What grade would you give Max Shortell vs. Syracuse?

What grade would you give Max Shortell vs. Syracuse?

  • A

    Votes: 8 5.3%

  • B

    Votes: 115 75.7%

  • C

    Votes: 29 19.1%
  • Total voters
    152
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What grade would you give Max Shortell vs. Syracuse?
 

Zero turnovers. Something that shouldn't be overlooked.

Interesting in the post game with BTN, Kill (who usually doesn't sugarcoat ANYTHING) said he thought Max played great and the offense played better today than it has all year much of the time, just couldn't finish drives.

Too many points left out there. Too many penalties still. There is PLENTY to clean up
 

I'd give him a grade of "pass" in that he passed and played well enough for MN to be 4-0. He played great for being a true sophomore with little college experience. Great job Max!

Go Gophers!
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
Zero turnovers. Something that shouldn't be overlooked.

Interesting in the post game with BTN, Kill (who usually doesn't sugarcoat ANYTHING) said he thought Max played great and the offense played better today than it has all year much of the time, just couldn't finish drives.

Too many points left out there. Too many penalties still. There is PLENTY to clean up
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This. Didn't play grea tbut this is so important for a young backup coming in. Especially facing a good deal of pressure.
 

Yes he played well. He has a lot of potential and I made some really good throws and decisions tonight. When he overthrew or threw behind players tonight, it stood out only because you can tell he has a lot of potential and will eventually make those throws. It seemed like the receivers were covered a little better than the previous games. He will have to be sharper in the big ten, but I have confidence that he will get better.
 


I give him a C+. He needs to work on his accuracy on the short passes. Someone said that 0 turnovers cannot be overlooked, which is true, also to not be overlooked, is that the Syracuse D is strongest against the pass.

I like Shortell quite a bit, and I like that we have the successor to Gray, but the talk that some people have had of starting Max over Gray should be put to rest. Max still has a lot of work to do, and it starts with his short to intermediate accuracy.
 

Since everyone else is thinking it... If Gray put up the stat line that Shortell put up tonight, all of you guys would be driving him into the ground. The receivers dropped alot of balls, but they were poorly thrown balls, behind them, over their head, everywhere but between the numbers in the second half. The Syracuse defense was supposed to be horrible.

That being said, he played fine. We got the win, but let's not act like he played good. Struggling to maintain 50% completion is not what I would call good.
 

I gave Max a B.

He was terrific at times but he was a little inaccurate in the second half on some pretty big plays. He also didn't turn the ball over. I don't think the full playbook was in play, mostly because I don't think the staff wanted Max to take any hits. So we ran less out of the shotgun, which I think actually hurt our play action game. That's not Max's fault, I just think our staff felt they needed to protect Max as much as possible.

On the downside, 17 points just isn't enough against that defense, especially when we caused 4 TO's. I realize that we should have had 23 and that we ran a real ball control sort of game. However, we should have been able to score more points against Syracuse.

All in all, I thought he played well and he was composed.
 

nokomismod said:
Yes he played well. He has a lot of potential and I made some really good throws and decisions tonight. When he overthrew or threw behind players tonight, it stood out only because you can tell he has a lot of potential and will eventually make those throws. It seemed like the receivers were covered a little better than the previous games. He will have to be sharper in the big ten, but I have confidence that he will get better.
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Nokomisliving, from PSD?
 



afurry91 said:
Since everyone else is thinking it... If Gray put up the stat line that Shortell put up tonight, all of you guys would be driving him into the ground. The receivers dropped alot of balls, but they were poorly thrown balls, behind them, over their head, everywhere but between the numbers in the second half. The Syracuse defense was supposed to be horrible.

That being said, he played fine. We got the win, but let's not act like he played good. Struggling to maintain 50% completion is not what I would call good.
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Bingo.
 

afurry91 said:
Since everyone else is thinking it... If Gray put up the stat line that Shortell put up tonight, all of you guys would be driving him into the ground. The receivers dropped alot of balls, but they were poorly thrown balls, behind them, over their head, everywhere but between the numbers in the second half. The Syracuse defense was supposed to be horrible.

That being said, he played fine. We got the win, but let's not act like he played good. Struggling to maintain 50% completion is not what I would call good.
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Congratulations. Another fine post.

At the time the Gophers scored the TD to start the second half, Shortell was 13-for-21 for 157 yards (or thereabouts), and the Gophers were up 14-3. Like last week, when the Gophers also got up by 11, the play-calling turned vanilla, more passing in expected passing situations, etc.

