Brevyn Spann-Ford, I must say I believe Geers is actually a better pass catcher. Smoother and more fluid, to my eye.
Click to expand...
Did ya like BSF's TD drop last game? Oof.
 


RememberMurray said:
By the way, I seem to recall Chip writing columns last season begging Fleck to, in effect, 'let Athan cook'! Now, I've seen a fair amount of Rutgers football this season, and based on that I'm quite glad Fleck didn't follow Scoggins' advice.
Click to expand...
In fairness to Chip, Coach was the guy who pumped us all up on AK. He said the days of MN not having a drafted qb were almost over. Must be a heck of a practice player.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Even MN fans thought Fleck would return to form until very recently. Brosmer and Harbaugh have been a revelation with the calls, adaptability, and spreading the ball around. Not quite an aerial circus but these are definitely uncharted waters and combined with the changes on special teams and chaos defense has been pretty fun and unpredictable to watch.
Click to expand...

I am still convined we are throwing so much only so we can setup the run the last few games. I am a lost soul.
 

RememberMurray said:
Yes.

That being said, the line as it is currently set does a fairly good job in the short passing offense. And, while I loved Brevyn Spann-Ford, I must say I believe Geers is actually a better pass catcher. Smoother and more fluid, to my eye.
Click to expand...


Spann-Ford had the highest drop rate of any TE prospect going back to 2014 at 26.4% of targets. Some of that might have been the bullets thrown at or over his head by Kaliakmanis? The prior year was about 6%.

Didn’t know Dallas guaranteed him 245K as UDFA. He now has seven game checks and counting. Not bad.

 

I think at least part of the issue is that the Gophers are just not a great running team this year. Fleck may be stubborn, but he's not crazy. So I think that the new focus on the passing game is partly by choice and partly by necessity.

last wk vs Maryland, Gophers had 29 rushing attempts for a net of 123 yards - an average of 4.2 yards/att. But - If you take out the 51-yr run by Darius Taylor, Gophers had 28 rushing attempts for 72 yards - an average of 2.6 yds/att.

even with the 51-yd run, Taylor averaged 5.4 yds/att. without that run, he had 30 yds in 14 att - 2.1 yds/att.
 

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