Gopher Football
Quarterbacks
After a lackluster showing versus Illinois State, starting QB Bryan Cupito rebounded with a nice performance against Colorado State. Before he was knocked out of the game, Bryan was 12/21 passing with 144 yards with 0 interceptions and 2 TD’s. One of the more encouraging aspects of Bryan’s game so far has been his decision making. In general, and even under pressure, Bryan has been smart about where and when to throw. There have only been a few times when he has tried to force a ball into somewhere he shouldn’t have. If the receivers have been open, he’s thrown it to them. If they’re covered, he usually makes the right decision and throws the ball away. As far as the physical aspects go, Cupito once against displayed his beautiful play action fake, using it to throw touchdown passes to the tight end on two occasions. He continues to throw a nice ball, and for the most part he has been very accurate. The deep touch is still not as good as it was against Toledo, but he was so accurate in that game I don’t think we can expect he’ll put on a performance like that again.
Unfortunately, things weren’t all good and happy for Cupito. With a couple minutes left in the 3rd quarter he was knocked down after throwing a pass and his head hit the ground hard. Bryan left the game and did not return. We have since learned that he is doing well and could play against Northwestern this Saturday. When Cupito went out, Adam Ernst replaced him for the remainder of the game. Rather than risk throwing a pass, Coach Mason just hand Adam hand off every play for the rest of the game.
Grade: B+
Running Backs
In a word, “œWow!”. This is what we like to see. The Minnesota running backs were as good as advertised Saturday night, with Marion Barber and Laurence Maroney both turning in great performances. Barber was his usual self, shedding tackles and finding the holes. He finished with 31 carries for 201 and 2 TD’s, including a 61 yarder. The 31 carries, 201 yards and 61 yard run were all career highs for Marion. Laurence Maroney had 17 carries for 132 yards (7.8 avg), but no touchdowns. In my opinion, Laurence still looks like the slightly more dangerous weapon, but for reasons we don’t know he lagged way behind Barber in number of carries. (Hopefully there isn’t something of concern happening that we don’t know about.) As hard as it is to believe and to the delight of Gopher fans, Laurence is a better running back than he was last year. He has added some power and is showing a few more open field moves than he did last year. Add this to the back that he was last year and you have one very scary player. Overall it was a great performance by both star backs, and it was something we’ll see a lot more of as the year progresses.
Grade: A
Wide Receivers & Tight Ends
Saturday was (finally) the coming out party for sophomore Tight End Matt Spaeth. After an offseason of being lavished with praise, Spaeth went without a reception in the first two games. That ended on Saturday in a big way. The big Tight End had 6 receptions for 71 yards and 2 TD’s. If he can keep up this kind of play, it’s just another on a long list of weapons that opposing defenses will need to prepare for.
The Wide Receivers had a relatively quiet game. The leading receiver was Ernie Wheelwright with 3 catches for 37 yards. After establishing himself as a dangerous deep threat in the first two games, on Saturday Ernie showed the ability to get himself open on shorter routes and produce first downs. Jared Ellerson and Jakari Wallace rounded out the receiving numbers with 2 & 1 catches respectively. (The receiving numbers were suppressed a little bit by the fact that the Gophers didn’t attempt a pass the last 17 minutes of the game.) If I had to find one thing wrong with the receivers, I would say that they didn’t do a real great job of getting open. Considering how much the Rams were stacking the line, there were a surprising amount of times when Cupito had time to throw but was forced to just throw the ball away. Still though, through three games, the Gophers seem to have more than enough talent at wide receiver to keep defenses honest and make them pay if they commit too much to stopping the run.
Grade: B
Offensive Line
No unit was more improved from last week to this week as the offensive line. With Rian Melander able to play again after getting injured last week, the offensive line put in a performance nearly as impressive as they did against Toledo. For the first three quarters the line opened up big holes for the running backs to run though, and for the most part did an excellent job protecting Bryan Cupito (Cupito’s hit where he left the game happened well after the pass was thrown). Seeing as to how much the Gophers run, there are going to be times where we lose two and three yards, so I don’t think this is really something to be concerned about unless it becomes more frequent. There were a few penalties here and there, but otherwise the line as a whole played really well.
Grade: A-
Offense Overall
After the Illinois State game, some Gopher fans might have been a little worried about the performance of the offense. But after watching this game, those worries should be put to rest. When the offense was “œtrying” they moved the ball very well, and probably would’ve scored 45-48 points had Cupito not gotten hurt. The running game was definitely on, and the passing game responded when it was called upon. Of minor concern was the four times the offense had to settle for field goal attempts, but that might be about it. The fourth quarter wasn’t very pretty, but I’m going to ignore that for this recap. Mason said on Sunday that he just wanted to get the game over with and wasn’t going to have Ernst pass unless Colorado State made the game close. Since they never did, Minnesota didn’t attempt a pass despite Colorado State loading up against the run.