He wasn't outstanding by any stretch, no doubt he missed a few throws. But he brought the Gophers from behind against WMU (behind because of Gray's fumble and subsequent WMU TD), led them to victory today against by FAR the best defense they've played, and hasn't turned it over despite playing about 46-48% of the offensive snaps this year.

Keep up the good work, though.
 

One last thing to add... How did Shortell miss Fruechte WIDE THE HECK OPEN by 20 yards in the end zone! He even threw the ball to that side of the field, so you know he was looking over there! That was a face palm moment.
 

afurry91 said:
One last thing to add... How did Shortell miss Fruechte WIDE THE HECK OPEN by 20 yards in the end zone! He even threw the ball to that side of the field, so you know he was looking over there! That was a face palm moment.
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Further evidence.... Keep going, you're on a roll...
 




Ogee Oglethorpe said:
Congratulations. Another fine post.

At the time the Gophers scored the TD to start the second half, Shortell was 13-for-21 for 197 yards (or thereabouts), and the Gophers were up 14-3. Like last week, when the Gophers also got up by 11, the play-calling turned vanilla, more passing in expected passing situations, etc.

He wasn't outstanding by any stretch, no doubt he missed a few throws. But he brought the Gophers from behind against WMU (behind because of Gray's fumble and subsequent WMU TD), led them to victory today against by FAR the best defense they've played, and hasn't turned it over despite playing about 46-48% of the offensive snaps this year.

Keep up the good work, though.
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Shortell threw an interception last week.

Keep up the good work though.
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
He wasn't outstanding by any stretch, no doubt he missed a few throws. But he brought the Gophers from behind against WMU (behind because of Gray's fumble and subsequent WMU TD), led them to victory today against by FAR the best defense they've played, and hasn't turned it over despite playing about 46-48% of the offensive snaps this year.

Keep up the good work, though.
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Syracuse isn't a very good defense either. It's arguably better than Western Michigan but it sure isn't "by far". They've given up a lot of points and yards but they've played against better defenses. But don't kid yourself that this was a good defense, it was about as good as Western Michigan.
 

One thing that is very hard for a casual fan to know is where the error lies when a ball is incomplete. Every pass play is a combination of QB and WR. I think there were a few obvious times tonight where Max just wasn't used to throwing to these guys yet. A case in point . Barker ran a drag @ 4yards from left to right on third down and long. Max threw the ball somewhat over his head and a little out in front and Barker can only get his fingertips on it. Well it's easy to say Max overthrew the ball. Which is true to a degree but it's also true that Barker could have throttled down and because Max hasn't had a lot of practice time with the first team he just hasn't locked in to Barker's tendencies yet. Either way often times it isn't just about the QB making a bad throw but really it's about the QB and the WR just not quite clicking. That isn't something the casual fan (unless you're going to actually break down the game film and do some analysis) can know. This is true for Gray as well. You have to know the idiosyncrasies of your WR's and the only way you learn those is with repetition. Max has not had much of that with the first team yet. Let's wait a few more games and see where he's at.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Syracuse isn't a very good defense either. It's arguably better than Western Michigan but it sure isn't "by far". They've given up a lot of points and yards but they've played against better defenses. But don't kid yourself that this was a good defense, it was about as good as Western Michigan.
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This is a tiresome argument. The folks on both sides of this fence have made their biases abundantly clear.

At this point, the team is 4-0, heading into BT play with a lot of momentum and a lot of confidence. I agree with Kill, these things sort themselves out so no real need for us to beat this horse repeatedly. Safe to say, for a true sophomore making his first start of the season, Shortell did just fine.

I'd prefer to just enjoy where they're at right now and move on.
 

Let's be honest though, if Gray had been healthy and started, don't you think Syracuse's game plan would have been different? If they stack the box against Gray, and we can't run, and can't pass, the game may have been different. Having max in there, certainly gives the Gophers more of a threat. I really wish the Gophers would put in play action. They don't play action enough. Max did ok, could have been better. Barker could have been better. I counted 3 plays that Barker could have made, that would have changed the score even more. I'm not complaining, just stating that they could have been better.

I can't wait for next week's game!
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
This is a tiresome argument. The folks on both sides of this fence have made their biases abundantly clear.

At this point, the team is 4-0, heading into BT play with a lot of momentum and a lot of confidence. I agree with Kill, these things sort themselves out so no real need for us to beat this horse repeatedly. Safe to say, for a true sophomore making his first start of the season, Shortell did just fine.

