What Happened this Year???

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John Galt

John Galt

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My preseason prediction was for 8 wins. I thought we'd be slightly better than last year, but still end up with the same record. Here is what I think contributed to the disaster that was 2015...

1. The D-line took a step back. I don't think anyone was that distraught with losing Amaefula and Botticelli after last season, but for whatever reason we really struggled this year. Between Cockran, Keith, and Hank Ekpe, we had 3 upperclassmen with a lot of experience. None of them stood out and generated any significant pass rush like we needed them to.
2. We missed Damien Wilson. Too many missed tackles by the LBs and not enough big plays. We really missed Damien's tackling ability and steady presence in the middle of the defense. Poock, Campbell, and Lynn all have moments where they play well, but take too many bad angles and miss too many tackles.
3. O-line consistency. We never knew which o-line was going to show up all year. We blocked really well against some good defenses (Michigan, Iowa), struggled against some (OSU, Wisky), and couldn't block some that we should have had no problem with (CSU, Kent St., Ohio).
4. Mitch got better, but still is not consistent. What would today's game have been like if he didn't throw 3 picks and have the fumble? We still probably lose, but he didn't give us a chance. Mitch was bad the 1st half of the year, and played pretty well the 2nd half minus today's game. Next year we need the Michigan and Iowa Mitch the whole year.
5. Injuries. Brutal to lose Lauer, Campion, Bobek, and Plsek for basically the entire year. That's 4 of our top 6 blockers. Losing Scott Ekpe, Richardson, and Ndondo-Lay at DT also really hurt the last 3 games.
6. Losing Maxx and Cobb. I really like our replacements at these positions. Lingen came on strong, and Rodney/Shannon both showed a lot and have a higher upside than Cobb imo. But Cobb was so good at getting at least 3 yards on every carry and Maxx had the big play potential that we're unlikely to see again anytime soon. I think we win 7 games this year if we have those two guys.

This was a really strange year. On one hand I can justify it and say we lost 6 of our 7 games to top 25 teams while dealing with a ton of injuries. On the other hand, we went from being one half away from winning the west to winning 5 games.
 

We've had worse years for sure but this is probably the most disappointing year since I've been following the team. Preseason hype from fans, media and coaches was that we'd be a contender in the west. Add in the ticket increase communicated last offseason and it was a message that everyone was "all in" this year. It's going to be a long offseason with tons of speculation as to the number of non renewals.
 

For the Gophers against P5 schools the margin of error is small. -4 turnover margin this year compared to +10 last year.

Fumble inside the 10 by Williams against TCU, 19 seconds against Michigan and getting off the field on 3rd down against Iowa. Even with all the injuries make a couple of more plays and they could have been 7-5. This year the Gophers didn't make the plays in those close games.
 

scools12 said:
For the Gophers against P5 schools the margin of error is small. -4 turnover margin this year compared to +10 last year.

Fumble inside the 10 by Williams against TCU, 19 seconds against Michigan and getting off the field on 3rd down against Iowa. Even with all the injuries make a couple of more plays and they could have been 7-5. This year the Gophers didn't make the plays in those close games.
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I think people forget some of the big plays we had last year to win games (ie the kick off return). And if you look at the non-conference games we won, it took come back almost lucky wins to pull those out.
 

It has been a tough season for Gopher football. Considering the amount of injuries I don't know that the team necessarily under performed. The Michigan game was there for the taking, but the team could have easily lost to CSU, Ohio, and Illinois. I don't see that the team would have had any more wins had Kill remained as coach. The team actually played their best football with the exception of the Wisconsin game after Claeys was head coach.

Here's to a better 2016! May the team get healthy, the recruiting class finish strong, and the program move forward.
 


scools12 said:
For the Gophers against P5 schools the margin of error is small. -4 turnover margin this year compared to +10 last year.

Fumble inside the 10 by Williams against TCU, 19 seconds against Michigan and getting off the field on 3rd down against Iowa. Even with all the injuries make a couple of more plays and they could have been 7-5. This year the Gophers didn't make the plays in those close games.
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At the same time, could've easily lost more games if CSU or Kent St makethe proverbial "1 more play". The team was just as close to 3 wins as we were to 7 by that logic.
 

All good points here. We really did miss Maxx Williams, Damien Wilson, and David Cobb. The performance of Brooks and Smith (when healthy) cushioned Cobb's loss to a greater extent than the other two. What I find interesting is Limegrover opened up the offense after Kill left and Lingen (while not Maxx Williams) started working down the field and had success.

I think the line play on both sides was subpar and injuries had a lot to do with that, but we need to get bigger, especially on the D-line. Front seven play on defense has to improve, especially with 3/4 of the defensive backfield moving on for sure.

I also think we have to consider some scheme changes on both sides of the ball. I still get the impression that we are employing strategies that work in the MAC but not in the B1G. That could boil down to recruiting. I'm more a "Jimmys and Joes" as opposed to "X's and O's" guy and most any approach can win if you have the guys who can execute. Claeys strikes me as a guy who will open things up a bit, but if you do that, you open yourself up to more turnovers on offense and big plays against you on defense, so you need more athletic talent to accommodate those risks. Interesting to see how all that plays out
 

The three biggest reasons the season went how it did are injuries, turnovers and the rapid decline of all phases of special teams.

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scools12 said:
For the Gophers against P5 schools the margin of error is small. -4 turnover margin this year compared to +10 last year.

