Shortell's Grade vs Iowa

How would you grade Shortells' performance

  • A

    Votes: 3 2.6%

  • B

    Votes: 3 2.6%

  • C

    Votes: 32 27.6%

  • D

    Votes: 78 67.2%
  • Total voters
    116
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Part of me saw this coming. Iowa has the ability to do this. Anyone remember MSU 2010?
 

I didn't mind either of the last two picks. The 2nd pick was poorly thrown, but it was 3rd and long and I much prefer the attempt to make something happen at that state of the game to throwing a check down or a ball out of bounds. The missed deep shots early were big and would be the reason why I would give Max a D. I am much more concerned with the run defense and the Gophers own running game than I am with the performance of Max Shortell.
 

D. Possibly even an F. He was awful today. I don't even think he was all that great last week (I graded that performance a C - passable, but not going to cut it in conference play). It certainly wasn't our offense that won against Syracuse. If he's our quarterback of the future, I hope our running game improves in a hurry.
 

They looked like a young team today and nobody stepped up. The first interception the receiver was open and he waited too long and underthrew it. Then, the biggest play to me was when he missed Crawford-Tufts down the middle for what would have been about a 65 to 70 yard touchdown. Tufts was wide open on the post, no one within 10+ yards of him and it was well overthrown. Probably would have been a different game if he had hit him. Like coach Kill said coming out of half, it's a young team. They looked like a young team today. D shut 'em out in the second half though. I think it's obvious the worst part of this team is the offensive line, that and we need some playmakers. 1st real road test. They'll get better. It's going to be a process. Last season Michigan beat us 58-0 and within the next 4 weeks Iowa beat Michigan and we beat Iowa. I give him a c-.
 

gopherinpain said:
Max was awful today and deserves an F, but even when Gray is healthy, Max should start imo. This is a not a rose bowl contender and probably not even a bowl team this year. The coaches need to evaluate Max for the rest of the year and see if he can be the guy. Starting Gray does nothing for the future of the program.
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Glad you're not the coach.
 


afurry91 said:
F. F-. No, just an F. What a scrub.
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What a loser of a fan, do us all a favor and go somewhere else. No need to resort to calling college kids scrubs. You can critique his play, but name calling? I hope some day you grow up but I doubt it.
 

An easy way to vent...in anonymity on a message board. What a scrub.
 

The QB gets too much credit when things go good and too much blame when things are bad. From hero to zero all within a week. Bottom line is that the kid is a sophomore, not a senior, plenty of improvement is needed, but he has time to correct his mistakes. Our defense was non-existence in the first half and our offensive line didn't play well. If you told me we would be 4-1 at this point of the season, I'd take that.
 

You guys do realize that scrub simply means someone who is bad, right? Excuse me for being upset that in his first 3 big ten starts he has been outscored 106-13... It was 99-0 one half earlier.
 



gopherinpain said:
Max was awful today and deserves an F, but even when Gray is healthy, Max should start imo. This is a not a rose bowl contender and probably not even a bowl team this year. The coaches need to evaluate Max for the rest of the year and see if he can be the guy. Starting Gray does nothing for the future of the program.
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I'd understand this if we were 1-4 but we're 4-1 and trying to get to a bowl game. You don't "play for the future" just one game into the big ten season.

I think Shortell locks in on receivers a lot. He certainly did on that pick-6 late in the game. He also made some bad decisions, like late in the game when we were no huddle and instead of just throwing it out of bounds to stop the clock when he was on the outside, he tucked it and ran for just a yard or two.

I think Gray does more in this type of game. Lots of broken down plays.
 

Shortell has started how many games? It is not like he is Drew Brees. My hope is that with every play, and every game he learns what it means to be a college quarterback. Let sit back and watch his progression.
Go Gophers!
 

I would give the whole team a D and not just single out Max. We win as a team, we lose as a team.
 

F. He missed A LOT of throws that everyone gets after Gray for missing as well. Look at the last TD pass he had. Goodger barely scooped the football off the turf barely catching it.
 



Shortell has the potential to be a very good QB. He just isn't there yet. He throws a good ball, just not consistent enough.
 

I gave him a D. I'd have given him a D even if F was available.