I'd prefer to just enjoy where they're at right now and move on.
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What are you talking about? Go up and read my first post about Shortell. I gave the kid a B and praised him. I'm not on ANY fence except being pro-Gopher and pro-all gopher players. The fact that I thought some of the ripping on Gray was absurd has absolutely nothing to do with how I viewed Shortell's performance. You're stuck in that argument perpetually so you think other people are stuck in that argument. I wasn't referencing anything to do with that tired argument that you're perpetually stuck in except to point out where you were incorrect in your posting.

#1: Shortell does have a 1 TO in 63 attempts (passing attempts plus rushes). That's fantastic, I'm obviously not ripping on him for that. I was just pointing out that you were wrong that he doesn't have a TO.
#2: The Syracuse defense isn't very good.

All in all, I've been extremely positive about Shortell so don't try to drag me down to your level and act like I was referring to anything to do with disagreeing with some posters about the Gray bashing.
 

RolGnav said:
Let's be honest though, if Gray had been healthy and started, don't you think Syracuse's game plan would have been different? If they stack the box against Gray, and we can't run, and can't pass, the game may have been different. Having max in there, certainly gives the Gophers more of a threat. I really wish the Gophers would put in play action. They don't play action enough. Max did ok, could have been better. Barker could have been better. I counted 3 plays that Barker could have made, that would have changed the score even more. I'm not complaining, just stating that they could have been better.

I can't wait for next week's game!
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My personal opinion is that we could have put up 17 points with Gray in the game. I think Syracuse was actually a tough matchup for Shortell because Syracuse has a much better pass defense than a run defense. I just think Gray is our best runner (or right there with Kirkwood), so our more run based offense out of the shotgun would have actually thrived against Syracuse. For that reason, I am even more excited about Shortell's performance tonight.
 

skauma said:
I give him a C+. He needs to work on his accuracy on the short passes. Someone said that 0 turnovers cannot be overlooked, which is true, also to not be overlooked, is that the Syracuse D is strongest against the pass.

I like Shortell quite a bit, and I like that we have the successor to Gray, but the talk that some people have had of starting Max over Gray should be put to rest. Max still has a lot of work to do, and it starts with his short to intermediate accuracy.
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And Gray doesn't?:confused:
 

Solid B. More than a game manager less than carrying the team on his back. We left points off the board, some not his fault. 0 turnovers, moved the ball, and my heart doesn't skip a beat every time the ball leaves his hand. He's vastly improved over last year and a definite upgrade in the passing game over Gray.
 

I would give him a B because he did everything we could have asked of him (which would give him a C) and a little more (giving him a B). He missed some wide-open receivers and seemed to disappear for awhile. But the most important thing is the 'W' he helped the Gophers gain. 4 and oh baby
 

station19 said:
And Gray doesn't?:confused:
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Obviously both QBs could use improvement hitting those routes (the same could probably be said of their decision making, staring down receivers, etc). I will say that the ball just looks better coming out of Shortell's hands. But Gray brings a lot more running ability to the table than Shortell, which makes up for a lot of his shortcomings as a passer, especially since it seems pretty obvious that the coaches would prefer a run-first offense.
 

B+ in the First Half. D for the Second
 

Well, I give Shortell an 'A' in the 1st and 3rd quarters. To start each half he completed some key third down passes with the Gophers going 3/5 in third down conversions.

However, he noticeably played much poorer, in my opinon, in the 2nd and 4th quarters, wildly overthrowing wide open receivers. In those quarters the Gophers only converted 3/10 third downs, very poor. So, I give him a 'D' for those two quarters.

Overall, I would give Shortell a C+. This was a very good learning experience for him and I have no doubt Zebrowski and Limegrover will use it to their advantage. I expect to see Shortell be very sharp against the Hawkeyes next Saturday.
 

And oh, as far as leaving points on the table, well, let's find a kicker and maybe that won't happen. Wettstein sucked yesterday. Really bad. Not a BCS kicker at all. His two misses weren't even close.
 

C+ for me. The inevitable comparisons with Gray need to be taken out of the equation. Shortell throws a very nice long ball, but he sails a lot of short and intermediate throws. He's not terribly inaccurate, but I noticed there were a number of relatively easy throws that didn't find their way to the receivers' comfort zones. They seemed to be reaching every which way on a lot of those tosses.

In defense of both Shortell and Gray, this is a very inexperienced group of wide receivers and they may be cutting off their patterns.

But Shortell managed the game well. He did a good job of recognizing what was there and didn't force things, which has to be a temptation for a kid with this big an arm.
 

I think the pass rush got to him, he was really rushing his passes as the game went on and they were sailing on him. He did alright though, he managed the game well and didn't turn it over. I don't think he grasped the QB job away from Gray by any means.
 

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