This one didn't bother me so much (Northwestern game)

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The biggest glaring issue to me today, was lack of leadership at the QB spot. Shortell isn't all that good and Gray never grew into the QB we hoped he'd be. We need a winner back there and we'd be a lot better. It also isn't helping switching between the two, but Gray is better and injured. Will sure be an interesting position next year.
 

Maximus said:
So you would have a reason after every loss to log in on Gopherhole and whine about paying for tickets?
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Ha ha, ask a question and you'll get an answer. I'm not an every loss whiner however.

Silver lining. Through 6 last year out scored 210 to 108. This year out scoring them 145 to 119. It's a big difference.

Bottom line, today sucked and it was frustrating watching a team that had two weeks off be so careless with the ball on offense.
 

RoyalGopher said:
I don't think so. We're a very fast and athletic team compared to previous teams. We just don't have the size, strength, and experience.



We don't have any seniors on the O-Line, walk-ons or scholarship. I'm expecting our O-Line to be much stronger next year.
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Let's just agree to disagree. We may have athletes with better straight-line speed than we've had in the past, but our "football speed" is still lacking. I'll grant you that part of that is inexperience, but I think all of these long runs against the defense is directly attributable to guys "thinking" instead of "reacting and running to the ball."

As far as the offensive line goes, I hope you are right. You are definitely right when it comes to the lack of experience, but our guys don't move anybody and part of that is being under-sized and/or lacking strength.
 

I don't know about a lack of leadership with Gray. He seems like a heckuva leader. If he was able to play the entire game today I think we win as he was playing pretty well and seemed to give the team a spark.
 

I don't get the critique of Gray lacking leadership skills either. He's not a perfect player by far, but he takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
 


GophersInIowa said:
This was a game we most certainly could have and should have won. I can live when our opponents are just better than us. But that wasn't the case. We had way too many unforced mistakes on offense: fumbles, drops, bad passes.
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Totally agree. If you play your best game and come up short there is nothing to hang your head about but when you play like dog crap for a good portion of the game and lose to a team you should be able to beat that is another story.
 

badgergopher said:
This one bothered me a lot. Turnovers, big run plays given up in first half, and two possessions inside the fifty with four minutes left and four downs instead of three, unable to score.

Someone remind me why I paid ~$400 to sit in the rain and watch this?

Coming out of a bye against a beatable team I expected better execution. I've been a big Kill defender and this is a young team but add me to the list of those who believe that next year is a "show me" year for coach Kill & staff - seven year contract or not.
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You can't be serious. Are you that clueless? Anybody can plainly see that this team is much better than they were last year. It takes time to rebuild a program that has been down as long as we have. We'll be just fine.
 

How the h@ll do you fumble the opening kickoff? That was a serious emotional letdown from the start.
 




MNVCGUY said:
Totally agree. If you play your best game and come up short there is nothing to hang your head about but when you play like dog crap for a good portion of the game and lose to a team you should be able to beat that is another story.
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I agree. Against Iowa, it looked like we were playing a better team. This game was brutal because I feel like the team had more than enough talent to win it and we just did not execute. Starting with the opening kickoff, this team did not look like they were ready to play football. Obviously we don't know what went on internally at practice during the last two weeks, but something has to be done to make sure this team has their heads in the right spot when the game starts.
 

I'm in the "this one hurt the most" crowd.

Not taking anything away from NW, but we gave this game away.

I haven't seen a replay of the game yet, so all this is based off being at the game.

-The KO was extremely annoying. I don't like defensive players returning kicks, especially LBs. I thought that was a terribly dumb move and it was a killer to start.

-The bad/fumbled snaps drove me nuts. I know a bunch of them were skipping to Gray, but in general, our C was just having a really tough time picking up the cadence. Besides missed snaps, I think there were 2 false starts that were on the C for not snapping the ball.

-Our WRs were atrocious. They dropped at least 2 TD passes, they weren't playing tough as far as meeting the ball. They just really struggled.

-Our S play was bad against the run again. I really like the way Wells played in the first couple games, but he's been bad the last two games (against the run). The long NW runs were not a product of them being faster than us, they were a product of poor angles taken by our S's. When someone goes untouched up the middle, it's not because of speed, it's because someone got in the wrong lane. Wells was getting in the wrong lane all first half.