The pass blocking was decent all game. In my opinion, almost all of the sacks (all that I can remember), were largely Max's fault for holding the ball too long.

His rushing stats were mostly meaningless as they came when Iowa was giving them to us.

He overthrew a wide open WR in the first quarter....wide open.

The ints - - - the first one, there is blame to go around. He vastly underthrew the ball, but Barker wasn't a good "defender" on that play. However, he did underthrow the ball.

The second was a terribly underthrown ball. It might have slipped out, I don't know. But it was a god awful throw.

The third one that got brought back for a TD...all on Max. It was a terrible read, terrible throw.


That said....unlike some other members of the team, he seemed to have some fight in him. He had some passes dropped and he didn't have a running game. This is precisely what scared me with Max as our QB, we become 1 dimensional against good teams and he and our WRs are simply not good enough (yet) to pick apart a Big 10 caliber defense when they know we are passing.

Max will have better days.
 

station19 said:
Iowa rb gets 100 yds rushing in the first quarter, the d gives up 24 pts in first half, and the qb is the worst part of our game?

O line gets man-handled all game and the qb is the worst part of the game?

Really
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What was the score after the first quarter? How long did we have the ball in the first quarter? How long did we have it all game? We were 3 and out nearly the entire first half, it's amazing our defense didn't give up more points than what we did. If shortell goes to a check down to move the chains instead of launching it deep nearly every pass in the first half maybe we are down 17-7, 10-3, etc? What if gray played today many would be asking for his schollie to be revoked.
 

Studwell55 said:
Watch closely.

Jerry treats this team like a psychiatric patient who will fall to pieces when the slightest thing goes wrong.

He knows they are thisclose from losing it at any moment. And when they took the field...we all saw what Kill sees every day.
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You raise a good point. You could tell after that first int the gophers got very down on themselves. The early set backs really crushed the gophers mentally.
 

This was just a flat out poor day for the offense. I'll rely on the coaching staff to explain where the problems lie. In my amateur opinion:

1. Quarterback. Shortell's was indecisive and inaccurate. When he ran, it was as if he really didn't want to go there. Passing, he had plenty of time and a couple of times was sacked because he held the ball too long. An incomplete pass is only a bad play on 4th down.

2. Offensive line. Gave Max adequate time to throw most of the time. On running plays they seemed pretty bad.

3. Receivers. Had balls taken away, but got open deep only to have balls consistently thrown long or short. On TV could not tell if they failed to get open short or if Max didn't pick up open receivers.

4. Running back. Who knows if a bad running game is bad driver or a slow car. What I do know is that on fourth and goal from the two and time running down on the clock, we better have a receiver get open, because we aren't going to make it on the ground. At least not without Gray in the line up.

This offense is a work in progress. The O line needs another year, running back probaby needs an upgrading, this QB has had three starts and two of them were not very good. Receiver, I'm not sure about, but I think we're better off here than any where else on offense

There can be no question, however that it is a much better unit than a few years ago.
 

Studwell55 said:
Watch closely.

Jerry treats this team like a psychiatric patient who will fall to pieces when the slightest thing goes wrong.

He knows they are thisclose from losing it at any moment. And when they took the field...we all saw what Kill sees every day.
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I think you're thisclose to losing it at any moment.
 

This is all REALLY good discussion and criticism.

I LOVE the criticism of Shortell's game recently because it means as fans, we might actually be raising our standards. It's obvious our expectations and our standards are higher of Max than they were of Gray; lots of the criticism of Shortell are things we never dreamt of expecting Gray to be able to do.

This is a good first step. It's about time we raised our standards above hitting a wide open receiver occasionally. Shortell's performance in his short time on the field have caused most fans to raise their expectations of the passing game and of the offense. This is a GOOD thing. That means people are starting to get it.

Shortell's mistakes are correctable, which gives even more reason for optimism. He's shown what he's capable of and now, fans are expecting him to make those throws and plays routinely. With Gray, we'd reduced our expectations to being excited when he stayed in the pocket and threw to an open receiver.

We expect more from the position now that means we're headed in the right direction.
 

