What's the story on Zach Evans?

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FredCoxRocks

FredCoxRocks

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When he scored a TD on a nice run last year against Northwestern, I told my buddy sitting next to me "there's the heir apparent".

He appears to have all the tools and supposedly looked good in spring camp. I know Taylor has been the star so far, but there has been absolutely no playing time for Evans. Zero. Surely he can't be any worse than handing the ball off to Williams?

When he committed, I told myself I'd keep on eye on this guys career...he could be special. At this rate I think the odds of him transferring out after this season are greater than him getting 15-20 carries on the year.

What gives, man?...Doghouse?...Injury?
 



We will really need Taylor against IA and WI (and maybe OSU and Mich!). I hope the Gophs don't run Taylor into the ground against Louisiana, thinking that they need to do so in order to win the game. Really bad sign. Ideally, the defense rises off the scrap heap and helps the offense out against the Ragin' Cajuns, so that so PJ doesn't have to hear that little voice in his head telling him that the only way we can win is by exposing our true Frosh RB to injury 30-40 times in the game.
 

Where is RB Evans? Where is RB Tyler? Where is WR Spencer? Where is WR Hoskins? Are any of our true Frosh WRs ready for some targets? It seems as though a lot of the offensive weapons PJ was very high on are not getting much, if any, play. Kind of strange. If they don't get much play versus Louisiana, I guess we're going into the teeth of the season with a pretty slimmed down offense. Hope our defense recovers soon ...
 


Coach Fleck said players make the depth chart by performance in practice and in games. This must mean Evans hasn't been blocking well or bot picking up blitzes in practice. Being Evans hasn't played he must not be making plays.
 

I believe after the season opener someone asked about Evans and Fleck said "He had to earn it, it wouldn't just be given to him" so either his performance in practices has not been enough to get him carries, or he's in the doghouse for something else.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
Coach Fleck said players make the depth chart by performance in practice and in games. This must mean Evans hasn't been blocking well or bot picking up blitzes in practice. Being Evans hasn't played he must not be making plays.
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It could be anything, such as him not making grades in the classroom. We don't know and PJ isn't going to tell us.
 

apparently someone asked about Taylor's status during Fleck's Monday presser, and Fleck said that (paraphrasing) 'You'll find out two hours before Saturday's game."

that is when the B1G requires teams to release their injury report if anyone is "out" or "questionable."

so we won't know is Taylor is playing until 9:00am Saturday. assuming everyone is awake by then.....
 



gopherdudepart2 said:
Coach Fleck said players make the depth chart by performance in practice and in games. This must mean Evans hasn't been blocking well or bot picking up blitzes in practice. Being Evans hasn't played he must not be making plays.
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Is blocking and picking up blitzes that important if you are going to run 50 times a game!?
 

Taji34 said:
I believe after the season opener someone asked about Evans and Fleck said "He had to earn it, it wouldn't just be given to him" so either his performance in practices has not been enough to get him carries, or he's in the doghouse for something else.
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I have heard Fleck say about Evans, "we have to get him into some games." Well PJ, you are going to have to put him into a game before he gets into a game. That would also help in not running Taylor into the ground.
 

@Gopherchase has posted a few times in the past few weeks that Evans is in the doghouse. Not sure what he did to get in the doghouse, but it seems to be the only logical explanation as to why he hasn't played a single down in the first four games when clearly there is a need for some quality depth at the RB spot.
 




tjgopher said:
@Gopherchase has posted a few times in the past few weeks that Evans is in the doghouse. Not sure what he did to get in the doghouse, but it seems to be the only logical explanation as to why he hasn't played a single down in the first four games when clearly there is a need for some quality depth at the RB spot.
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Listen to Fleck's words ... 'he has to earn it; not going to be given to him'. That means it's a practice/effort issue and easily reversible by Evans.
 


FredCoxRocks said:
When he scored a TD on a nice run last year against Northwestern, I told my buddy sitting next to me "there's the heir apparent".

He appears to have all the tools and supposedly looked good in spring camp. I know Taylor has been the star so far, but there has been absolutely no playing time for Evans. Zero. Surely he can't be any worse than handing the ball off to Williams?

When he committed, I told myself I'd keep on eye on this guys career...he could be special. At this rate I think the odds of him transferring out after this season are greater than him getting 15-20 carries on the year.

What gives, man?...Doghouse?...Injury?
Click to expand...
Things have happened to him that we may never know because of privacy protection. Did any of the local media ask PJ Fleck about Zach Evans?
 


hungan1 said:
Things have happened to him that we may never know because of privacy protection. Did any of the local media ask PJ Fleck about Zach Evans?
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Not during the press conference. He’s going to give the same answer though. I guess one game the kid is either going to get 10 or 15 or 20 touches and then is in the rotation or it continues like this all year and will never really know. I certainly haven’t seen enough to call him a game changer. I do think he is the most explosive back and we certainly could use some explosive plays. Got a couple in the running game, but to shift gears a little what’s the longest pass reception of the year 25 yards? Watching college games on Saturdays you’ll see wide receivers running wild with touchdowns from 30 40 50 70 yards all the time we’ve gotten nothing like that.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
Coach Fleck said players make the depth chart by performance in practice and in games. This must mean Evans hasn't been blocking well or bot picking up blitzes in practice. Being Evans hasn't played he must not be making plays.
Click to expand...
Ruh Roh...I thought we only had clone issues with coach.

Not sure how NIL is gong to apply to bots...plus how do you know which is actually in the game (if Evans or doppleganger were actually allowed to play)?

These and other mysteries of the universe to ponder...
 

short ornery norwegian said:
apparently someone asked about Taylor's status during Fleck's Monday presser, and Fleck said that (paraphrasing) 'You'll find out two hours before Saturday's game."

that is when the B1G requires teams to release their injury report if anyone is "out" or "questionable."

so we won't know is Taylor is playing until 9:00am Saturday. assuming everyone is awake by then.....
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If he's not telling us Taylor's ready, I'm going to assume Taylor isn't playing.
 


They need to figure out how to utilize Zach Evans. Wear-and-tear on Darius Taylor isn't good running him that many times. They need to take advantage of the strengths of the other backs and tailor plays accordingly.

After DT got hurt, we had no answer offensively.

What was disappointing given all the hype was the WR Room. Will things change?
 
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hungan1 said:
Things have happened to him that we may never know because of privacy protection.
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Are you wondering if things have happened to him, or do you know things have happened to him?
 

hungan1 said:
They need to figure out how to utilize Zach Evans. Wear-and-tear on Darius Taylor isn't good running him that many times. They need to take advantage of the strengths of the other backs and tailor plays accordingly.

After DT got hurt, we had no answer offensively.

What was disappointing given all the hype was the WR Room. Will things change?
Click to expand...
Maybe Zach has things to figure out and not the coaches?
 

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