To put it simply, I'd rather lose a game against a team that simply outplayed us (Iowa) than lose a game in that kind of sloppy fashion. It was unacceptable football and if those bad habits become a trend, we'll have a really hard time beating anyone.
 

I realize that it is really easy to point out the quarterback in any loss, but you don't think that Shortell was one of the major problems? I find it difficult to call out the receivers and the defense when the player leading the team couldn't muster up a touchdown, and quite frankly, made some bonehead plays.
 

stocker08 said:
I realize that it is really easy to point out the quarterback in any loss, but you don't think that Shortell was one of the major problems? I find it difficult to call out the receivers and the defense when the player leading the team couldn't muster up a touchdown, and quite frankly, made some bonehead plays.
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I don't think Shortell played fantastic, but I don't think he was one of the main reasons why we lost. I blame the WRs because they dropped TD passes or slipped when they would have caught an easy TD.

I also don't think he was one of the main reasons why we didn't score much. We could have scored quite a few more points despite his average day.

Shortell played 1 full drive in the first half.
It was a 12 play - 76 yard drive for a FG. That same drive, Fruechte made a bad play in the endzone on a pass that he should have gotten for TD. The ball was there, Fruechte was between his man and the DB and he let the DB go through him to make a play.

Shortell played 1/2 another drive, but that's the one where Gray came in and scored a TD.

Max played 1 drive in the 3rd Quarter....
He came in on 2nd and 24. Do you blame Shortell for not moving the chains on that drive?

Max played 3 drives in the 4th....
1st drive: 3 and out....You can put this one on Shortell. It looked like he could have scrambled for a first down on 3rd and 1, but he took a sack.
2nd drive: The Fruechte slip drive...you can debate who you want to blame on this drive. Shortell deserves some blame for the poor pass on 4th, but we should have scored before that. Fruechte doesn't slip, none of us are blaming Shortell.
3rd drive: 41 seconds left....he didn't play great but it was hard to tell. The snaps were bad again and he was sacked twice. He probably should have gotten the ball out sooner.

But do you really put much blame on the guy for the loss?

He had 1 drive in the first half and he was succesful. He would have had a TD if the WR played the ball decent.
He had 3 drives in the 4th....1 should have been a TD again, without a slip.

I don't know how you find MAx being in the top 7-8 reasons we lost this game.
 



until we can turn around and hand a ball off to a running back and run consistently.......we are screwed

our running game is hopeless.....it sets up the pass and allows you to score

we literally can't get anything going in the run game from a running back
 

Goldteam said:
until we can turn around and hand a ball off to a running back and run consistently.......we are screwed

our running game is hopeless.....it sets up the pass and allows you to score

we literally can't get anything going in the run game from a running back
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I thought Kirkwood did fine yesterday. He is what he is, never going to break a 40+ run. We are going to win if we can't learn to snap the ball. That comes first.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm in the "this one hurt the most" crowd.

Not taking anything away from NW, but we gave this game away.

I haven't seen a replay of the game yet, so all this is based off being at the game.

-The KO was extremely annoying. I don't like defensive players returning kicks, especially LBs. I thought that was a terribly dumb move and it was a killer to start.

-The bad/fumbled snaps drove me nuts. I know a bunch of them were skipping to Gray, but in general, our C was just having a really tough time picking up the cadence. Besides missed snaps, I think there were 2 false starts that were on the C for not snapping the ball.

-Our WRs were atrocious. They dropped at least 2 TD passes, they weren't playing tough as far as meeting the ball. They just really struggled.

-Our S play was bad against the run again. I really like the way Wells played in the first couple games, but he's been bad the last two games (against the run). The long NW runs were not a product of them being faster than us, they were a product of poor angles taken by our S's. When someone goes untouched up the middle, it's not because of speed, it's because someone got in the wrong lane. Wells was getting in the wrong lane all first half.

To put it simply, I'd rather lose a game against a team that simply outplayed us (Iowa) than lose a game in that kind of sloppy fashion. It was unacceptable football and if those bad habits become a trend, we'll have a really hard time beating anyone.
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I agree with most of this. I still think Max threw a bad (short) ball in the end zone making the receiver slip, but the fumbled snaps were bad. N.W. didn't have any problem with the rain-why did we so much?
 

