Shooter: It should be impossible for the Gophers (0-2) to lose next Saturday at Illinois

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As long as the over/under is less than 75...I'm all over the over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
 

“I'll say it one last time: the play selection on offense was not the reason we lost.Inept defense was what killed us. That seems obvious to me.”

Obviously, the defense is terrible. That is not the issue. It is a given. The offense has talent. To win the game the offense needs to get first downs and chew clock at minimum. They didn’t do that. At best they need to score points. They didn’t do that in money time either. You expect more from the offense. You tell me Bateman looks like a Top 10 draft pick? He is not being put in positions to show his talents. Nor is Morgan. That and more is the fault of the offensive coordinator. Offense has the ability to win the game. The defense needs their help.
 


MNVCGUY said:
Yeah, I think people like Murray take questioning the offense at all as trying to pin the loss on them. The reality is the offense didn't lose the game for us, the problem is they also didn't go out and win it for us in the 4th quarter when we desperately needed them to sustain a drive and make some plays.

38 points in regulation should be enough to beat most teams, but you can't rest on a lead when you have a defense that is really really struggling to stop anything right now. The D deserves most of the blame for what happened on Friday night just a shame the offense wasn't able to go out and make a few more plays to seal the deal.
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Maybe they will take this attitude for the rest of the games moving forward, and they simply didn't believe it was possible that our D was that bad that 17pt lead wasn't good enough? I mean, it was only the 2nd game.
 

Some guy said:
The defense was good enough to win a game in some league somewhere.
The team was 3 yards away from a win had they gone for two.
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And we owe the fact that the game actually became a nail-biter to... the play of the defense?
 


Ok, look. Some people are hellbent determined to bash the offense and Sanford, right now, for the 4th qtr and the call not to go for 2 (which as Fleck explained it, made perfect sense .... the kid had kicked five PATs successfully to that point). That's their hill that they're on.

Let's just get to the next game, and hope we improve in all phases of the game. None were perfect, by any means.
 

BleedGopher said:
per Shooter:

It should be impossible for the Gophers (0-2) to lose next Saturday at Illinois, which will be without its starting QB and top receiver due to COVID-19.

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Charley Walters: High-priced vets will be a tough sell for Vikings

There’s little doubt that the Minnesota Vikings (1-5), who last week shipped pass rusher Yannick Ngakoue to Baltimore, have been trying to dump more payroll before Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline. The…
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Go Gophers!!
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Gophers and Vikings teams both seem to historically struggle against backup QBs. This revelation is terrifying.
 

Well the Packers just found a way to lose to the Vikings so nothing is impossible.
 

MplsGopher said:
Maybe they will take this attitude for the rest of the games moving forward, and they simply didn't believe it was possible that our D was that bad that 17pt lead wasn't good enough? I mean, it was only the 2nd game.
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I don't think they should have gone crazy trying to push the ball downfield in the 4th but there is a middle ground where you use a safe passing game as opposed to just handing off non-stop to a RB who had to be gassed by that point in the game given that he had carried the ball 40 times.

Just feels like Sanford and Morgan are not yet on the same page as to this point we have not let Morgan take very many chances at all.
 




Gophergrandpa said:
Tanner has to run a few times per game, when there are open lanes, to keep defenses honest. We've got a lot of QB talent behind him. It's OK to let him play the game.
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No, he doesn't.
 

60's Guy said:
“I'll say it one last time: the play selection on offense was not the reason we lost.Inept defense was what killed us. That seems obvious to me.”

Obviously, the defense is terrible. That is not the issue. It is a given. The offense has talent. To win the game the offense needs to get first downs and chew clock at minimum. They didn’t do that. At best they need to score points. They didn’t do that in money time either. You expect more from the offense. You tell me Bateman looks like a Top 10 draft pick? He is not being put in positions to show his talents. Nor is Morgan. That and more is the fault of the offensive coordinator. Offense has the ability to win the game. The defense needs their help.
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Did you look at time of possession? Go ahead and look for both games.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Did you look at time of possession? Go ahead and look for both games.
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Maybe you could just tell me. Lol Yes, we ran the ball well both games. I agree time of possession is a PJ philosophy and sound. But, we need some balance and we had 23 yards about 10 minutes into the fourth quarter.
We needed more points. We needed to attack. We were too conservative.
Just like going for two points. Win the game. End it. If we make the extra point it was still advantage Maryland. Our chances of keeping them out of the end zone weren’t good. I was not as confident we could continue to match touchdowns.
My beef is: Morgan and Bateman have shown abilities we are not utilizing. And we are not attacking offensively with any balance or creativity. There is talent on offense. So far we have seen Mo only display his abilities.
 



60's Guy said:
Maybe you could just tell me. Lol Yes, we ran the ball well both games. I agree time of possession is a PJ philosophy and sound. But, we need some balance and we had 23 yards about 10 minutes into the fourth quarter.
We needed more points. We needed to attack. We were too conservative.
Just like going for two points. Win the game. End it. If we make the extra point it was still advantage Maryland. Our chances of keeping them out of the end zone weren’t good. I was not as confident we could continue to match touchdowns.
My beef is: Morgan and Bateman have shown abilities we are not utilizing. And we are not attacking offensively with any balance or creativity. There is talent on offense. So far we have seen Mo only display his abilities.
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Over 10 minutes more than Mich, almost 7 minutes more than MD. The problem is not the offense, at all.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Over 10 minutes more than Mich, almost 7 minutes more than MD. The problem is not the offense, at all.
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We just disagree. The defense looks slow and disorganized. In neither game was it going to magically become a force.
The only way we can win is better offense. More points. The talent is there on that side of the ball to get it done. To elevate. To change our best.
Right now there are no signs the defense will all of a sudden become competent. We don’t miss tackles. They just run free.
Holding the offense accountable to a higher standard is the best formula for this team to win games. If that’s our ceiling offensively we will struggle to beat anybody.
 

