What Grade do you Give Fleck for Coaching in the Ohio State Game?

What Grade do you Give Fleck for Coaching in the Ohio State Game?

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magpie said:
There is literally a button next to the Vote Now button that says View Poll Results. Adding the 'Prefer not to respond option' to the poll is pointless and skews the vote percentages when used.
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Yes, why would someone prefer not to respond?
 

#2Gopher said:
Perhaps a tough C. Some of you were on the staff on every play it seems like. No matter what Fleck did, you would do the opposite on everything. This is what was bothering me. Yeah you guys had it coming whinnying about everything.
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At least half of those game thread posts were jokes/sarcasm.
 





The coaching was admirable. The Gophers were able to hang tough the first half. You can't make mistakes against a vaunted team.
 
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Gopher028 said:
Fleck and the staff had this team ready. Simple execution this time hosed us. Mr Automatic missed two field goals. CANNOT leave points on the field, ever.
Defensive backfield still a concern
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You nailed it. Safety position is a weak spot on the defense. I think the corner position has some players.
If the O Line continues to operate better with Faalele, it’s the QB position that needs to improve on the offense.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Let's be honest about something. If you took anyone on this board - I mean anyone - and stuck us on the sideline in the middle of a game, and said "you make the call - what do we do next?" - I submit that anyone on this board, put in that situation, would sh*t their pants. Then throw up. Then sh*t their pants again.

We're fans. we complain and second-guess, because that's what most fans do. We always know the right answer. That's part of the fun of watching a game - trying to figure out what you would do in that situation - but it's fun because it doesn't count. there are no consequences.

As I said, if any of us had to make that call for real, it would be a whole lot harder than it seems from your vantage point in the stands or on the couch.

And that's the facts, jack.
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Fleck wasn’t dropped in the middle of the game to make calls. He had a week to prepare. Plus, he doesn’t make the offensive and defensive calls. He leaves that to his coordinators. Pay me $3.5 million a year and I’ll gladly do his job. In addition, I would not crap my pants if my only job was to call time outs and run up and down the field in between quarters.


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A. Came into hostile environment as huge underdogs ready to play and played well enough to win. Fleck can't control turnovers or poor refereeing.
 



hello-world said:
Gave it a B. In-game management was pretty good, but I don't like that we're having communication trouble on play calls.

The part where I deduct points is in week-to-week development. Zack had issues with arm-punting last week, and then had issues with arm-punting this week.

It's tough with a freshman, but he needs to develop very quickly.

Defense looked good again so hopefully people stop citing the end-score against Iowa and look at the actual quality of play.
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Defense played better today. Still gave up over 500 yards, and on a day when tOSU was not playing well, particularly o-line, we still allowed 75% completion rate, and 42% 3rd down conversion rate.

Overall the best “big game” coaching by PJ Fleck and company but a long way to go.


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Pete smith said:
Offense C-, defense a D-. Overall D. To many communication problems on offense. Can’t continue to burn timeouts to save the offense. 600 yards won’t beat “the sisters of the poor” (old Lou Holz quote). Poor tackling, ridiculous coverage downfield.
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504 rounds up to 600 I guess.
 

I said B. Had the guys ready to play. Didn't like the timeout use. The one just before the last FG attempt was ridiculous. That should have been an easy decision in my opinion. Also hated the last drive. I know there was like a 0.1% chance of tying at that point but let them try. At the very least it would let a very young offense practice a 2 minute drill.
 




#2Gopher said:
Perhaps a tough C. Some of you were on the staff on every play it seems like. No matter what Fleck did, you would do the opposite on everything. This is what was bothering me. Yeah you guys had it coming whinnying about everything.
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Give up on TEs getting more involved. Blocking and a catch or two is how the TE is used in Fleck’s offense.


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C: The team was prepared well enough during the week, the play-calling was better, the timeouts are still used foolishly, and the last drive was a complete waste.
 

Does anyone remember they lost their two best offensive players and best defensive player? That the quarterback had five games of real experience? PJ earned an A even though they lost.
 