I gave Max a D because he didn't play well, but he also wasn't helped out by his receivers. On the first INT, Barker needed to fight for the ball and come away with the catch or at least make sure the pass was incomplete. Yes, it was underthrown, but he still needed to help his QB out.The Marcus Jones drop on 3rd down in the 4th quarter was bad. We had put together a nice drive and it looked like we were going to get some points and make a game of it at the end, but it led to Max forcing it on 4th down and the pick six. The pass protection from the O-line was very good IMO and continues to be the best thing we have going on offense. I thought the sacks that Iowa had were completely on Max.
 

We had some chances for really big plays in the first quarter while Iowa was still respecting our run game. Once we missed those and that window closed, Shortel played okay considering. He threw some really nice out passes and some of them while he was rolling out of the pocket. I am hoping that he will start hitting on those wide open deep passes soon.
 

I gave Shortell a D as well, because he's capable of so much more and after seeing what he can do, it was reasonable to expect the offense to click just a little bit more. In retrospect, for his first start of the year on the road, his second road start ever, and his 4th start ever, he probably played about as expected.

The INT in the 3rd quarter that was underthrown was his worst, he didn't step into that throw at all; it was all arm and just plain short. One of the first throws I've seen him make that lacked confidence.

As far as drops, I'd forgotten about the Jones drop on 3rd down. I remember Engel dropping one on third down, deep inside their own end of the field, that was a real killer. He also completed two passes as I recall that were JUST a few inches out of bounds. Not missed by much, but missing just enough to kill a drive. Those things are easily fixed at least.

Another poster pointed out, the game just started to steamroll away from them after the first drive ended. Losing momentum on the road, with a young team, you're just not going to get it back very easily.
 

Shortell

Gopher Warrior said:
Grades are relative in this context, but a C. Not very good.

However, the first interception was taken away from a receiver... the second and third had some to do with the circumstances in the game (i.e., play calls and/or forcing due to being down big). I don't look at all interceptions as being equal.

That said, many of his passes just didn't look good today. Tough road game against a rival and with the entire team not playing well - it's not the end of the world. Still think Shortell gives Minnesota a better chance than Gray at QB to pull off wins in the Big Ten.
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I think this is a fair assessment. Shortell looked bad in the 2nd half against Syracuse and bad against Iowa, but I've seen too many big time throws from this kid--throws we haven't seen a MN QB throw in 20 years--to give up on him. He'll weather this storm and improve. Part of the blame for the outcome of this game is on Shortell's shoulders, but it was a horrific performance by the entire team--players and coaches. I expect a completely different attitude/performance against Northwestern.
 

I give him an "I". An I is a fair grade at this point.
As the back-up inserted into only his 4th career start it is not fair to give him an overall grade.
If we were grading this game on film it would be a C- because the deep throws were late. Give him the healthy O-line at UNLV and things might have been different.
Line continuity plays a roll in our struggles right now. He needs to get better and value the football more. Take what you can get and do not try to force the ball to a receiver when you are open to convert a 3rd down into a first down.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
As the back-up inserted into only his 4th career start it is not fair to give him an overall grade.
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BS. He's not on scholarship because the staff has low expectations for him. He played the game, he had multiple weeks to prepare to be the starter going in, and he'll get a grade like everyone else.

If Gray's game at UNLV was "horrible", then Shortell's Iowa game was "abominably flambéed roadkill on I-35 putrescent".

Also, to counter those who suggest that Shortell starting "opens up the run game", MV pointed out that we have rushed for 200 yards as a team 5 times over the past 2 seasons. Gray was the starter in each.
 

Here is how I see it. First off, things didn't go too bad until after Barker's mistake. I don't know what it is but Barker has made quite a bit of mistakes the past two games. Ok, back to the game, then the Defense starts coughing up chunks of yardage to Weisman. Now all of a sudden, you're behind. This changes the tone of the kids from playing, to playing catch up. The Defense continues to give up points. Now all the pressure is on the Offense, and Max. So it's not really fair to judge too critically of Max. Early on, his receivers didn't help him at all. Later in the game, he was misfiring a lot, but I'm sure his confidence was shot by then. I'm not defending his game, it wasn't good. But there were so many other things that were worse. Just remember, cause and effect. Had the Defense not been so atrocious in the first half, maybe he wouldn't have had to play catch up and instead just managed the game.

