Shortell's Interception...

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fryguy22 said:
Does anyone think running was an option or has everyone dismissed that as too outrageous? If we get the 1st down on the ground the clock stops and we have time to set up another play or spike the ball and preserve both of our two timeouts.....easy to second guess but thats what i was thinking at the time, just get the first down
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Bingo! My thoughts exactly. Not a huge play-calling mistake, but I wanted a run on 2nd down to get that first down out of the way.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Not trying to make excuses for Max's poor throw, but McKnight needed to come back & get that ball! He's the Sr. potential All Big-10 selection & with the game on the line he got out-muscled & out-hustled for that ball. Apples & Oranges of course, but no way Decker would have let the CB take that ball away from him.
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But you are making an excuse for him.Decker would have kicked the d back where it hurts. lol
 

They are both at fault in my opinion. The ball should have never been thrown to McKnight to begin with. He wasn't ever open. But McKnight could have done a better job to break up the play.
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
nope, watch the film again. the defender has to reach to his right toward the sideline and toward mcknight to catch the ball. if mcknight isn't off balance ha makes a play on the ball with any pass interference on the defensive player.

not saying that is was a great pass, but i am saying that you are wrong.
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Really? You think me watching the replay for the 20th time will change my mind? We'll just need to agree to disagree on this one. I am obviously seeing the play differently than you, which is fine with me. I just hope they both learn from the film and don't let it happen again.

p.s. And ultimately, I agree with fryguy anyway--I wish we would have called a run on that play instead.
 

It was a bad throw. You can't really blame anyone else but Shortell. If a LT whiffs on a block the QB gets impaled, you don't argue that the QB should have avoided the sack.

But breaking down the pass....
It was a bad throw for a couple of reasons. First, it was obviously underthrown, the location of the ball should have been closer to the sideline. We all agree on that one. Second, the ball, because it was underthrown, also didn't have nearly as much loft on it had it been thrown to the proper location.

That second aspect is being overlooked by a lot of people. Shortell's underthrowing of the ball threw off the timing of McKnight which is why he still appeared to be handchecking when he should have been defending the pass/going for the ball. The ball wasn't thrown WHERE or HOW it should have been thrown.

If there is one thing that McKnight really excels at it is timing his jumps and battling with defenders. I don't think the message board experts who played WR in HS understand this nuance more than McKnight.

It was just one bad throw in an otherwise extremely impressive day by Shortell, but I can't throw the blame at the WR on an errant pass.


PS: There were plenty of INTs thrown on passes to the almighty Eric Decker. He is one of my favorite Gophers of all time, but lets be real.
 


As a former WR I would argue that the genesis of the interception is actually a lack of repititions between QB and WR (which is certainly understandable). In general a reciever should be reacting to the trajectory of the pass. In reality though there is usually enough understanding between the two by game day that you know where a pass will be without having to watch the throw. You can see this by watching McKnights route. You can see that he is flaring to the sideline expecting the pass to be thrown out of bounds where only he can get to it, probably because this is where Q typically throws it and he is adjusting before he actually sees the ball in the air. However, if McKnight continues to run straight, Shortell's pass will fall nicely on his outside shoulder. So to me it seems to be a lack of repetitions rather than an underthrown ball by Shortell or lack of effort by Mcknight.
 

1. We should have run the ball. 100%, without question. When Shortell dropped back to pass, I screamed at the TV, "What are you doing?!?!" As they say, three things can happen when you throw, and two of them are bad. The worst-case scenario happened, and it cost us the game. We are supposed to be a running team again. You go to your trademark when the game is on the line. The probable worst-case for a run is that you lose a yard or two, call a timeout, and live to play another down. The far more likely scenario is that the RB falls forward, gets the first, and we line up and spike it, leaving three downs and two timeouts remaining to go another ~30 yds for a game-winning FG.

2. The INT was not a horrible throw, but the blame is roughly 80% Shortell's, 20% McKnight's.
 

dpodoll68 said:
1. We should have run the ball. 100%, without question. When Shortell dropped back to pass, I screamed at the TV, "What are you doing?!?!" As they say, three things can happen when you throw, and two of them are bad. The worst-case scenario happened, and it cost us the game. We are supposed to be a running team again. You go to your trademark when the game is on the line. The probable worst-case for a run is that you lose a yard or two, call a timeout, and live to play another down. The far more likely scenario is that the RB falls forward, gets the first, and we line up and spike it, leaving three downs and two timeouts remaining to go another ~30 yds for a game-winning FG.

