Gopher Football
A perfect start for the Gophers
You always are going to worry how a team is going to respond after they lose their best player to injury. What was compounding the issue was that the Gophers had been outscored 58-7 in the two prior games. Given these two circumstances it would have been very easy for Minnesota to come out sluggish, but to the coaches and player’s credit, exactly the opposite occurred. After a nice Troy Stoudermire kickoff return to open the game, the Gophers scored on a 62-yard Adam Weber to Duane Bennett touchdown pass on their first offensive play. It was a beautifully designed and executed play, which ended as Bennett shrugged off an attempt at a tackle with an impressive 20-yard tightrope act on the sideline to the end zone.
On the ensuing kickoff Michigan State fumbled and the Gophers recovered. After a holding penalty the Gophers were forced in to a 3rd and 19. But Weber found Brandon Green streaking down the right sideline for a 37-yard touchdown pass. Before Michigan State even ran a play, the Gophers held a 14-0 lead.
More blown coverages on defense
One of the persistent issues for the Gophers this year has been blowing coverages. Specifically: letting opposing receivers get behind the entire defense unguarded. It’s happened at least once in nearly every game, and it happened multiple times tonight.
The first occurred in the middle of the first quarter. The Gophers were in control of the game ““ winning 14-0 ““ and MSU’s offense was really out of sync. But on a first-and-ten from their own 21 yard line, Traye Simmons let BJ Cunningham drift behind him with no deep help. Kirk Cousins connected with Cunningham for a 49-yard gain to the Gophers 30 yard line. Luckily for Minnesota the pass was a little high, so the Cunningham had to stretch for the reception and ended up falling down. MSU then drove the ball down inside the 10 yard line, where the Gophers made a nice stand to limit the Spartans to a 25 yard FG.
Then after a Weber interception, Michigan State had a 3rd and 10 from the Gophers 26 yard line. After a lengthy scramble by Cousins, the Gopher defense let Brian Linthicum slip behind them, resulting in another score and pulling the Spartans to within 14-10. The two blown coverages by the Gopher defense let Michigan State back into this game; putting a dent in the impressive 14-0 Gophers start.
Meanwhile, the Gophers could not take advantage of theirs.
On the next drive the Gophers had a 1st and 10 from their own 40-yard line, when Troy Stoudermire ended up being wide open about 40 yards downfield. Weber threw the ball to him and Stoudermire was just standing there waiting for it, but in a gaffe reminiscent of the Jamal Harris dropped FG return against Purdue in 2007, Stoudermire bobbled and then dropped the ball. Had he caught it, he very well may have been able to run into the end zone for the score. Instead, the Gophers would not get a first down and were forced to punt. Stoudermire made up for the mistake later with a 71-yard kickoff return and a 48-yard reception.
Penalties , Penalties, Penalties
After the win, the big story of this game is going to be the penalties. There currently conflicting numbers on the number of penalties committed (which isn’t surprising considering it may take an army of mathematicians to figure it out), but unofficial totals have the Gophers committing 16 penalties for 142 yards. The penalties came in all shapes and sizes: Late Hits. Kickoffs out of bounds. Holding. False starts. Offsides. Delay of Game. Horse collar. Taunting. Pass interference. Illegal Shift. Roughing the Passer. If it is a penalty, it was probably called against the Gophers. Penalties have been a problem all season long, and clearly this is something the team needs to improve. What’s amazing is that the Gophers were able to win this game despite giving 140+ yards back to the Spartans via the penalties.
Disaster avoided
After the Gophers got out to the 14-0 lead, Michigan State kept striking back, but the Gophers would always answer. Late in the third quarter after Keyshawn Martin’s 84-yard TD on the end around pulled MSU to within 28-24, Troy Stoudermire answered with a 71-yard kickoff return, giving the Gophers the ball on the MSU 13 yard line. Minnesota was in great position to answer yet again, but on first down Kevin Whaley was thrown for an 8-yard loss. On 2nd down Adam Weber was sacked. On third down the Gophers completed a pass but were called for an illegal shift. Those three played netted the Gophers -18 yards, and Eric Ellestad then missed the 48-yard FG attempt. On the subsequent possession the Adam Weber – Duane Bennett handoff was fumbled in Gopher territory, and Michigan State responded with a TD to get their first and only lead, 31-28.
