Slow starts on offense and defense

[MNVCGUY]

I am staying away from most of the threads on this board right now because I have no time to waste on the "fire Fleck, burn it all down" crowd that will be doing their happy dance for the next few days.

My biggest disappointment yesterday was the slow start on both sides of the ball. This has been a common theme all year but especially in the 4 loses.

Purdue - down 10-0 after 1
Illinois - down 7-0 after 1
Penn State - up 3-0 after 1
Iowa - down 10-0 after 1
Total - down 27-3 in the 1st quarter of those 4 games combined.

Joe Rossi is a very good defensive coordinator and makes great adjustments as the game goes on. But the D has really struggled early on in games. Iowa's offense is garbage but they were able to move the ball very effectively early in the game. Nebraska jumped out to a 10-0 lead in that game as well.

This also falls on the offense and their inability to start quickly even with the scripted plays to begin games.

My guess is that this will be a major point of emphasis in the off season because we can't afford to dig big holes against quality teams.

Like the Purdue and Illinois games, the game yesterday was there for the taking, but the team couldn't overcome the slow start combined with some critical errors along the way. Ok, back to avoiding this place for the most part while the morons have their fun.

 

[Gophergrandpa]

I am staying away from most of the threads on this board right now because I have no time to waste on the "fire Fleck, burn it all down" crowd that will be doing their happy dance for the next few days.

My biggest disappointment yesterday was the slow start on both sides of the ball. This has been a common theme all year but especially in the 4 loses.

Purdue - down 10-0 after 1
Illinois - down 7-0 after 1
Penn State - up 3-0 after 1
Iowa - down 10-0 after 1
Total - down 27-3 in the 1st quarter of those 4 games combined.

Joe Rossi is a very good defensive coordinator and makes great adjustments as the game goes on. But the D has really struggled early on in games. Iowa's offense is garbage but they were able to move the ball very effectively early in the game. Nebraska jumped out to a 10-0 lead in that game as well.

This also falls on the offense and their inability to start quickly even with the scripted plays to begin games.

My guess is that this will be a major point of emphasis in the off season because we can't afford to dig big holes against quality teams.

Like the Purdue and Illinois games, the game yesterday was there for the taking, but the team couldn't overcome the slow start combined with some critical errors along the way. Ok, back to avoiding this place for the most part while the morons have their fun.

I agree with your analysis entirely. The double slow starts, on offense and defense, against teams with winning records (proxy for quality) just have us undone. We often give up a points early, first two possessions, against quality teams because those teams open the game doing things we weren’t expecting (check PJs comments about Iowa game yesterday, for instance). Then we adjust on defense and often hold the line.

Our offense, on the other hand, typically opens doing exactly what the quality opponent expects us to do. No surprises, no new wrinkles the other team’s defense isn’t prepared for. And it takes a while for our offense to get rolling against the quality opponent. Down 10-zip at the end of the 1st Q against Iowa (which was unable to score again until a FG with 40 seconds left). But down 10-0 at the end of the 1st Q is typically outcome determinative, equaling a Gopher loss, against all but a poor, mistake prone team (looking at you, Nebraska).

All our wins this year are against teams that now have losing records. We have played four teams that now have winning records, and have lost each such game. We were down 10-0, 7-0 and 10-0 at the end of the first Q against our toss-up opponents: Purdue, Illinois and Iowa, respectively. Down 10-0 to Illinois less than two minutes into 2nd Q. (We we’re ahead of PSU 3-0 at the end of the 1st Q before PSU figured out that we don’t cover TEs running up the middle seam ).

This might be an entirely different year if we didn’t open key game by spotting our opponent 10 points right off the bat. It’s on the coaches, not just the players.

I think I just said what you said! But I feel very strongly that our lapses this year go more to our style of coaching than to players that aren’t up to snuff.