2. The INT was not a horrible throw, but the blame is roughly 80% Shortell's, 20% McKnight's.
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I think it is more like 75%/25%.
 

If it had only been a go route he would have been wide open... blah blah blah whats done is done. Our boys played hard and almost pulled off the upset. Time to focus on NMSU.
 





You are right!

Fuzzy Rumpton said:
If it had only been a go route he would have been wide open... blah blah blah whats done is done. Our boys played hard and almost pulled off the upset. Time to focus on NMSU.
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It is a new week and it is time for a new pisssing match! P.S. It was
77.5% Shortell's, 22.5% McKnight's fault.
 

Oh.. for God's sake. The kid is a freshman and playing at th Rose Bowl filled with USC fans, playing one of the most prolific programs in NCAA football. I think he did pretty well for a freshman tossed out there unexpectedly in a pressure situation. The INT was a bad throw, mistakes are expected from freshman QBs.
 



I'm in the camp that believes the play call, a pass play, was what was most wrong with the situation. Should have run the ball and picked up the first down, spiked it immediately after the chains were moved. Would have had two time outs remaining with close to a full minute left to play. Oh well, hind sight is always 20/20 I guess. I am proud of how are team responded in the second half and I think Jerrry Kill and staff are going to give us alot to cheer about in the years to come.
 

GopherFB said:
Oh.. for God's sake. The kid is a freshman and playing at th Rose Bowl filled with USC fans, playing one of the most prolific programs in NCAA football. I think he did pretty well for a freshman tossed out there unexpectedly in a pressure situation. The INT was a bad throw, mistakes are expected from freshman QBs.
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Pressure situation? What game were you watching?

Apparently you didn't read the posts from a number of fans who claimed Shortell only played well because there was no pressure, the Gophers were expected to lose, etc.

Clearly, getting the ball on your own 9-yd line, around 2 minutes left in the game, down 2 points is no pressure at all. The two consecutive completions to get the Gophers out near the 30 were obviously a fluke
 

Gray would have caught that ball. If Gray had been healthy at that point in the game they should have rolled him out there as WR. Coaching miscue if Gray was healthy and did not go in as WR for the last series.
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
Pressure situation? What game were you watching?

Apparently you didn't read the posts from a number of fans who claimed Shortell only played well because there was no pressure, the Gophers were expected to lose, etc.

Clearly, getting the ball on your own 9-yd line, around 2 minutes left in the game, down 2 points is no pressure at all. The two consecutive completions to get the Gophers out near the 30 were obviously a fluke
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I can only assume sarcasm here.
 

Finally somebody said something new

wait!what? said:
Gray would have caught that ball. If Gray had been healthy at that point in the game they should have rolled him out there as WR. Coaching miscue if Gray was healthy and did not go in as WR for the last series.
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Congratulations wait!wait! You are the first person to actually say something new here on this topic for a long time. I appreciate that you were using sarcasm in doing it but it was quite funny.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It was a bad throw. You can't really blame anyone else but Shortell. If a LT whiffs on a block the QB gets impaled, you don't argue that the QB should have avoided the sack.

But breaking down the pass....
It was a bad throw for a couple of reasons. First, it was obviously underthrown, the location of the ball should have been closer to the sideline. We all agree on that one. Second, the ball, because it was underthrown, also didn't have nearly as much loft on it had it been thrown to the proper location.

That second aspect is being overlooked by a lot of people. Shortell's underthrowing of the ball threw off the timing of McKnight which is why he still appeared to be handchecking when he should have been defending the pass/going for the ball. The ball wasn't thrown WHERE or HOW it should have been thrown.

If there is one thing that McKnight really excels at it is timing his jumps and battling with defenders. I don't think the message board experts who played WR in HS understand this nuance more than McKnight.

It was just one bad throw in an otherwise extremely impressive day by Shortell, but I can't throw the blame at the WR on an errant pass.


PS: There were plenty of INTs thrown on passes to the almighty Eric Decker. He is one of my favorite Gophers of all time, but lets be real.
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As is often the case, Mr. Bob sums up my thoughts to a tee. It was a terrible throw and I don't know what McKnight could have done except decapitate the D-back. I fail to see how McKnight could be cited for lack of effort here.

Dr. Don, given the respective height of the players in question, I would have to apportion the blame as 89.2178 to Shortell and 10.7822 to McKnight. TOTAL SARCASM!

Shortell was thrown into a very difficult situation and acquitted himself well. There's not a quarterback out there who doesn't make a bad throw now and again, especially freshman QBs.
 

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