We'll know a lot more after Northwestern

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John Galt

John Galt

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Even after 5 games, it's hard to get a grip on these Gophers. The one thing we know is that they are definitely better than last year. The offense appears to have the issue of being young. Sometimes I'm amazed that we've played as well as we have. 2nd year QBs in Gray and Shortell. A walk-on Barker as our best receiver, followed by first year JUCO Fruecte and a true Soph Jones who blew out his knee a year ago. An O-line with zero seniors, and that started a junior, 2 sophs, and 2 freshmen, 2 of them walk-ons. If you look at the offense, Rabe is the only senior who has played meaningful minutes in the last 2 games, and Eddie Olson the only scholarship junior. Wow...

The defense that was stellar in the first 4 games got shredded against Iowa in the first half, but played well in the second. Was this because we settled down and made the right adjustments, or was it because Iowa took their foot off the gas? We should know more after this game, and I'm interested to see how we bounce back after a loss.. With the offense as young as it is, we're going to need the defense we saw the first 4 games to be competitive the rest of the year. I think the Northwestern game is big for the psyche of this team, as they definitely need to get some confidence before heading to Madison the following week.
 

Good post Johnny G. I hope we have a good raucous crowd like the Syracuse game. I don't expect Gray to play, but if the OL is reasonably healthy I think Max can put enough points up to beat the
Cats. I don't like these weenies that say they won't attend the game because of possible showers.
It will be interesting to see if the reduced ticket prices take hold.
But yes, a win going into Skunksville would be a huge confidence boost.
 

ruppertflywheel said:
Good post Johnny G. I hope we have a good raucous crowd like the Syracuse game. I don't expect Gray to play, but if the OL is reasonably healthy I think Max can put enough points up to beat the
Cats. I don't like these weenies that say they won't attend the game because of possible showers.
It will be interesting to see if the reduced ticket prices take hold.
But yes, a win going into Skunksville would be a huge confidence boost.
Click to expand...


They can't be serious right? Has to be a joke. Who really stays away from a football game due to the possibility of rain?
 







after 5 games we know what we have for talent so now you find out how good the coaches are able to prepare for game day. all things being equal you guess right and execute and you win.
 



We know as JK often says "we have little room for error". Turnovers, missed FG's, bad punts, dropped passes and missed tackles are very difficult for us to overcome.
Our offense is not prolific enough to make up the points. The improvement is obvious but of course we have a long ways to go. I expect we have a good game on
Saturday.
 

Adversity.

Very interested to see how this group responds to the first real adversity they'd faced all year. This far into the season, it's not hard to forget that Iowa was the first Big Ten action for a LOT of players; the first Big Ten START for a lot of guys, and the first real ROAD test of the season in a hostile environment.

Totally agree with JG, this game will show us a lot about the makeup and character of the team, how they respond. Also very anxious to see how Shortell plays in his first ever HOME Big Ten start. I would expect, like a lot of the team, he'll play a lot more comfortably at TCF. Hard to believe the Gophers have won a whopping ONE Big Ten road game since 2008. Yikes...
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
Adversity.

Very interested to see how this group responds to the first real adversity they'd faced all year. This far into the season, it's not hard to forget that Iowa was the first Big Ten action for a LOT of players; the first Big Ten START for a lot of guys, and the first real ROAD test of the season in a hostile environment.

Totally agree with JG, this game will show us a lot about the makeup and character of the team, how they respond. Also very anxious to see how Shortell plays in his first ever HOME Big Ten start. I would expect, like a lot of the team, he'll play a lot more comfortably at TCF. Hard to believe the Gophers have won a whopping ONE Big Ten road game since 2008. Yikes...
Click to expand...

Hey, don't sell us short, we've actually won TWO conference road games since '08: @NW in '09, @ILL in '10. :) And really, not a whole lot of competitive performances either. Once we start regularly competing on the road in conference, I'll really know that we're starting to come up in the world lol.

But for this one, it will most definitely help a ton being back at home. Young teams usually feed off the crowd a lot of times to pull them up, and we'll need the crowd to be in effect once again. I do think that while Northwestern has been pretty good this year, they are a team that physically, I believe we can match up with, so the key will be execution on both sides. Hopefully, with a bye week to prepare, we see the guys come out and execute with great precision and with excellent fundamentals.
 




One thing that helps is that I think the Gophers will match up better against NW than IA. They tend to have smaller, quicker players, as do the Gophers. You probably won't see the gaping holes we saw in the run game against IA. Or the Gophers' line unable to open any holes.

I'm not predicting an outcome for the game. NW is a good team. But I very much expect it to be very competitive.
 

NU(a more correct term) should have beat Penn St but their defense, which is much improved, had to play most of the second half and just wore down. NU had a punt return for a TD in the 3rd quarter which was good but it also put the defense back on the field. Penn St is a bit like Iowa in that they used ball control to wear down NU. Venric Mark amd Cain Colter are lightening quick backs who remind me of Oregon and now 49er RB LaMichael James. NU also has the top rated WRs in the B1G. Overall NU is a better team than the Gophers IMO and should win. For the Gophers to win Shortell must play his best game and the Gopher defense must stop the NU running game.
 

Ball control is always important but especially in a game like this because we can't keep pace with Northwestern offensively with or without Gray in my opinion. We have to be able to run the ball and sustain long drives, keep their offense off the field. On defense hopefully they were able to shore up the tackling issues. As DPO pointed out, Northwestern loses when they have to pass a lot and they win when they can run.
 

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