We seriously need to learn how to stop the run. Weisman may be good, but he's just a power back. What I saw were gaping holes that anyone could have run through. I'm actually glad it wasn't a speed back, as they would have gone the distance every time, and that back probably would have had 250 yards rushing.
 

dpodoll68 said:
BS. He's not on scholarship because the staff has low expectations for him. He played the game, he had multiple weeks to prepare to be the starter going in, and he'll get a grade like everyone else.

If Gray's game at UNLV was "horrible", then Shortell's Iowa game was "abominably flambéed roadkill on I-35 putrescent".

Also, to counter those who suggest that Shortell starting "opens up the run game", MV pointed out that we have rushed for 200 yards as a team 5 times over the past 2 seasons. Gray was the starter in each.
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Wow. Impressive apples to apples analysis.

Sooooo, two games this year, with a largely healthy starting O-Line, against UNLV and UNH no less, along with 3 games last year when they at least had a few Seniors on the offensive line is comparable to the starts for Shortell? Okay, what the heck, I can buy that.

Shortell played poorly. I gave him a D. For the same effort, I would have given Gray around a B or B+, because the effort produced on Saturday was much closer to Gray's ceiling than it was for what we should expect from Shortell.

Gray should start this year when healthy, for this reason. There's no sense in battering Shortell's confidence behind a young and inexperienced Offensive Line, not to mention a young and inexperienced receiving corp. It doesn't make sense. Put Gray back there with Freshmen and Sophs on the O-Line and let him see what he can do. He'll run around, occasionally make something happen, and we'll all say what a good runner he is and when he completes a handful of dumpoff passes out of the backfield or to the TE a few yards across the LOS, we'll say how improved he is as a passer. Everyone will be happy.
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
For the same effort, I would have given Gray around a B or B+, because the effort produced on Saturday was much closer to Gray's ceiling than it was for what we should expect from Shortell.
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There is literally nothing, NOTHING, to confirm this other than your quite obvious bias against Gray. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, favors Gray, whether you look at wins and losses, stats, experience, leadership, overall team performance, etc., etc. Stop trying to pretend like you're unbiased and that almost everyone except you is treating Gray with kid gloves. He's the better football player, and the better QB. To argue otherwise is to come from a position with no basis. I don't know why you treat Gray with an attitude that could best be described as contempt.
 

RolGnav said:
Here is how I see it. First off, things didn't go too bad until after Barker's mistake. I don't know what it is but Barker has made quite a bit of mistakes the past two games. Ok, back to the game, then the Defense starts coughing up chunks of yardage to Weisman. Now all of a sudden, you're behind. This changes the tone of the kids from playing, to playing catch up. The Defense continues to give up points. Now all the pressure is on the Offense, and Max. So it's not really fair to judge too critically of Max. Early on, his receivers didn't help him at all. Later in the game, he was misfiring a lot, but I'm sure his confidence was shot by then. I'm not defending his game, it wasn't good. But there were so many other things that were worse. Just remember, cause and effect. Had the Defense not been so atrocious in the first half, maybe he wouldn't have had to play catch up and instead just managed the game.

We seriously need to learn how to stop the run. Weisman may be good, but he's just a power back. What I saw were gaping holes that anyone could have run through. I'm actually glad it wasn't a speed back, as they would have gone the distance every time, and that back probably would have had 250 yards rushing.
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And had Max been able to move the chains, the defense wouldn't have had to play the entire half, would have been rested, and Iowa wouldn't have had all the momentum. Cause and effect goes both ways. We ran 22 plays in the first half and controlled the ball for ~10 minutes.

The D actually started fairly strong, outside of the one long pass on the first possession, and forced quick punts on the next two drives. But Max never got the offense into any sort of rhythm, never got a drive going, and never gave us any momentum. He was 3-10 in the first half with an INT, and that's the D's fault?

I don't understand what sort of Shortell kool aid people seem to have been drinking. He's had two nice relief appearances, but he's proven to be overmatched every game he's started. He is the most overrated player on the team.
 

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