I had a chance to watch parts of a number of bowl games over the past couple of weeks and it really had me thinking about the Gophers offense. Most of us are aware that the stats show that are passing offense is anemic, but watching a wide variety of teams play really hammered home how behind we are in my mind.
Wide Receiver: Maybe even more than QB, it stood out to me how unimpressive our group is compared to other teams around the country. Maybe this is a bad take and poor QB play and/or poor scheme is really making our WR's look worse than they are. I saw a lot of teams with a speed guy that could get behind the defense, I see guys with great burst that get a lot of separation, and I see guys breaking tackles and making explosive plays. I think our receivers post Bateman/Johnson have been OK in the B1G West (behind the groups at Purdue and Nebraska, usually on par or above many other schools) but pretty terrible in relation to big time college football as a whole. I think Daniel Jackson is a great technician and a WR most teams would love to have, but we need some guys who win with speed and quickness too.
Quarterback: I know the story was Cole Kramer was getting married, but this was a long time backup QB who was often our #2 QB who threw for like 28 yards on 16 attempts against a MAC team missing both its starting corners. There were many other teams starting QB's making their first start who had not been in college 4/5 years and they were putting up passing stats that belonged in the 2020's as opposed to the 1920's. Athan's season long struggles were well documented, and Tanner's best year post 2019 could be best described as average. To have a QB room that has been this bad for this long is alarming.
Offensive Line: I thnk our pass protection might be a sneaky big problem with this team in recent seasons. We give up so much pressure and it's especially concerning when it comes on a play action pass that comes in a non-obvious situation. Ersery didn't even lay a hand on a Bowling Green pass rusher on the play that resulted in Kramer's interception. Against Illinois, Carroll had a similar whiff in the red zone that forced us to settle for a FG.
Explosive plays: This could go back to the WR issue and be a talent problem. However even at RB, Taylor ran 35 times against a MAC team and his long run was 17 yards! Against real competition, that's not going to be a winning combination. Our longest play of the game was a Kramer scramble for 33 yards. Watching the top teams play and almost every scoring drive seemingly had a play of 25 plus yards.
Scheme: This has been a constant for a number of years, so I don't want to make this a Harbaugh problem but our playbook seems so limited compared to what you see elsewhere. Some of that could be teams opening it up for a bowl game and another part could be just being very familiar with Minnesota's offense and not so familiar with other teams. When you combine this observation with the fact that we look lost any time we are in a must pass and/or hurry up situation and it concerns me that we're spending a whole lof of time on inside zone and not much time on anything else.
I hope PJ/Harbaugh/Simon don't feel like Max Brosmer will fix all that currently ails us.