Fumble inside the 10 by Williams against TCU, 19 seconds against Michigan and getting off the field on 3rd down against Iowa. Even with all the injuries make a couple of more plays and they could have been 7-5. This year the Gophers didn't make the plays in those close games.
Click to expand...

Boddy-Calhoun alone made two fumble recoveries last year that were huge against Northwestern and Nebraska. Remember the lateral by Indiana the year before? We've lived on the edge and this year ended up on the wrong side.

I've likened Gopher football to climbing up a large pile of sand. You can make some gains and then it gives way and you slide back losing some of what you gained. End of last year I really thought we were ready to go over the top. Now, it seems like we've slid back again but I'm not sure how much. Keep most of these recruits; new facilities; better schedule; Claeys can be a head coach and we'll get there. But, man, the footing sure feels precarious. Just depressing watching them run the first half yesterday. Throw in the effort against Northwestern and Nebraska and who the hell knows what will happen next year?
 



Never really had all three phases of the game in the plus column at the same time this year.

When Offense was up the D or Special Teams were down [O+, D-, ST-].

I think we got to see every permutation except O+, D+, and ST+.

Michigan was probably closest to +++ and but for 19 seconds...oh well.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
The three biggest reasons the season went how it did are injuries, turnovers and the rapid decline of all phases of special teams.

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I don't disagree with those but everyone seems to be missing an obvious one: schedule. Sports Reference ranks our schedule as #4 this year vs. #37 last year. Three teams that we beat last year (Iowa, Michigan, and NW) were much, much better this year. If they had been as good last year and we lost to two of them, we would have been 6-6.
 

BilldGopher said:
Never really had all three phases of the game in the plus column at the same time this year.

When Offense was up the D or Special Teams were down [O+, D-, ST-].

I think we got to see every permutation except O+, D+, and ST+.

Michigan was probably closest to +++ and but for 19 seconds...oh well.
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This. Not one game was the whole team firing at once.

The very solid footing that the program seemed to have just back last spring seems to have given away. Add in all the injuries and a tough schedule, and 5 wins is what you end up with. Strong people will have to build that footing back in place to keep the program at the point it left in 2014.
 

cjbfbp said:
I don't disagree with those but everyone seems to be missing an obvious one: schedule. Sports Reference ranks our schedule as #4 this year vs. #37 last year. Three teams that we beat last year (Iowa, Michigan, and NW) were much, much better this year. If they had been as good last year and we lost to two of them, we would have been 6-6.
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The schedule ended up being tougher then expected. Sagarin has it #27 this year compared to #43 last year. As of today next year's schedule on paper looks favorable. We all know that can change once they start playing the games so we shouldn't be too surprised if the schedule ends up being tougher next year regardless of how it looks on paper as of today.
 



Lack of size on the DL..........recruiting misses.
Lack of depth on the O line. Injuries to everyone but Dilly Bar Dan. Redshirt frosh OL's not ready to play..................recruiting misses in '13 and '14.
NO CREATIVITY from the O coordinator. Strevler, who Jerry pumped as one of the best athletes on the the team, is not used. No wildcat runs. No option passes. No Fly sweeps. RUTM.
Mitch at his best is OK. Normal Mitch is a turnover machine..........yesterday= normal Mitch. He is tough, so what? How can such a big guy fumble so much. If he was a RB he would have been benched long ago.
No pass rush. TC has been a huge disappointment. Only was good with Hageman alongside.
The last series before halftime encapsulates the problem with this staff's philosophy. I wanted to run on the field and kick Clayes in the nuts. They play like losers! Don't even try to get points? Just like last years bowl game.
Leidner can't throw on time and anticipate throws. His late throws lead to picks and incompletions. He will not be better next year.
They left a big pile of steaming **** on the field at TCF against a beatable Badger team. How can Northwestern get D players that are so much better than ours? Must be their state of the art stadium.
 

Good point CJBFBP. Last year's defensive front 7 was not stout against the run, but they were above average.
I know the coaches have been trying to add much needed speed to the defense, but against teams like Wisconsin and Iowa it sure seems like the front 7 was much too light. Our defense played well against the quicker more spread out offenses this year (TCU and OSU).
 

cjbfbp said:
I don't disagree with those but everyone seems to be missing an obvious one: schedule. Sports Reference ranks our schedule as #4 this year vs. #37 last year. Three teams that we beat last year (Iowa, Michigan, and NW) were much, much better this year. If they had been as good last year and we lost to two of them, we would have been 6-6.
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Fair as well. And I shouldn't have said all phases of special teams were bad. Santoso was good kicking field goals and I think he made all his extra points.
 

At the end of the day, Nebraska was the only game that went the wrong way. That is still debatable. The over under on wins was 5.5 and they nailed it. Can people point out all the publications that had us winning 8 or more games. People want to ignore that 3 more games bounced our way last year.


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MaxyJR1 said:
At the end of the day, Nebraska was the only game that went the wrong way. That is still debatable. The over under on wins was 5.5 and they nailed it. Can people point out all the publications that had us winning 8 or more games. People want to ignore that 3 more games bounced our way last year.
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When the vegas 5.5 win over/under came out people were insane...especially when I said I can easily see this team failing to cover the over with a few key injuries, untested players failing to step up and our very difficult schedule. Why so many were unrealistic is beyond me.
 

This team scored 50 fewer points and gave up 39 more in conference play this year. We had three key players of that drafted in the first five rounds of the NFL. Those turned into huge shoes that did not get filled.


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Injuries, turnovers, tough schedule. Just wasn't our year. No need to blow everything up. We'll be back next year, I like the track the program is on. Just add some d lineman to this recruiting class.
 

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