Shama on U WRs: That has to be considered a recruiting failure and it’s uncertain how the receiver roster gets fixed in the offseason.

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Shama:

It wasn’t just the quarterback who was inconsistent in the passing scheme. The receivers dropped too many passes, or didn’t make difficult catches, or even get open. That kind of performance has been another flaw in the Minnesota offense this season. The Gophers have nowhere near the receiving talent of two years ago when Morgan was so impressive throwing to all-conference playmakers Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman.

“You’d like to be able to see more completions, that’s for sure,” Fleck said. “Too many drops.”

The coaching staff’s responsibility is to provide more capable receivers than Minnesota has shown. That has to be considered a recruiting failure and it’s uncertain how the receiver roster gets fixed in the offseason.


Go Gophers!!
 



To me its a hit and miss with the receivers. You would hope they would all catch the ball but it doesn't work that way. Even the pros drop the balls. Perhaps they need a drill where a defender will not touch the receiver in practice but do everything possible to distract him. Maybe they do that now, I don't know.
 



#2Gopher said:
To me its a hit and miss with the receivers. You would hope they would all catch the ball but it doesn't work that way. Even the pros drop the balls. Perhaps they need a drill where a defender will not touch the receiver in practice but do everything possible to distract him. Maybe they do that now, I don't know.
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They do some distraction with hitting with styrofoam type thing. But I agree it is not the equivalent of in game situation. Seeing a defender running towards you or chasing you is very different. I have to assume they do that in the offseason. Not sure they're doing during in-season practice.
 

BleedGopher said:
per Shama:

It wasn’t just the quarterback who was inconsistent in the passing scheme. The receivers dropped too many passes, or didn’t make difficult catches, or even get open. That kind of performance has been another flaw in the Minnesota offense this season. The Gophers have nowhere near the receiving talent of two years ago when Morgan was so impressive throwing to all-conference playmakers Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman.

“You’d like to be able to see more completions, that’s for sure,” Fleck said. “Too many drops.”

The coaching staff’s responsibility is to provide more capable receivers than Minnesota has shown. That has to be considered a recruiting failure and it’s uncertain how the receiver roster gets fixed in the offseason.


Go Gophers!!
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Step 1 is for the passes to be there, consistently, before we start fixing catching issues. I would argue some of the dropseys are due to the wildly inconsistent throwing of our QB, who at this point in his career should be able to throw a simple 7 yard out for a first down without sailing the damn ball 12 inches over the head of his top receiver.

He has severe happy feet which screws up his mechanics. Bad footwork leads to erratic passes.

Please keep in mind many of these routes are timing plays. It is analogous to a catcher calling for a specific pitch in a specific location, setting up to receive that pitch, and then the pitcher throws it somewhere other than where it is supposed to be. Imagine that happening every third or fourth pitch. After a few innings of being a ground acrobat, I don't blame the catcher for missing a few that maybe they could have stopped.
 

Definitely need guys that can/will make a play. At the end of the day, you have to make a play; need to make the routine catch, need to make a handful of tough catches. Right now, that's just not happening. Morgan is really really not good right now, but he's not getting a lot of help either
 

This is true, we have missed on a large percentage of receivers the last couple of years.

That said, it's pretty apparent (especially when you go to the games) that we do have some folks running free. I think he's usually the third option on most plays, but Brady Boyd gets pretty good separation on most plays.
 




Bob_Loblaw said:
This is true, we have missed on a large percentage of receivers the last couple of years.

That said, it's pretty apparent (especially when you go to the games) that we do have some folks running free. I think he's usually the third option on most plays, but Brady Boyd gets pretty good separation on most plays.
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Three things here:

1. The receivers may not be great, but our qb isn't seeing the field. He's also not putting the ball where it needs to be.

2. We have the fewest pass attempts in all of football save Army and Navy. That's an embarrassment and totally wrong. I don't know that our wide receivers can ever get in a groove as we throw so infrequently. There's no rhythm, no flow.

3. We never put our wr's in motion. This is a common way to have the defense show their hand. We don't cause any confusion. We don't make the defense think or make switches at the last second because we have to run the clock down to 2 seconds and have the qb staring at the sidelines. Put some wide receivers in motion.

Not saying we don't need to upgrade the receivers.
 
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kg21 said:
Two things here:

1. The receivers may not be great, but our qb isn't seeing the field. He's also not putting the ball where it needs to be.

2. We have the fewest pass attempts in all of football save Army and Navy. That's an embarrassment and totally wrong. I don't know that our wide receivers can ever get in a groove as we throw so infrequently. There's no rhythm, no flow.

Not saying we don't need to upgrade the receivers.
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Yeah, you're 100% right.

There isn't much we can do when the QB isn't seeing the field. It's one of the reasons Boyd impresses me. For those at the game, watch Boyd. The guy runs every route really hard (is usually open/open-ish) and there has to be that little whisper in the back of his head that he isn't getting the ball. It takes maturity and commitment to be able to ignore that whisper that most true FR do not have.

But you're 100% right. It's hard to really judge much with our receivers when we never throw and now we are simply not executing when we do throw.
 