But the Gophers ““ as they always would ““ responded. One play that worked really well tonight was the play-action-fake (which was surprising when you consider how poor the Gopher running game was). In this instance, Weber executed a nice fake and hit DaJon McKnight on a post pattern, resulting in a 53-yard gain. The Gophers scored on the next play when Weber hit Nick Tow-Arnett on a 2-yard TD pass. This gave the Gophers a 35-31 lead, and they would never trail again.
Nail in the coffin
On the ensuing MSU drive the Spartans would drive down to the Gophers 2 yard line. But once again, the Gophers put up a nice red-zone stand, and forced Michigan State to settle for a 20-yard FG. This cut the Gophers lead to 35-34. After the Gophers got the ball back they found themselves with a 3rd and 17 from their own 41 yard line. Weber tried to hit Tow-Arnett in the seam, but a helmet-to-helmet hit that went uncalled put Tow-Arnett on the turf before he had full control of the ball. As he hit the ground, the ball was jarred out, where it was then plucked out of the air by a “œJohnny on the spot” Duane Bennett. Duane ran the ball in for a 59-yard TD reception; his second of the game. This gave the Gophers a 42-34 lead with 6:00 minutes remaining, and the Gophers would hold on for the win.
Strong play against the run
Another positive storyline in this game was the Gophers rush defense. If you exclude an 82-yard TD run on an end-around, the Gophers held Michigan State to 27 yards on just 18 carries. In particular, the defensive line did a great job and busting through the Spartan OL and blowing up running plays before they could even begin. Garrett Brown, Eric Small and Cedric McKinley all caught my eye at least once. There is still some work to do in pass defense, but it was nice to see the Gophers step up tonight in this area.
Weber rebounds in a big way
Because the Gophers won, the number of penalties will put on the back burner in favor of the big game by quarterback Adam Weber. Like other parts of the offense, there was a lot of anticipation to see how Weber would respond with his favorite target, Eric Decker, out for the season. Besides just a few plays here and there, Weber was on. Early in the game he missed Troy Stoudermire on a third down. Later he threw an interception, but that was not all his fault, as it appeared that Da’Jon McKnight ran into a defender while nearing the end of his route. Then there was a botched handoff with Duane Bennett that resulted in a fumble. But those were about the only blemishes on the day. Weber came out throwing early and often, connecting on several huge pass plays. In the first half, Weber was 12-17 for 210 yards and 3 TDs. He nearly matched that performance in the second half and finished the game throwing 19-31 for 416 yards, 5 TD, and just 1 INT. Weber also passed Bryan Cupito to become the Gophers all-time leader in passing yards.
Kudos to the receivers!
What may get lost in Weber’s brilliant performance was the way the Gopher receivers (minus Decker) stepped up. Coming into the game everyone was wondering who would step up to replace Decker, and the answer was “˜Everybody’. Get this: In this game, FIVE Gophers had their season high in receiving yards. This is truly amazing (or sad) considering this was 9 games into the season. What it shows is that the Gophers do have capable receivers, and that it just may have taken in injury to Decker to find them. For the record, those players who had season-high in receiving yards were: Duane Bennett (2 for 120, 2 TDs), Da’Jon McKnight (4 for 98), Nick Tow-Arnett (8 for 81, 2 TDs), Brandon Green (2 for 60, 1 TD), and Troy Stoudermire (1 for 48).
Looking ahead
With the victory tonight, the Gophers can become bowl eligible next week with a victory at Illinois. Doing so will be no easy task, as Illinois played their best game of the season today with a 38-13 victory at home against Michigan. Adding extra motivation for Illinois was the fact that they lost at home to the Gophers last year. This will be a tough game for the Gophers, and it will be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum going that they started tonight.
Talk about the big Gopher win on Brew’s Crew message board.