What a difference a week makes

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Rog

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In reading this Sundays threads compared to last week, I have to ask - WHAT HAPPENED?
Yes, I know, I was at both games, but -
 

I can't find any good arguments to get into. The forum would need to consider closing if we ever win the Big Ten.


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Breaking News: Winning apparently matters in sports.
 

The Maryland win was very important for GH psyche.
 

Stan said:
Breaking News: Winning apparently matters in sports.
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Yeah, I don't get the subset of fans that just can't handle it when people have any sort of criticism about the team or the way they are playing.

Frankly I would question any fan that isn't frustrated by what happened against Penn State and Iowa. As for this past weekend, I'm not sure we learned much about the team. The defense does seem to be getting bak on track but they were also playing a bad Maryland team (and no I am not saying that because the Gophers beat them, I am saying that because anyone who used their eyes could clearly see that was not a good football team we played on Saturday).

Rhoda didn't light the world on fire but he did manage the game ok and avoided throwing that killer interception. As long as the team keeps winning over this next stretch I would expect it to be pretty quiet and civil in here. Beating the like of Rutgers, Purdue, and Illinois won't move the needle much from an excitement standpoint because it is clear all 3 of those teams are really struggling and as a program we should be at a point where we can beat squads like that. Now if we drop any of those.....all bets are off at that point.
 


Penalties aside, it helped that it was a pretty solid calm controlled game. Gophers took control and just rolled. That kind of win makes everyone happy.
 

We are lucky Maryland wanted to lose that game more than we did. Besides our defense we played horrible for most the game. We should have been up 30 in the first half with the opportunities given to us. We need to stop making mistakes.
 

bottlebass said:
We are lucky Maryland wanted to lose that game more than we did. Besides our defense we played horrible for most the game. We should have been up 30 in the first half with the opportunities given to us. We need to stop making mistakes.
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I thought the Gophers pretty much controlled the whole game. Why risk doing some crazy stuff in a game when you're dominating them like that because you want extra points?
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I thought the Gophers pretty much controlled the whole game. Why risk doing some crazy stuff in a game when you're dominating them like that because you want extra points?
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I didn't say anything about trying crazy plays. The way Maryland was handing us the game in the first half we should have closed it out then. The penalties are killing our drives. We aren't good enough to win games against good teams if we continue to make those mistakes. I didn't feel comfortable with our lead once until the pick 6.
 



bottlebass said:
I didn't say anything about trying crazy plays. The way Maryland was handing us the game in the first half we should have closed it out then. The penalties are killing our drives. We aren't good enough to win games against good teams if we continue to make those mistakes. I didn't feel comfortable with our lead once until the pick 6.
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I'm no fan of the penalties but the Gophers were up two scores for the second half on top of dominating them on both sides of the ball. That drive to start the 2nd pretty much ended the game.

And here I thought I was a super nervous Gopher fan.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I'm no fan of the penalties but the Gophers were up two scores for the second half on top of dominating them on both sides of the ball. That drive to start the 2nd pretty much ended the game.

And here I thought I was a super nervous Gopher fan.
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Well after watching the gophers lose leads in the Penn st and Iowa games I wouldn' thave been surprised if we had found a way to lose yesterday even after dominating the whole game.
 

bottlebass said:
Well after watching the gophers lose leads in the Penn st and Iowa games I wouldn' thave been surprised if we had found a way to lose yesterday even after dominating the whole game.
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Both those games were close and derp heavy, this one was not.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Both those games were close and derp heavy, this one was not.
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What grade would you give the team on their first half performance? You honestly don't think we should have been up 4 scores at half time with the way Maryland was playing? I'm happy with the win. It was not the dominant performance some people are claiming and we have a lot of mistakes to clean up. Maryland played worst than horrible and we only played bad so we won. If Maryland gets what would have been a likely pick 6 our lead was not big enough. In the end our D got us the pick 6 to ensure the W. We can't play that bad and expect to win many B1G games, unless of course the other team self destructs as Maryland did.