I felt like I had to go with an A given that the team vastly exceeded my expectations. That said, I will echo others sentiments in that I was really unhappy with how some timeouts were used and that's been a theme of at least the past two games. There should have been no reason to need to use a timeout after the trick play, yet the Gophers had to call one. The timeout on 4th and 5 or whatever to then kick the 49 yard fg was horrific and reminded me of almost the exact same mistake in the Iowa game last week. One game management aspect I didn't love was in the 3rd quarter the Gopher got conservative on a 3rd and medium around their own 10 yard line or so and ran the ball. I just feel like when you are on the road at Ohio State, you are already trailing, and you have a mediocre punter, it's not really a situation where you can go conservative.

This is the only game on the schedule where an "A" will be possible from me without bringing home a win. Hopefully, I can give out at least 4 more A's in conference play.
 

EG#9 said:
I felt like I had to go with an A given that the team vastly exceeded my expectations. That said, I will echo others sentiments in that I was really unhappy with how some timeouts were used and that's been a theme of at least the past two games. There should have been no reason to need to use a timeout after the trick play, yet the Gophers had to call one. The timeout on 4th and 5 or whatever to then kick the 49 yard fg was horrific and reminded me of almost the exact same mistake in the Iowa game last week. One game management aspect I didn't love was in the 3rd quarter the Gopher got conservative on a 3rd and medium around their own 10 yard line or so and ran the ball. I just feel like when you are on the road at Ohio State, you are already trailing, and you have a mediocre punter, it's not really a situation where you can go conservative.

This is the only game on the schedule where an "A" will be possible from me without bringing home a win. Hopefully, I can give out at least 4 more A's in conference play.
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Pretty much same for me. I'd add that pre determining when to return a kick off and then it is 3 yards deep in the end zone is pretty silly versus fair catching at the 7 yard line because coach said to. D Douglas can catch and that is why he is the kick returner but he has zero instincts or elusiveness to be effective after he catches it.

We were prepared to play in the environment. I'll likely never agree with everything we do so because of my surprise of our overall competitiveness I voted an A. It was fun to watch. Good job PJ.
 

I have a different take on the usage of timeouts, particularly in the first quarter.

I was listening to the game on the radio at that point, so I may not have the whole picture. But even though I typically prefer to preserve timeouts, I thought it might have been an effort to slow things down, keep a young team focussed in a hostile environment, and make sure everyone is on the same page during what turned out to be a critical drive. Playing on the road against a team like that, you never know how many trips you're going to make deep into their territory, so you need to make 'em count. We ended up with a TD on that drive, and given the situation, I consider that a reasonable investment of time outs.

Well done, I say.

JTG
 

B - we were ready to play and had a game plan that gave us a chance to win.
 

B

May have been an A but for the life of me can't understand why you would throw the ball deep with a QB who is known to have given up oodles of deep interceptions after that trick play instead of gashing them with the run past mid field when it's been working all day, SMH.
 

Triple D said:
B

May have been an A but for the life of me can't understand why you would throw the ball deep with a QB who is known to have given up oodles of deep interceptions after that trick play instead of gashing them with the run past mid field when it's been working all day, SMH.
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I agree with B but for the incessant silly uses of timeouts. Sure if it's a pivotal play and you see a different look from their defense tha you're expecting then use one. However, as a head coach and you're down by 9 and have a 3rd down in field goal range you have to be thinking " ok if we get nothing then going field goal and if we make it 4th and x we'll go for it." You have to think several scenarios in advance and I haven't seen that from this coaching group in some of these situations.


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Easy A for me. Best game plan I have seee to date. Had team very prepared! Line looked great! RB looked great shut the run down. Moved the ball up and download the field. Couple freshman mistakes with turnovers and we missed the 2 FG. I thought we were the better team.
 

PJ: C. Two halves in a row where we didn't have a single timeout left with 7:00+ minutes left on the clock. Terrible clock management.
Team: A. Physical up front in the trenches. Rotated D-lineman played well. Cashman, Coughlin looked tough. Barber and Martin both had pretty decent days. Mo ran hard and cut well. Tyler needs to stop fumbling and dropping passes, looked like Bateman had a safety on him all game. Would have liked to see Bell get more involved. Great job blocking by the TEs, loved seeing them involved in a few pass plays.
 

