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MNSpaniel

MNSpaniel

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The Band

The Dance Team

The Student Sections

The Punter

Special Teams

Engel

The Carmel Popcorn my wife bought me.

What else ????
 


Iowa had the ball 11 times and only scored 5 times.
We held them to 0 points after Nelson through an interception at about the 20 yard line
Damien Wilson
Marcus' Jones runback
An interception and great runback
Defense didn't play all that badly, they were on the field the whole game and held them to 23 points.
We outscored them in the 2nd half
It was a sellout
 

Unlike Iowa, we didn't miss any field goals
 

The weathermen were actually pretty accurate for once - no rain!
 


The defense did play pretty well seeing they were on the field the whole day (except for a couple of breakdowns)

replacement DBs for injured starters didn't play too bad.
 

The receivers had separation
 

This was obviously a very disappointing loss, and the sky is falling contingent is very vocal right now. However, our linebackers and secondary are better this year. We still need more girth on the dline.

Give the coaching staff credit for realizing that iowa's front 7 on defense was going to make it impossible to run the Leidner offense that we saw against sjsu. Their plan to go with Nelson was the right call, but Phil had rust and did not play a good game. The wide receivers were open throughout the game though. Phil is still really young and I am confident he will get better. He gives them the best chance to win in all games this year except maybe against Indiana or Nw.
 




Positives

At least the Gopher Cheerleaders are healthy! If necessary, they have all volunteered to do the "Next Man Up" thing next week! Look for some of them to gain playing time and rotate into the offensive line?
 


nokomismod said:
This was obviously a very disappointing loss, and the sky is falling contingent is very vocal right now. However, our linebackers and secondary are better this year. We still need more girth on the dline.

Give the coaching staff credit for realizing that iowa's front 7 on defense was going to make it impossible to run the Leidner offense that we saw against sjsu. Their plan to go with Nelson was the right call, but Phil had rust and did not play a good game. The wide receivers were open throughout the game though. Phil is still really young and I am confident he will get better. He gives them the best chance to win in all games this year except maybe against Indiana or Nw.
Click to expand...

I like your optimism on Nelson...I'm already hearing a lot of people say he's a lost cause, but I still think there's a good chance he can develop into a better-than-average B1G qb by his senior year. Of course, that's a nice way of saying he's definitely not there right now.
 

I was really impressed with the defense. Boticelli and Wilson especially. It is tough to keep playing against a team that pounds the rock when you can't keep your offense on the field to catch their breath. Wilson would repeatedly drive Weisman back. He was a stud yesterday. If we could have had longer possessions offensively, the defense would have looked even better.
 



Drew Wolitarsky is off the donut making his 1st collegiate reception. He was also open later.
 





nokomismod said:
This was obviously a very disappointing loss, and the sky is falling contingent is very vocal right now. However, our linebackers and secondary are better this year. We still need more girth on the dline.

Give the coaching staff credit for realizing that iowa's front 7 on defense was going to make it impossible to run the Leidner offense that we saw against sjsu. Their plan to go with Nelson was the right call, but Phil had rust and did not play a good game. The wide receivers were open throughout the game though. Phil is still really young and I am confident he will get better. He gives them the best chance to win in all games this year except maybe against Indiana or Nw.
Click to expand...

Nokomismod,

1. I don't see any empirical evidence to suggest that starting Phil Nelson in lieu of Mitch Leidner was the right call by the coaching staff. We are never going to know, because Mitch was never given the opportunity. Did Mitch do something to get put in the dog house? Whatever the circumstances, it is not worth losing a Big Ten opener over.

2. We were repeatedly told that SJSU will be the toughest nonconference team we face. Mitch did a yoeman job against SJSU. He ran well, his completion percentage was only 50 percent, but he threw zero interceptions. We are not going to win any Big Ten games if we throw an average of two interceptions per game. It is just that simple. You don't need an advanced degree or special training to comprehend this fact. Mitch is 6' 4" nearly 240, is quick, and due to his height has a better field of vision.

3. We will never know. Mitch was never given a chance. Not even one series.
 

badgergopher said:
I think he may be the guy that lost the fullback on that huge pass in the first quarter. Everybody had a bad day yesterday.
Click to expand...

Considering the way the game played out, the defense was not as bad as a first thought. Iowa made a 49 and 46 yd. FG and had the 74 yd. TD. It is pretty obvious the offense put the D in some tough spots and they held up pretty good allowing only one true drive to end in a TD. They forced 4 FG attempts.

DE's and LB's were really bad on the two TD plays I hope they learn. DE's cannot go inside the Tackle with Hageman inside. Cannot afford to lose contain which is exactly what happened on the QB's TD.
 

nokomismod said:
This was obviously a very disappointing loss, and the sky is falling contingent is very vocal right now. However, our linebackers and secondary are better this year. We still need more girth on the dline.

