Gopher Football
Quarterbacks
Starting QB Bryan Cupito had a pretty quiet performance Saturday night. For the game he was 8-18 for 113 yards, with no TD passes and his first interception of the year. The only major fault I saw from Cuptio is that 2 of his 18 passes were batted down by the defensive line; the second of which resulted in his first interception of the year. So far this hasn’t been a chronic problem, so as of now I’ll just credit this to good defensive play by Penn State. Once again, Cupito continued to make pretty solid decisions. I didn’t see any forced passes that obviously shouldn’t have been thrown (at least of those that were incomplete), and he had a touchdown pass robbed from him when a receiver dropped what looked to be a easy catch on a nicely thrown ball. Also deserving of credit was Bryan’s scrambling tonight. Three times he scrambled, each of them getting the team a first down, or least close.
Grade: B
Running Backs
The game plan clearly dictated that Laurence Maroney and Marion Barber were going to be asked to carry the bulk of the load for the offense. The Gophers went with a pretty vanilla offense which resulted in a lot of pretty basic running plays, and overall the results were mixed. Again this week Maroney turned in the better numbers. Laurence ran 25 times for 144 yards and one touchdown. His highlight was the big 62 yard run on 3rd and 11. It was a little surprising to see Laurence get caught from behind on that play, but something tells me we won’t see that happen very much. Maroney also had a couple of nice runs in short yardage situations in which he used skills other than his speed to get first downs.
For the second consecutive week, Marion Barber found the going much more difficult than Maroney did. Penn State didn’t give him a lot of room, and unlike Maroney he never had that 60+ yard run to help his stats out. But what Marion did have is one of the more impressive touchdown runs in Gophers history. He took a handoff from the 19 yard line, broke outside, and for the last 10 yards broke tackles and dragged defenders into the endzone. This run gave his TD run against Wisconsin last year a run for its money.
Grade: B+
Wide Receivers / Tight Ends
Since Bryan Cupito has a quiet game, it also usually means that the receivers had a quiet game, and that was the case here. Leading all receivers was freshman Ernie Wheelwright. The Big Wheel had 3 receptions for 76 yards, including a very nice over the shoulder reception on a deep pass. The only other receiver that did very much was Jared Ellerson, who had 3 catches for 14 yards. Most of Jared’s yards came on a nice tightrope run along the sidelines after a reception. Jakari Wallace continued to make his presence felt with a nice 15 yard run on a reverse and later with a 21 yard first down reception. Unfortunately, Jakari also dropped what should’ve been a very easy touchdown pass. The Tight Ends did not have a reception tonight. Going into next week, it would be nice to see the receivers establish themselves a little more, especially with a defense as tough as Michigan coming up.
Grade: B-
Offensive Line
For the second consecutive game, the offensive line had their hands full Penn State was billed as the best defense the Gophers have faced this year, and that certainly turned out to be the case. Penn State did stuff the box with defenders at times like other teams have, and just like in the game last week the running backs were often trying to shed defenders in the backfield. It was a pretty rare occurrence when the line was able to get out in front of the play and block downfield. Part of this was the fact that Penn State was stacking the line, but part of it was because the line didn’t always do a very good blocking. However, the line did a pretty good job in pass protection. The Nittany Lions did record one sack on what appeared to be either a blown blocking assignment or broken play, but that was really about it in the way of major pressure.
Grade: C
Offense Overall
It’s kind of tough to get a read on the performance of the offense this week. This was not the kind of offenseive game we’ve grown accustomed to watching, but they did continue their steak of 400 yard games. The final totals showed 401 total yards, with 288 rushing and 113 receiving. But for as much as it looked like the offense struggled at times, you king of got the feeling watching it that the coaching staff didn’t really care. The was very little variance from the base offense, and they kept going back to the same plays even though they weren’t always working. Why did the coaches choose to do this? Was Mason keeping the game close out of respect for Paterno? Are the coaches trying to hide the big plays in anticipation of the Michigan game next week? Maybe we’ll never know, but seeing that the offense moved the ball when they needed to and scored enough points to win, you can’t be too unimpressed.