I was hoping to see offensive improvements. Look at how Indiana's offense has improved, even with their backup at QB.
 

Goldteam said:
until we can turn around and hand a ball off to a running back and run consistently.......we are screwed

our running game is hopeless.....it sets up the pass and allows you to score

we literally can't get anything going in the run game from a running back
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Our two RBs averaged 4.3 yards a carry yesterday. Certainly not great, but not hopeless by any means.

So far this year, our RBs have rushed for 615 yards, which is just over 100 yards a game. Last year our RBs totaled 936 yards, just 78 per game.

We haven't had a RB total 700 yards since 2006. Kirklandwood is on pace for over 900. It's all about perspective.
 

This is a game we could have and should have won. It simply came down to a few key plays. I honestly think this team is better than last year and that trend will continue. I thought the D looked great in the second half. The O actually moved the ball well but they still didn't finish drives. These are incremental improvements and the next increment is to win these close games. Some are tired of JKs "we are young" explanation, but it is true. Next year we win this game. We will win two B10 games this year.
 

TrapperDoo said:
This is a game we could have and should have won. It simply came down to a few key plays. I honestly think this team is better than last year and that trend will continue. I thought the D looked great in the second half. The O actually moved the ball well but they still didn't finish drives. These are incremental improvements and the next increment is to win these close games. Some are tired of JKs "we are young" explanation, but it is true. Next year we win this game. We will win two B10 games this year.
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Agreed, a lot of the mistakes we made are very correctable. It's still disappointing though.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Agreed, a lot of the mistakes we made are very correctable. It's still disappointing though.
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Problem is, that was my line throughout the entire Gutekunst era and we made the same mistakes, over and over and over and over . . . .
 

50PoundHead said:
Problem is, that was my line throughout the entire Gutekunst era and we made the same mistakes, over and over and over and over . . . .
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What do you want? An instant National Championship? That's not going to happen. Look for year-over-year improvements, and I think we are seeing it. We have gone from a team which was down right *&^!#*&^!#*&^!#*&^!#ty to one which cares about themselves and has pride. To the recruits, this is where you can personally make a difference and stand out. Nothing lasts forever and this community is ready to make this the Gophers finest hour. Maroon and gold is flat out cool, and there is a rabid fan base waiting for you to light it up!
 

TrapperDoo said:
What do you want? An instant National Championship? That's not going to happen. Look for year-over-year improvements, and I think we are seeing it. We have gone from a team which was down right *&^!#*&^!#*&^!#*&^!#ty to one which cares about themselves and has pride. To the recruits, this is where you can personally make a difference and stand out. Nothing lasts forever and this community is ready to make this the Gophers finest hour. Maroon and gold is flat out cool, and there is a rabid fan base waiting for you to light it up!
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What I want is a team that doesn't make the same simple mistakes over and over and over again. I have no problem with Kill and I've been a Gopher fan for over 50 years, so thoughts of an instant national championship went out long ago. What I want is a team that plays crisp, sharp football and one of the things I thought Kill would do is instill some measure of that. I'm not calling for his head. He's not dealing with his kids and he should have the opportunity to do that.

sparlimb and I disagree a bit. He thinks Northwestern had better athletes than we have. I think there are high school teams with better athletes than Northwestern (okay, hyperbole alert). The point is Northwestern played sharp, mistake-free football and beat us and I think our athletes are better. This is a game we should have won.
 

50PoundHead said:
What I want is a team that doesn't make the same simple mistakes over and over and over again. I have no problem with Kill and I've been a Gopher fan for over 50 years, so thoughts of an instant national championship went out long ago. What I want is a team that plays crisp, sharp football and one of the things I thought Kill would do is instill some measure of that. I'm not calling for his head. He's not dealing with his kids and he should have the opportunity to do that.

sparlimb and I disagree a bit. He thinks Northwestern had better athletes than we have. I think there are high school teams with better athletes than Northwestern (okay, hyperbole alert). The point is Northwestern played sharp, mistake-free football and beat us and I think our athletes are better. This is a game we should have won.
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I think you are way under estimating Northwestern's level of talent, but I do agree, the difference in the game was that they played mistake free football and we did not.
 

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