Give the coaching staff credit for realizing that iowa's front 7 on defense was going to make it impossible to run the Leidner offense that we saw against sjsu. Their plan to go with Nelson was the right call, but Phil had rust and did not play a good game. The wide receivers were open throughout the game though. Phil is still really young and I am confident he will get better. He gives them the best chance to win in all games this year except maybe against Indiana or Nw.
Click to expand...

The secondary is better? I dare say Michael Carter was pretty good last year. Murray plays hard and sticks well to his guy but will struggle to get an INT, will lose a lot of jump balls, and will get a LOT of interference penalties if he continues to always turn his head and face away from the QB. I see our other DBs trailing the receivers a vast majority of the time too instead of reading the play. I like Vereen's play so far this year; a lot of fundamental improvement is needed in most of the rest.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Considering the way the game played out, the defense was not as bad as a first thought. Iowa made a 49 and 46 yd. FG and had the 74 yd. TD. It is pretty obvious the offense put the D in some tough spots and they held up pretty good allowing only one true drive to end in a TD. They forced 4 FG attempts.

DE's and LB's were really bad on the two TD plays I hope they learn. DE's cannot go inside the Tackle with Hageman inside. Cannot afford to lose contain which is exactly what happened on the QB's TD.
Click to expand...

The DE's really really struggled with outside contain, and that's where Iowa burned them on a lot of those 3rd down conversions that sucked the life out of the defensive game.
 

cncmin said:
The DE's really really struggled with outside contain, and that's where Iowa burned them on a lot of those 3rd down conversions that sucked the life out of the defensive game.
Click to expand...

I think Iowa took advantage of over aggressive DE's. They either executed simple kick out blocks or if the DE went inside the read it. There was not support there. IMO the DE's should have held ground and not be too aggressive off the ball.
 

6 Nov 1999 said:
2. We were repeatedly told that SJSU will be the toughest nonconference team we face. Mitch did a yoeman job against SJSU. He ran well, his completion percentage was only 50 percent, but he threw zero interceptions. We are not going to win any Big Ten games if we throw an average of two interceptions per game. It is just that simple. You don't need an advanced degree or special training to comprehend this fact. Mitch is 6' 4" nearly 240, is quick, and due to his height has a better field of vision.
Click to expand...

1. Leidners completion percentage was actually only 40%.
2. You are right he did run well, but as a team we have run well and all over all our opponents.... except for Iowa so that is not a valid point because Leidner would not have helped us gain any more rushing yards
3. Have you watched any of the other SJSU games? They may have been the best non-conference opponent but that isn't saying much....
4. I agree with you we won't win very many B1G games throwing 2 interceptions. But Nelson really only threw 1. The second one doesn't count.

And if you read my other recent posts I'm not trying to defend Nelson's play because he wasn't good (and he was horrible) but he still gave us a better chance at winning than Leidner.
 

EE_Gopher said:
Drew Wolitarsky is off the donut making his 1st collegiate reception. He was also open later.
Click to expand...

I like re-watching the games later on BTN 2 Go when the emotions of the game are in the past. I think something good is how Wolitarsky is adjusting to the college game and using that big body to get himself open. Of course, the bad (and ugly) is that Nelson threw behind him consistently.

I really think against Michigan, Minnesota should actually start out with a pass first game plan. I know that sounds backwards, but unless the Gophers can establish the passing game, there's going to be a lot of 30 yards rushing games.
 

EE_Gopher said:
I really think against Michigan, Minnesota should actually start out with a pass first game plan. I know that sounds backwards, but unless the Gophers can establish the passing game, there's going to be a lot of 30 yards rushing games.
Click to expand...

I think I like this plan too. Everyone and their brother know that we are going to run the ball 75% of the time. Switch it up; give them something different. We have to make them respect all facets of our game. We are too one dimensional right now.
 

6 Nov 1999 said:
Nokomismod,

1. I don't see any empirical evidence to suggest that starting Phil Nelson in lieu of Mitch Leidner was the right call by the coaching staff. We are never going to know, because Mitch was never given the opportunity. Did Mitch do something to get put in the dog house? Whatever the circumstances, it is not worth losing a Big Ten opener over.

2. We were repeatedly told that SJSU will be the toughest nonconference team we face. Mitch did a yoeman job against SJSU. He ran well, his completion percentage was only 50 percent, but he threw zero interceptions. We are not going to win any Big Ten games if we throw an average of two interceptions per game. It is just that simple. You don't need an advanced degree or special training to comprehend this fact. Mitch is 6' 4" nearly 240, is quick, and due to his height has a better field of vision.

3. We will never know. Mitch was never given a chance. Not even one series.
Click to expand...

Against SJSU, our Oline drove their front 7 back more and more as the game went along. The play calling was vanilla and there was little risk taken. The coaches realized this wouldn't work against Iowa and it won't work against Michigan. The coaches see that Nelson is a better passer by watching them both in practice every day. I have even noticed it in my limited exposure (games and scrimmages).
 

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