Gophers lay an egg at Penn State, lose 20-0

The Minnesota Gopher football team got whipped Saturday, losing to Penn State 20-0. There have been worse losses on the scoreboard in Gopher history, but I doubt there have been too many games where the Gopher offense has been as thoroughly dominated as they were on Saturday. Through about the first 40 minutes of the game the Gopher offense only had 3 first downs, and one of those was by penalty. By the time the Gopher offense did do something substantial, Penn State led 20-0 and there was no hope of victory.

There were so many things that went wrong in this game I almost don’t know where to start. But if you have to try and narrow down the single largest contributor to the poor showing, it would probably be that the Gopher offense did absolutely nothing for nearly three full quarters. Late in the third quarter there was a point where the Gophers only had about 50 yards of total offense and 3 first downs.

Defensively it wasn’t much better. Tackling was not as good as it should have been, and the QB pressure from the front 4 was non-existent. The lack of pressure heavily contributed to Penn State going 11-17 on 3rd down, which allowed them to continue their drives time after time. As a result of the poor efforts on both sides of the ball, Penn State held a huge time of possession edge. Around the time Penn State went up 20-0 in the third quarter, they’d held the ball for nearly three times as long as the Gophers ““ 31:11 compared to just 11:43 for Minnesota.

But as I mentioned, this game was lost in the first half. Here are a few things to show you just how bad it was in the first half for the Gophers”¦

1. On the first 8 Gopher first-down snaps in the first half, they could only end up getting past 2nd and 10 one time (that was a 2nd and 8)

2. First downs: Pen State 11 ““ Gophers 2 (one of the Gopher first downs was on a 3rd and 18 when Sean Lee committed a late hit after the play)

3. Rushing yards: Penn State 103 ““ Gophers 13

4. Adam Weber: 5-12 for 25 yards, 0 TDs and 1 INT.

5. The Gophers were outgained 259 ““ 38.

6. Daryll Clark went 10-19 for 144 yards, while Evan Royster rushed 12 times for 88 yards (7.3 ypc).

7. Eric Decker: 0 catches

8. The offense did not get into PSU territory in the first half.

Coming into this game I knew the Gopher offense might struggle, but I did not think it would be this bad. In the first half, only a 3rd and 6 completion to Brandon Green kept the Gopher offense from being shutout on first downs not achieved by penalty. The Gophers finally got something going late in the 3rd quarter, but were ultimately denied on a 4th and goal from the 1 yard line. This is the first really good defense the Gophers went up against this season, and I think we saw just how far the Gophers still have to go.

This is the kind of game that was so terrible you might want to consider not even showing players the film. Instead you just move on and try to do better next week. Unfortunately for the Gophers, they’ll need to prepare for an equally good defense in Ohio State, who will likely be extra motivated after being upset at Purdue on Saturday.

Talk about the loss on Brew’s Crew message board.