Gopher Football
Quarterbacks
Though the final numbers weren’t great (11-33, 211 yards, 2 TD’s, 2 int’s), I don’t think that Bryan Cupito played all that bad of a game. The Gopher running game was getting stuffed, the defense was not stopping MSU at all, and before you knew it the Gopher were down by 21 and had to try and pass to get back in the game. Add to that the offensive line not doing a very good job in protection, and you have major trouble. Just about any quarterback that is put in a position like that is probably going to struggle. Cupito was able to hit on a couple more long passes to Wheelwright, and he did a nice job in finding Wallace on the medium length routes. But one area where Bryan might still be struggling is with command of the offense. There are probably several reasons why the Gopher offense isn’t eating up yards in chunks as consistently as they did last year, but one of them I feel is Cupito having the same ability as Asad did to check in to the right play. Each game there are a few plays where you are left wondering why the Gophers ran a particular play against what looked to be a good defense against it. Improvement will come with time, so I don’t think this is a big enough issue to call for a quarterback change.
Grade: C-
Running Backs
Neither Laurence Maroney nor Marion Barber really did bad, they really just never got a chance. Because the Gopher offense sputtered early and MSU built up a huge lead, the Gophers abandoned the running game early. Thus, for the game, the two backs combined to rush 21 times for 103 yards. For the most part the running game was stuffed, but Maroney did eventually bust out for a nice run after the game was already in hand. In a game like this though, the running backs usually end up as blockers as the offense goes exclusively to the pass. This grade is somewhat of an incomplete when you consider you’re not getting a true indication of the running game when they only get 21 carries.
Grade: C
Wide Receivers / Tight Ends
The lone bright spot for the Gophers on Saturday was the play of WR’s Ernie Wheelwright and Jakari Wallace. Wheelwright continues to show that he will be a star in the Big Ten. Despite his big 6’5″ frame, he has continually been beating the defensive backs on deep routes. This in turn is opening up shorter routes for him. Look for Wheelwright’s role in the offense to continue to grow as him and Cupito become more familiar with each other. Jakari Wallace continues to be a solid option to pass to. In this game he led the Gophers with 5 catches for an impressive average of 19 yards per catch. Jared Ellerson was thrown to a lot today, but a combination of bad passes for Cuptio and Ellerson’s inability to get open lead to just 1 catch for 2 yards for him. Matt Spaeth had a day to forget. Matt was thrown to 3 times and dropped 2 of them, including a crucial 3rd down pass.
Grade: C+
Offensive Line
The Gopher offensive line continues to struggle in Big Ten play. The outside running game definitely has been taken down a few notches. Opposing defenses seem to have figured out how to counter this play. Most of the time when the Gophers run wide, there are just so many bodies out there the line never can get the big push it’s used to and thus can’t get upfield. The pass blocking wasn’t much better. Cupito was under more pressure on Saturday than he had been all season. It’s always a lot tougher to pass block when the defense knows you are going to throw, but it still isn’t an excuse for the amount of pressure they allowed. The line also had at least three false start penalties, which made things all that more difficult for the offense.
Grade: D-
Offense Overall
A reoccurring theme in each of the position recaps was how the offense changes when you get so far behind. So in order to get the best indication of how the offense played, you have to look at how things went before the game got out of hand. When you do that, you see that things still started off on the wrong foot. On their first possession, the offense came out and passed three straight times without gaining a first down and were forced to punt. On the second possession, the Gophers got a first down after two runs, but then after a 1 yard run, they passed the next two times and had to punt. The third possession was a disappointment. The Gophers took over with good field position after a turnover, but could muster only one first down and had to settle for a field goal. It wasn’t until the fourth possession that the Gophers connected on the big 58 yard TD by Wheelwright. Unfortunately, the next time the offense saw the ball, Minnesota was behind 28-10 and any normalcy in the offense disappeared. Looking back, it was the offensive struggles on the first 3 possessions that really hurt the team. This offense has enough talent where it should be able to give the defense some rest once in a while by sustaining a long drive, but that did not really happen at all today.