Fixing our pre-snap penalties would a good start and i'm not sure why this is so hard, we are half way through the season now.
 



bottlebass said:
What grade would you give the team on their first half performance? You honestly don't think we should have been up 4 scores at half time with the way Maryland was playing? I'm happy with the win. It was not the dominant performance some people are claiming and we have a lot of mistakes to clean up. Maryland played worst than horrible and we only played bad so we won. If Maryland gets what would have been a likely pick 6 our lead was not big enough. In the end our D got us the pick 6 to ensure the W. We can't play that bad and expect to win many B1G games, unless of course the other team self destructs as Maryland did.

Fixing our pre-snap penalties would a good start and i'm not sure why this is so hard, we are half way through the season now.
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Maybe the other team had something to do with how Maryland played?

They should have been up 3 scores at the half due to the missed field goal, at the same time they got brave and went for it on 4th at the end of the half and went up by 2 TDs.
 

So then why were we playing so poorly?

I would buy the muffed punt was due to the hit the returner took the first time, I'll give the gophers that. Other than that, it was complete self destruction by Maryland. And what were we doing while Maryland was trying to hand us the game? Punt (3 n out), missed FG (after being handed the ball in great field position), punt (then a TD because they AGAIN handed us the ball), punt, punt.

Very, very dominant...
 


The game was never in doubt after 14-0. We did what we needed to do. Maryland might not win another game this year.


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Suddenly close wins over Oregon St and CSU don't look so bad as both took top 25 times to the wire. We're really only a couple plays from being undefeated. future looks pretty bright.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
The game was never in doubt after 14-0. We did what we needed to do. Maryland might not win another game this year.


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I haven't spent a lot of time watching Maryland but from what I understand they are a much better offense at least with their regular QB under center. That said, yeah I don't see them winning a lot of games unless they go up against the other teams at the back of the conference.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Other than pre snap penalties.. we weren't.
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What do you call: punt, missed field goal after not moving ball, punt (recovered fumble that lead to our TD), punt, punt? To most that is called playing poorly (other than our defense).
 

bottlebass said:
What do you call: punt, missed field goal after not moving ball, punt (recovered fumble that lead to our TD), punt, punt? To most that is called playing poorly (other than our defense).
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I get man. TDs all the time.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I get man. TDs all the time.
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I would take moving the ball and keeping our defense off the field for a while. Maybe actually dominating a team that is trying their hardest to be dominated.

But I get it, as a gopher fan you can't set your expectations too high. You sound like you would be happy punting on first down rather than trying to get the first down a couple times.
 

bottlebass said:
I would take moving the ball and keeping our defense off the field for a while. Maybe actually dominating a team that is trying their hardest to be dominated.

But I get it, as a gopher fan you can't set your expectations too high. You sound like you would be happy punting on first down rather than trying to get the first down a couple times.
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I'm happy with a dominant win.

No pouting over every other drive.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I'm happy with a dominant win.

No pouting over every other drive.
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That's fine and dandy for you but I hope the team and coaches are done enjoying it as I am. There was A LOT to improve on, some of which has been a constant theme this whole season. Have to improve.
 

The criticisms against the team on this thread are valid, but looking at the bigger picture, there's a lot to like from this B1G road game.

+ Lack of big plays this season? Rodney Smith, Shannon Brooks, and Antoine Winfield Jr all had big time plays in this game. The more this team can generate these explosive plays, the more games MN can win.
+ Defensive secondary looked lost during most of this season. However, the past two games showed great performances from this unit. There's more work to be done from players like Myrick, McGhee, and Buford, but this is a marked improvement.
+ Defensive front seven contained a speedy mobile QB for most of the game.
+ 9 of the first 10 series for MD? 3 and out. And the other series resulted in a punt. Not easy for any defense to do on the road.
+ As nervous and shaky as Rhoda looked, he didn't turn the ball over and only had 1 sack. Not outstanding, but beat my expectations.
 

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