Overall Grade: C+
Defensive Line
Another tremendous effort was turned in last weekend by the defensive line. After one early run, the line completely shut down the Penn State rushing game. For the game the Lions could only muster 21 yards on 22 attempts (This number is adjusted for sacks). Everyone up front deserves credit for this very good performance. Darrell Reid continues to progress as a pass rusher. Darrell recorded two sacks tonight and was harassing Zach Mills several other times. The rest of the line didn’t keep up with Reid in applying pressure, but that is really the only thing I could find wrong with their performance.
Grade: A
Linebackers
Getting right to the bad, it was a little bit concerning to see the Penn State running backs see such big receiving numbers. Running Back Tony Hunt led Penn State in receiving with 7 catches for a whopping 110 yards. These numbers were the result of both screen and swing passes. Fullback Paul Jefferson chipped in 5 receptions for 24 yards. It would be nice to see the linebackers doing a better job at reading the screen passes, especially with Michigan coming up. Even though there were struggles with the LB’s defending the pass, they did an excellent job in helping out the run. Kyle McKenzie continues to show a big speed increase in the middle compared to Ben West last year. With the rush defense playing so well this can really help the defense tighten up the pass defense.
Grade: B+
Secondary
Things didn’t go quite as good for the defensive backs as they did last week against Northwestern, but it wasn’t too far of a step down. Zach Mills was able to find some receivers open for some medium length routes, and Justin Fraley got burned a little bit by a tight end which gave Penn State their only touchdown. On the positive side, it was nice to see John Pawielski make a nice interception in the end zone that essentially ended the game. Ukee Dozier also made several nice plays in coverage. The biggest criticism I would offer is that the play isn’t really that consistent yet. The number is “œgood” plays have definitely increased from last year, but there still are occasional lapses in coverage.
Grade: B+
Defense Overall
For the second straight game, the defense turned in a very solid overall performance. No, this wasn’t the 1994 Penn State offense that was on the field tonight, but you still have to give the “˜D’ credit for doing with they needed to do. The most impressive part of the night was obviously the rushing defense. Whenever you can hold a Big Ten team to 21 yards rushing, you know you are doing something right. What is more of a concern was the pass defense, especially on the passes to the running banks. Some Gopher fans may have seen visions of Michigan dancing in their heads with the success the Lions were having on the screen passes. With the Wolverines on the schedule next week, this will be something that needs to be addressed in a hurry. Looking at the big picture again, the defense should have a lot of confidence heading into Ann Arbor next week. Once again they held the opponent under 300 yards of total offense and just one touchdown.
Overall Grade: A-
Special Teams
After last week, you would’ve thought it wasn’t possible for the Special Teams to play any worse. Well “˜last week’, meet “˜this week’! I will go out on a limb right now and say the Special Teams can not play any worse. The big problem is obviously that the Gophers are having catastrophic problems in their kicking game. It would be interesting to know if a D-1 college football team has ever had 5 kicks blocked in a two week span. If not, this isn’t a record the Gophers will be proud to have. For the night, kicker Rhys Lloyd was 1-2 on XP’s, and 1-3 on FG’s. When asked about this issue after the game, Mason’s gut reaction was the Lloyd is not getting enough height on his kicks. But after watching the replays, you could see Penn State defenders breaking through the line rather easily at times. Moving on, Marion Barber struggled in the punt return game. In the first half, he signaled for a fair catch, only to back away from the ball and let it bounce. The ball then ended up bouncing backwards 20 yards. Marion fumbled another punt but luckily recovered it. The one positive to take away from the special teams tonight was the punting game. Rhys Lloyd had 6 punts for 242 yards with a long of 55. Even thought there is still room for improvement here, this was better than previous weeks.
Grade: F
Team Overall
Well, there’s really not a whole lot to talk about after this game. The defense did well, the special teams stunk, and the offense just kind of went through the motions. I don’t have any sources in the inner circle of the coaching staff, but one would have to guess that Minnesota wanted to keep the game as boring as possible so as not to give Michigan too much to look at for next week. If you believe that theory, then there wasn’t a lot wrong with this game (other than the kicking). However, if you don’t buy into that theory, then you may feel there are some serious issues with the offense. The running game has run into a bit of a wall (despite 288 yards tonight), and the passing game is not the dangerous weapon it was earlier in the year. What we do know is this. One, Minnesota won the game 16-7, and Penn State never really threatened. Two, we will know a lot more about this team after the Michigan game. A win is a win, the Gophers are now 5-0, one win away from bowl elegiblity, and tied for first in the Big Ten at 2-0.
Overall Team Grade: B-