Gopher Football
Quarterbacks
Bryan Cupito continued his string of unimpressive performances with perhaps his worst performance to date. Cupito completed 9 of 16 yards for just 73 yards, 2 interceptions, and 0 Touchdowns. Bryan was able to make a couple of nice scrambles, but when he runs it’s pretty easy to see why he doesn’t do it more often. A play that made me really scratch my head happened in the first half. Minnesota had the ball on the about the 13 yard line, and Cupito took the snap and essentially ran backwards for 15 yards before throwing the ball out of bounds. An Iowa defender was applying some pressure, but rather than try to make a move and keep himself in the pocket, he seemed to look scared and ended up running himself right out of the play.
Grade: D
Running Backs
Finally”¦ a return to the good old days for Marion Barber and Laurence Maroney. Both Gopher running backs played hard nose, inspired football on Saturday. Maroney scored a career high 3 TD’s on runs of 79, 37 and 5 yards. His two long runs showed off the great speed and explosiveness that we have become accustomed to. But perhaps Maroney’s most impressive run of the day was the first down he got early in the game on a 3rd & 4. Maroney was dead to rights at the line of scrimmage, but he spun away, broke tackles and lunged for about a 6 yard gain and a first down. That run was a good indicator of the improvement in Maroney’s game this year. Marion Barber was almost equally as impressive. Even though he didn’t get any TD’s, Barber definitely looked like he was running with a purpose that we haven’t seen in a several weeks. The only blemish on Barber’s part was the interception he threw, but that was more the play call’s fault than it was Barber’s. It certainly helps when your line can open up running lanes like they did today, but this was easily the running back’s best performance of the season of running the football. The fumble from Maroney was the only blemish on the day.
Grade: A
Wide Receivers / Tight End
This wasn’t a very good game at all for the receivers. Jared Ellerson continues his disappearing act this season, catching only 1 pass for 6 yards. It’s pretty obvious that Ernie Wheelwright is Cupito’s favorite target, but it would still be nice to see Jared get himself more involved in the offense. Speaking of Cupito’s favorite target, Wheelwright caught 4 passes for 42 yards. It’s been several games since Cupito & Wheelwright have been able to hook up on a deep pass. Jakari Wallce had a rough day as well. Both of Bryan Cupito’s interceptions were intended for Jakari. In at least one of them, it appeared that Wallace gave up on his route after he drew contact from Iowa’s defender, and Cupito threw the ball where Jakari was supposed to be.
On the positive side, I saw several instances of great blocking by the wide receivers downfield. When the offense is clicking, this is something that is a must, and today it was there. Another positive was the play of Matt Spaeth. In what we hope to see more of next year, Spaeth had a couple catches, one of which he had to stretch for and pull in with his fingertips. It was very impressive for a guy his size. Jared Posthumus was quiet today, except for a bad false start penalty that he had on a 3rd and 1.
Grade: C-
Offensive Line
Another sight for sore eyes was the play of the Gopher offensive line. Whether it was because the game was at home, or the way Iowa was playing defense, the offensive line looked to be back in their comfort zone on Saturday. Holes were opening up all over the field for the backs to run through. What was particularly impressive was the job they did on Minnesota’s 4th down conversion in the final minutes. After getting stuffed on a 3rd & short, the line rebounded on 4th down and opened up a large hole for Marion Barber to run through. This was even more impressive when you consider that everyone in the stadium knew what play was coming. Iowa has (arguably) the best defensive front 7 in the conference, so you must applaud the job the line did in paving the way for 337 yards rushing. The line didn’t really have much of an opportunity to prove itself pass blocking this afternoon. Minnesota had only 17 pass attempts, but many of them were off of quick 3 step drops.
On the injury front, Brandon Harston left the game with an injury and did not return (in what seems like a weekly occurrence.). Mike Nicholson was able to fill in nicely for him. Greg Eslinger was also banged up, but he stayed in the game.
Grade: A-
Offense Overall
The Gopher passing game is in disarray, there’s no question. Looking back, the deep pass is really what made the Gophers passing attack click early in the season. But as the year has gone on, we’ve seen team after team take this aspect of the game away from the offense. Without it, Cupito and the rest of the passing game have pretty much disappeared, and this game was no exception. In this contest, things got so bad the coaches chose not even to attempt a pass when Minnesota had a 3rd & 12 from the Iowa 34 yard line on the final drive. Considering the hype that Cupito was getting as a passer by the coaches before the season, I think just about any fan would be disappointed by the fact that the offense would be playing it so safe in the final game of the season.
But with that said, it makes the performance of the running game even that more impressive. With a defense as good as Iowa’s, I would’ve thought coming in that there was no way we’d put up over 400 yards without a more balanced attack. Through 9 games, Iowa had allowed only 614 rushing yards, and Minnesota’s offense put 337 more on them. But, the running game can only take you so far. The Minnesota offense will never live up to its potential until it can balance itself out with a solid passing game.