I believe if CrAB had the 2019 Tanner, he'd be putting up Bateman numbers. The 2019 receivers were very good (it helped to have to cover two) - but Tanner was far better in 2019 than last year and this year. Was it skill, playcalling, receivers? I had big hopes for Dylan after the Ohio game, but for some reason he's on the bench too much - my guess due to culture clash (but could also be the personal issues he's had this year). I don't see him here next year. MSB can be good - enough to have to cover him and help open up CrAB. I'm preaching to the choir, but Sanford messed up Tanner. Fleck should be ashamed of himself for allowing that to happen to someone who showed extreme loyalty to him. End of rant.
 

I thought Fleck was going to make our passing game go to the best it's ever been and then stay consistent. After 2019, I thought we'd stay with a great passing game. I thought our recruiting could get nuts at that position. Maybe even a 5 star.

Yet, here we are in passing purgatory. I never saw this coming.
 


Our receivers are not good, I know that much. How much of that is due to bad playcalling/coaching or recruiting failure...that I couldn't say. CrAB is about all we have.

It's bad when you're yearning for a receiving duo like Wolitarsky and Maye.
 

Better be aggressive with transfer portal. Otherwise we're back with Barber/Maroney era with 2 solid sophomores
 


Word said:
Our receivers are not good, I know that much. How much of that is due to bad playcalling/coaching or recruiting failure...that I couldn't say. CrAB is about all we have.

It's bad when you're yearning for a receiving duo like Wolitarsky and Maye.
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Daniel Jackson was open a lot last year and making plays. What the hell has happened?
 


MaxyJR1 said:
Anyone know why Dylan Wright didn't play Saturday? Boyd didn't either. Was it because we went more pass blocking type WR and TE formations?
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Two games in a row where he didn't see time over MBS or Jackson. I just don't understand it. He's the most dynamic receiver on the team....imo. Nobody has the hands that CAB does. He brings in almost everything......but both MBS and Jackson have dropped plenty. How is Wright not the #2 guy?
 

stocker08 said:
Two games in a row where he didn't see time over MBS or Jackson. I just don't understand it. He's the most dynamic receiver on the team....imo. Nobody has the hands that CAB does. He brings in almost everything......but both MBS and Jackson have dropped plenty. How is Wright not the #2 guy?
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Has to be an attitude thing.

I get that.

But you're tangibily hurting the team, coach. Is your pride worth that??
 

stocker08 said:
Two games in a row where he didn't see time over MBS or Jackson. I just don't understand it. He's the most dynamic receiver on the team....imo. Nobody has the hands that CAB does. He brings in almost everything......but both MBS and Jackson have dropped plenty. How is Wright not the #2 guy?
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Wright has a ton of potential but has shown alligator hands in the middle of the field. Pure speculation here, but that could be a terrible combination against the Hawkeye secondary. Otherwise, one has to think he might not be 100% for some reason. He's clearly the most physically gifted WR that's seen the field.
 

Maybe .... but would guess less likely .... is a thing of wanting to put "the guys I recruited here out of high school" ahead of a portal guy?
 

FormerFatOL said:
Wright has a ton of potential but has shown alligator hands in the middle of the field. Pure speculation here, but that could be a terrible combination against the Hawkeye secondary. Otherwise, one has to think he might not be 100% for some reason. He's clearly the most physically gifted WR that's seen the field.
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Was he even on the travel roster against Iowa? He isn't on the participation report which would lead me to believe he wasn't even there, probably due to an injury of some kind.
 

There is so much wrong with our passing game and to me it starts with the OC.
In watching our OL play, I go through each play multiple times (haven't started the Iowa game yet as my recording of it started after the Ko TD, so I'm waiting to watch the game in 60).
When we throw the ball, there are many times that we have multiple receivers out in a route, but it really looks like Tanner has one option to look at and nothing else. If that guy doesn't get open the play is doomed because he has to wait to see if he will come open and the other receivers routes are so simple/poorly designed that they aren't ever open (It looks like they are just running a route to tie up a defender or clear out a space but know they are not going to be targeted so they don't work to get open or he doesn't have enough time to go to other looks.
One play late in the game MBS ran across the field and was open, which was pointed out by Lauranitis that Tanner missed seeing him. If you look at Tanner on that play(or any play for that matter) he isn't scanning the field for an open guy he is focused on one guy, who happens to be the receiver just outside of MBS. He isn't open so Tanner can't throw it to him and by the time he comes off that read it's too late to see MBS.
To me the passing struggles are because he isn't allowed to read and react to what he is seeing on the defensive side instead he's looking at the sideline for direction on which player to target and when that first (only) read isn't open there isn't time to look elsewhere and other receivers aren't doing enough to get open because they know it's not coming there way.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Was he even on the travel roster against Iowa? He isn't on the participation report which would lead me to believe he wasn't even there, probably due to an injury of some kind.
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He was in on 4 plays. On one play, they were having to help him line up properly. I believe this kind of stuff is the issue.

He had trouble with the playbook at A and M

Didn't he get into some kind of altercation in a previous game?

I just wonder about behind the scenes with attitude, knowing the plays, and all that stuff. I has to be something like that, because he has talent the others don't.
 


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