Grade: D+
Defensive Line
This was the worst I have seen our defensive line play in a long, long time. Michigan State did almost anything they wanted offensively, and not one time do I ever remember the line standing up and stopping the Spartans from doing so. Again, the DL was extremely vulnerable to getting run on right up the middle. I don’t know how much more I can say about this that hasn’t already been said. The new problem seen in the run defense today was the inability of the line to contain the quarterback draws. Even though it seemed like they were in position to stop it several times, the MSU QB almost always was able to squeeze out and turn in a 10 yard gain. The pass rush from the front four has not improved at all, and remains horrible. There were a couple times where the line was able to flush Stanton from the pocket, but if that is as good as you can do then you know you’re having problems. Stanton had all day to throw, and this showed in his 19 pass completions for 300 yards.
Grade: F
Linebackers
For the second consecutive week, the linebackers struggled mightily against a multi dimensional offense. They joined the rest of the defense in turning in a horrible tackling performance this week. The most obvious one I can think of was Kyle McKenzie missing a tackle in the backfield which led to a 43 yard touchdown run. Michigan State was able to turn routine plays into big gains all day. Once the player breaks though the defensive line it’s the linebackers job to take care of them. But all day, due to missed tackles, bad angles, or missed assignments, the linebackers failed to get the job done. Terrance Campbell played what may very well have been his worst game of the year. Dominique Sims, though not doing very well himself, looked like he played the best of anybody here. After two consecutive bad performances, the linebackers really need to get things going again.
Grade: F
Secondary
Welcome to the Big Ten Quentin White. An injury to starting free safety John Pawielski forced White into his first career start, and needless to say he didn’t have a very good game. The most obvious gaffe was the blown coverage on the deep post route to the Spartan TE. White, along with the other Gopher defensive backs, had a horrible time in trying to tackle in rush support. The really discouraging part of the performance today, was Minnesota was supposed to be playing a “don’t try to stop them, just try to contain them” defensive philosophy. Knowing that, it was especially painful to see the defense blow their coverage and allow two long touchdown passes. On the positive side, the secondary did pick off two passes. But we should note that these were more of Drew Stanton making bad throws than it was a Gopher making a good defensive play.
Grade: F
Defense Overall
The defense looked lazy, confused, outmanned and outcoached today. The only stops the defense had were the two easy interceptions. If you take those away, Michigan State scored on every possession until 4th quarter, when the D finally forced the Spartans to punt. Coming into this game, Coach Mason said that Minnesota wasn’t going to try to stop Michigan State; just hope to contain them. Well, I think we saw on Saturday what happens when you try that. You neither stop nor contain them. It takes almost a complete collapse of the defense on all levels to give up 633 yards and 51 points, and that’s what happened. Both of those stats are about as bad as you will ever see in a Big Ten conference football game. Remember, there were no MSU defensive or special teams TD’s in this game. ALL 633 yards and 51 points were put up on the watch of the Gopher defense. With an underrated Illinois offense coming next week, the defense will have to improve a lot in several areas if Minnesota is to get back on track.
Defensive Grade: F
Special Teams
Finally, a unit that actually had a good game for the Gophers! Aside from the 50 yard kickoff return to open the game, the kickoff team held a dangerous Michigan State return game in check. On punt returns, Minnesota held the Spartans to just 2 yards on 4 returns. Rhys Lloyd didn’t have a great game punting, but he wasn’t horrible either so I think we have to be happy with that. In the kicking game, Rhys was solid again, going 2-2 on XP’s and nailing a 37 yard FG. Bad kickoff returns continue to plague the Gophers. Minnesota averaged just 18 yard on 5 returns.
Grade: B+
Overall Team Grade
There were so many bad things to happen this game, I almost don’t know where to start. I suppose the biggest one is this was Minnesota’s worst loss since losing 56-21 to Purdue in 1998. The other really bad number was the 636 yards the defense allowed. Minnesota did manage 313 yards, but that was well below their season average. The offense was only 1-13 on 3rd down efficiency, and the defense allowed the Spartans to go 10-15 on 3rd downs. The Gophers were out played and out coached, and they never really seemed to have their head in the game. They dropped passes, they missed tackles, they blew coverages and they didn’t execute. Despite rain falling for most of the game, the offense came out and passed on their first three plays. This wasn’t exactly the 1994 Penn State team that was lighting up the Minnesota either. Michigan State came into this game with the 4th ranked offense in the Big Ten and 7th in total defense. Any way you look at it, the Gophers got their butts kicked against a team that they expected to beat. This was a big step back in the direction of the program, and the team will need to go through quick healing process for what will be a tough game next week against Illinois.
Overall Team Grade: D-