60's Guy said:
We just disagree. The defense looks slow and disorganized. In neither game was it going to magically become a force.
The only way we can win is better offense. More points. The talent is there on that side of the ball to get it done. To elevate. To change our best.
Right now there are no signs the defense will all of a sudden become competent. We don’t miss tackles. They just run free.
Holding the offense accountable to a higher standard is the best formula for this team to win games. If that’s the ceiling we will struggle to beat anybody.
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Yes, we do. The. Friday was bottom for defense.
 

"Doctor, this patient was just sent to us in emergency surgery with a huge, sucking chest wound!"

"Why, yes of course, nurse... but you have completely failed to notice his slightly sprained ankle!"
 

RememberMurray said:
Odd, you say?

It seems odd to me to fixate on offensive play calling in a game when we gave up 675 yards, but that's just me.

And I'm not sure what you mean by 'dying on a hill'; I said clearly that I, too, would have liked to have seen a few more passes.
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I meant "dying on the hill" in the sense that you had said this more than once and were not going to deviate from the opinion that the offensive play selection was not the reason we lost.

I don't think saying that the offensive playing calling in that fourth quarter was terrible and cost us the game is in anyway diminishing how terrible the defense played. Yet, as I stated earlier, if we merely could have bleed 3+ minutes off the clock by getting 1 or 2 more first downs our defense could have been just as putrid and we would have won the game. It should have been evident to the offensive braintrust that the game was in their hands since the defense was not going to stop anyone. Thus with different playcalling we win despite our defense.
 

RememberMurray said:
No, what 'people like Murray' are saying is that our offense, even run just as it was, was plenty good enough to "win the game for us" — though it was far from perfect. All that was required was the hint of a tiny smidgen of defense.

In contrast, the defense was not good enough to win any game, anywhere, in any league. It was putrid.
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In a different world with more than a tiny smidgen of defense (which existed as there was a punt, pick, and fumble recovery) our offense would have been plenty good. Yet most everyone watching that game knew that we could not rely on our defense. Therefore without being able to rely on them the playcalling needed to get the first downs necessary to secure the game. The playcalling was predicated upon the defense being able to stop someone, which was asinine because it was clear they were not capable of such a request.
 

noamfromm said:
I meant "dying on the hill" in the sense that you had said this more than once and were not going to deviate from the opinion that the offensive play selection was not the reason we lost.

I don't think saying that the offensive playing calling in that fourth quarter was terrible and cost us the game is in anyway diminishing how terrible the defense played. Yet, as I stated earlier, if we merely could have bleed 3+ minutes off the clock by getting 1 or 2 more first downs our defense could have been just as putrid and we would have won the game. It should have been evident to the offensive braintrust that the game was in their hands since the defense was not going to stop anyone. Thus with different playcalling we win despite our defense.
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The play calling was consistent the whole game. Solution looking for a problem here.
 


PMWinSTP said:
The play calling was consistent the whole game. Solution looking for a problem here.
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We did not consistently run into stacked boxes throughout the entire game. Witty retort missing on accuracy here.
 

noamfromm said:
We did not consistently run into stacked boxes throughout the entire game. Witty retort missing on accuracy here.
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Nope. Nitpicking the offense for its performance in this game is ridiculous. 450 yards, almost 7 minute TOP advantage, 38 points.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Nope. Nitpicking the offense for its performance in this game is ridiculous. 450 yards, almost 7 minute TOP advantage, 38 points.
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That's changing the goalposts, you said we were consistent in our playcalling which isn't true.

It's picking nits to argue about whether we should have thrown a deep ball to Harry Van Dyne in the blowout of Maryland last year or rather ran outside zone. Its not nitpicking to challenge the playcalling that could have won the game. I'll see myself out because we are just too far apart on this topic.
 

noamfromm said:
That's changing the goalposts, you said we were consistent in our playcalling which isn't true.

It's picking nits to argue about whether we should have thrown a deep ball to Harry Van Dyne in the blowout of Maryland last year or rather ran outside zone. Its not nitpicking to challenge the playcalling that could have won the game. I'll see myself out because we are just too far apart on this topic.
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No I didn't move them, the play mix was consistent the entire game.
 

It was obvious to me that the MN defense could not be counted on to stop MD from scoring.
In the 4th quarter with MN ahead the goal of the MN coaches had to be to keep the ball away from MD by making first downs and controlling the clock.
MN put the game on the legs of a RB who had already had hardly any respite during the game and a lot of possessions.
The play calling was so vanilla that he MD DC simply stacked the line of scrimmage and stopped the run.
It was a perfect situation to use play action and your most certain weapons an accurate QB and two gifted WRs. And use the tight end if the WRs are double teamed.
The time of possession is meaningless when the opposing team scores quickly as MD did.
 

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