MNGopher23 said:
PJ: C. Two halves in a row where we didn't have a single timeout left with 7:00+ minutes left on the clock. Terrible clock management.
Team: A. Physical up front in the trenches. Rotated D-lineman played well. Cashman, Coughlin looked tough. Barber and Martin both had pretty decent days. Mo ran hard and cut well. Tyler needs to stop fumbling and dropping passes, looked like Bateman had a safety on him all game. Would have liked to see Bell get more involved. Great job blocking by the TEs, loved seeing them involved in a few pass plays.
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So this is the argument I don't fully understand or agree with. I did think they used a couple of unnecessary timeouts but I didn't mind a few of the others that some fans are upset about.

Why do you need to save your timeouts for the end of the game if there's a chance your not going to need them at the end of the game anyways? In this case they didn't. It's not like they were driving in the final minutes to tie or win the game with no timeouts. You can make an argument that taking some of the early timeouts is what kept the game close for as long as it was.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
So this is the argument I don't fully understand or agree with. I did think they used a couple of unnecessary timeouts but I didn't mind a few of the others that some fans are upset about.

Why do you need to save your timeouts for the end of the game if there's a chance your not going to need them at the end of the game anyways? In this case they didn't. It's not like they were driving in the final minutes to tie or win the game with no timeouts. You can make an argument that taking some of the early timeouts is what kept the game close for as long as it was.
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I don't necessarily agree that you need to save TO's for the end of game or half either.
What is troubling with the TO's we use, are the ones that are used because we can't figure out what play to run. The offense doesn't huddle, stands around over the ball looks at the sideline numerous times and then when the clock is under 5 we call a TO, because we don't have a play call in to the team. What the hell are they doing for the first 30 seconds of the 40 second clock?
If we had wrong personnel on the field after getting to the line or the players weren't lined up correctly to execute the play called, by all means a TO should be used.
But when we are standing there in a formation and waiting and waiting and looking to the sideline and waiting some more and then have to burn a TO, that is just stupid.
This is where I don't like the no huddle and having the team look to the sideline more than once to get a play call. Believe in your team that they can execute the play and turn it into a good result. Don't keep changing things because you're trying to find the best call to beat the D you are seeing. The D might change or they are trying to hide what they are actually going to do. Why not make a call and just run the play and maybe you catch the D off guard.
 

GFBfan said:
I don't necessarily agree that you need to save TO's for the end of game or half either.
What is troubling with the TO's we use, are the ones that are used because we can't figure out what play to run. The offense doesn't huddle, stands around over the ball looks at the sideline numerous times and then when the clock is under 5 we call a TO, because we don't have a play call in to the team. What the hell are they doing for the first 30 seconds of the 40 second clock?
If we had wrong personnel on the field after getting to the line or the players weren't lined up correctly to execute the play called, by all means a TO should be used.
But when we are standing there in a formation and waiting and waiting and looking to the sideline and waiting some more and then have to burn a TO, that is just stupid.
This is where I don't like the no huddle and having the team look to the sideline more than once to get a play call. Believe in your team that they can execute the play and turn it into a good result. Don't keep changing things because you're trying to find the best call to beat the D you are seeing. The D might change or they are trying to hide what they are actually going to do. Why not make a call and just run the play and maybe you catch the D off guard.
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It is very puzzling and a pretty frequent occurrence. This week one was burned right after getting a 1st down...so probably an additional 10+ seconds in addition to the 40 second play clock...made zero sense. Saw at least once where Zack had his hands up looking at the sidelines like "C'mon, what's the play?"
 

B for many of the same reasons others posted. The time management is not yet Elite. Ohio State could have run the clock out by running the ball, they threw for another score. We should have that same mentality - play until the end of the game. If you throw another INT, who cares at that point? Too many timeouts wasted before real end of half situations. Not sure if that is the sideline glance, or audible confusion, or inexperience.

Very pleased with the effort and the readiness of the team and coaching staff. It was an enjoyable game to watch and I hope an indication of continued growth.
 

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