Grade: B
Defensive Line
For as one-dimensional as Minnesota’s offense was running the ball, Iowa’s offense was just as one-dimensional throwing the ball. With Iowa’s decimated running corps of running backs, nobody expect the Hawkeye’s to do much on ground. However, knowing the history of Minnesota’s defense you never can assume anything. But to credit the Gopher defensive line, they did their part in stuffing any attempt Iowa made to run the ball. Iowa’s running back by committee ran 16 times for only 32 yards. That left Drew Tate with 39 pass attempts, and for the most part the Gopher front four did a reasonable job in pressuring him. Tate was sacked 4 times (3 by the defensive line), and pressured numerous other times. I did see a couple of negatives though. First, was the inability of the line to get more sacks when they had the opportunity. Drew Tate is a very good scrambler, so for Minnesota to have a few “whiffs” was expected. But one of the signs of a true pass rusher is to wrap up when you have the chance, and this is the area where I noticed some lacking. The other thing I didn’t like was the lack of pressure on 3rd and long situations. There is a lot of blame to place on the pass coverage here, but I don’t remember very many times where we were able to get pressure on Tate in these situations.
Grade: B-
Linebackers
If there ever was a day the linebackers didn’t have to do much, Saturday was it. Because Iowa barely ran the ball, there wasn’t much support to provide there. And because Iowa was throwing down the field a lot, there wasn’t a lot to do there. In an effort to keep the linebackers busy, Brandon Owens lined up as a defensive end on at least one occasion (but wasn’t very effective). Terrance Campbell had a nice game, leading the team with 8 tackles including one sack. The linebackers came up with back to back good plays when Iowa had a first and goal inside the 5 yard line to force a field goal. Like I mentioned though, there wasn’t a lot of opportunities for the linebackers to shine with Iowa chucking the ball down the field all game.
Grade: B
Defensive Backs
This is a game the defensive backfield would like to forget. Drew Tate passed 39 times, completing 24 of them, for 333 yards. The most disappointing number for the defensive backs were the zero interceptions. Iowa passed the ball a lot, and everyone in the stadium knew they were going to pass. Given this situation, a couple of interceptions would’ve been a reasonable goal for the secondary in this contest. Besides not getting any interceptions, there were three rough areas that stick out to me. First was Iowa’s first touchdown pass. It was a nice play by Iowa, but hardly anybody from the Gopher secondary even got in the receiver’s way in his run to the end zone. Second was Iowa’s second touchdown pass. There was an obvious miscommunication or missed assignment between Trumaine Banks and Justin Fraley that resulted in an Iowa receiver breaking open by 10 yards deep in the secondary. This is the type of thing you hope not to do in your eleventh game of the year. Also, the number of times Iowa’s receivers were able to break wide open into Minnesota’s loose zone coverage on 3rd and longs also stings. Time after time the Iowa receivers broke open (often by large amounts) on these situations. As a defense, your goal is to put teams in 3rd and long, but unfortunately for the Gopher D, they could hold the Hawkeye’s down in these situations. On the positive side, the coverage did stiffen up considerably in the second half, so at least there was evidence of some positive adjustments being made. But the two long passing touchdowns that Iowa got in the first half proved to be the back breaker in the end.
Grade: C-
Defense Overall
This week was kind of a mixed bag for the defense. They did great in stopping the run (as they should have), but they got burned several times through the air. The passing defense was awful in the first half, but was much better in the second half. Yes, the defense gave up 29 points, but the offense committing 4 turnovers did not help the defense’s cause. But in my mind, what will be remembered from this game is the defense’s inability to stop Iowa’s one-dimensional offense. Despite Iowa being down to their 6th string tailback and the knowledge Iowa would be passing a lot, the defense still allowed Iowa to throw for over 300 yards, obtain a completion percentage of about 66%, and force no turnovers. Pass defense is obviously the big area where improvements are needed if the D is to become formidable for a possible bowl game.
Grade: C-
Special Teams
Obviously, the thing everyone will remember in this game was Rhys Lloyd missed a potential game winning field goal attempt from 51 yards. But to Lloyd’s defense, the offensive play calling didn’t exactly seem very urgent to get Rhys better position. Rhys made his only other field goal attempt; that from 25 yards. Rhys had only one punt, and it was a good one at 62 yards. Unfortunately, it was offset by a 35 yard return, giving it just a 27 yard net. Marion Barber had a nice 18 yard punt return, and the kickoff returns from Gary Russell & Maroney averaged 19 yards. It was a little disappointing to see Minnesota kneel down on so many kickoffs, but since the return gave hasn’t been a strength this year maybe that was for the better. With the exception of the bad kickoff return by Russell and the missed field goal at the end the special teams didn’t have a bad game.
Grade: B
Team Overall:
As strange as it feels to say this, I actually felt that a lot of positive things happened in this game. There were several reasons why the Gophers could’ve quit on the season (which I won’t get into here), but given those factors, I was impressed with the attitude and intensity showed by the Gopher players in this game. (At least compared to previous weeks) In several of the past games, Mason has admitted that the team just “wasn’t ready to play”. That was not the case in this matchup, as just about everyone on the field seemed to be very fired up. This new found intensity worked wonders for the offense. Running the ball is about attitude, and the Gophers had plenty of it in this game. Despite Iowa’s reputation for stuffing running opponents running games, Minnesota stepped up had their way with the Iowa front seven. If there was a moral victory today, this was it.
But aside from the overall intensity and performance of the running game, there wasn’t a whole lot to get excited about. There were 4 turnovers by the offense and none caused by the defense, there was a missed FG to possibly win the game while the Iowa kicker went 5 of 5, there were a couple of costly blown coverages on defense while there was no passing game to speak of from the offense. In the end, these other setbacks proved to be too much against a good Iowa team.
Grade: C+