Overall Offense Grade: A-
Defensive Line
For the third game in a row, the defensive line showed a general inability to generate a pass rush without help from other positions. They were able to turn in a couple of sacks, but when you consider the number of times that Colorado State threw, those numbers aren’t that impressive. What’s a little more concerning for Gopher fans though is the ease at which the Rams running game tore through the heart of the Gophers DL in the first half. Gaping holes were punched into the line several times, which resulted in several 8-12 yard gains. To the DL’s credit though, they corrected this flaw at halftime and did a much better job stopping the run after the break. Anthony Montgomery recorded his first career interception, and you had to be impressed that Anthony was not going to just settle for the int, you could tell he wanted the “˜6′. Ultimately, that plan was stopped after only 3 yards, but it was good to see Montgomery recognizing the pass and making the play.
Grade: C-
Linebackers
The linebackers all seemed to have pretty good games this week. They were able to apply some pressure on the QB, Stop the run, and chip in the pass coverage as well. All of the LB’s had their moments, but you had to be particularly impressed with the play of Brandon Owens when he got his reps. He looks more comfortable each game and provide a couple bone jarring hits. Dominique Sims is doing an adequate job, but because of Owens talent it might not be too long before you see him become the starter.
Grade: A-
Defensive Backs
This game seemed to be a case of either really good or really bad for the Gopher secondary. Starting with the good, it was nice to see Trumaine Banks and Ukee Dozier each get an interception. The Dozier interception was especially encouraging, as he seemed to get a read on where the quarterback was going to throw and made a great break on the ball. Another positive was that for the most part the coverage downfield was usually adequate. The one exception was the Ram TD right before the end of the first half where Justin Fraley seemed to be defending the first row of the bleachers.
For most of the game the Gophers decided to give Colorado State WR’s a huge cushion. When you do that, you’re practically giving the team 5 yards, but when that happens it’s imperative that you make the tackles, otherwise those short five yards gains are going to turn into bigger gains. Well, the most disappointing thing for the CB’s (Dozier in particular) was that the tackling was pretty sloppy. The good news is that this can be fixed. Because of the relaxed coverage, it made the CSU passing numbers look better than they really were.
Grade: C+
Defense Overall
It’s so tough to judge the Gopher defense this year. With the exception of the Illinois State game (where the whole team obviously took the day off mentally), the Gophers have quickly gone on to build 21 point first-half leads in both games. When that happens, Mason historically changes his defensive philosophy, choosing to give up short gains rather than risk giving up the big play and letting other teams back in the game. Because of that, the offensive numbers of the other team suddenly start growing quickly, and in the end it looks like the Gophers turned in a poor defensive effort.
With that said, this defensive effort was not very good, but not as bad as the final numbers looked (CSU had over 400 yards). What we do know is that running defense was bad in the first half, but fixed itself in the second half. The passing defense was OK at first got worse as the defense relaxed. Tackling was below average, but at the same time the D did force 4 turnovers. In trying to figure all of this out, I’d say that the defense played OK, but it definitely has room for a lot of improvement. The D did what they had to do to win the game, and in the end that’s what matters the most.
Overall Defense Grade: B-
Special Teams
For the most part this was a solid effort by the special teams. It was encouraging to see Rhys Lloyd putting most of his kickoffs deep into the endzone and not letting any get kicked out of bounds. Rhys may also have had the best game of career punting. He put a couple inside the 20, and also showed good distance when needed. What is a little bit concerning was the two missed FG’s, but since one was over 50 yards you can let that slide a little. There were very few returns in this game for either team due to the effectiveness of the kickers.
Grade: B+
Overall Team Performance
This game was very encouraging for several reasons. First, the Gophers rebounded very nicely from the poor effort against Illinois State. There was some worrying going on by fans for about a week, but it seems pretty clear after this game that the Gophers thought they’d be able to sail by the Redbirds without really trying. What we saw against CSU (and Toledo for that matter) is what this team is capable of when they are focused. Second, I wanted to find when the Gophers had a road win of this significance against a well-respected school, and I had to go back to 1989 to find a win vs. a 6-5 Iowa State team at Ames. This is the most impressive road win for Glen Mason and perhaps a sign that the program has turned another corner.
While it’s not always pretty, you have to be impressed with the final result. People may question Mason’s decision making during the game (such as having the cornerbacks play so far off), but the guy is a seasoned coach and he knows what he’s doing. In hindsight, the Gophers had the game put away in the middle of the second quarter, and gave up only 6 points in the second half. The result was an easy victory that propels the team into Big Ten play vs. Northwestern this Saturday.
Overall Team Grade: B