The Gophers weren’t prepared

The simple fact of the matter is that the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers lost to the underdog University of Illinois (35-32) because they weren’t mentally prepared for the game.  I knew my prediction of an easy win was in trouble when Kent Youngblood of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote in his blog that the Gophers weren’t showing the same energy and enthusiasm for preparation as they had shown the previous week while preparing for Michigan State.  And it turned out he was right!

Winning the second half 25-7 doesn’t mean much if you lose the first half 28-7.  Losing the first half by that margin can only result from coming out flat.  And the responsibility for that does not belong to the players.  Nor does it belong to the Offensive or Defensive Coordinators.  It belongs squarely on the shoulders of the head coach, Tim Brewster.

To be fair, the Gophers haven’t played a lot of games lately where they were easily favored, so it easy to see how a solid victory the previous week over the favored Michigan State Spartans would give the Gophers a sense of well-being that obscured the warning signs of self-satisfaction and over-confidence.  That isn’t something Minnesota has had to deal with much in recent years.

This should be a learning experience for Brewster.  It shouldn’t happen to the Gophers again in the next year or so – until it has faded far enough into memory that Brewster needs to learn the lesson again.  Just as Mark Dantonio wasn’t fired for losing to Minnesota and Ohio State’s Jim Tressel wasn’t fired for losing to Purdue, Brewster shouldn’t be fired  for this.  If it happens again repeatedly, then you start talking about length of contract….  Let’s see what happens this week against serious underdog (FCS) South Dakota State.

What a difference a week makes…

Last week, it was a sad time in the Sugg residence, with everyone losing. This week, the reverse is true – will except for the evil empire known as the Yankees.  The local Minnesota Golden Gophers pulled off a minor upset by downing the Michigan State Spartans – in spite of a record 17 penalties – an embarrassing number of which were personal fouls – Brewster’s gotta talk to those guys about discipline!  And wonder of wonders, the Duke football team surprised by winning their third straight ACC game against UVA.  Sorry about that, Cavalier fans, but that was really a pleasant surprise.  Tarheels next! Wait! What? Aren’t they supposed to play the Heels at the end of the season?  I knew I didn’t like the new ACC lineup….  One more win and the Blue Devils will be bowl eligible!  Who are those guys and where did David Cutcliffe come from.  (Well, I know, but that’s another story….)

Then Sunday the Vikings followed up with a win and season sweep against the arch-rival cheeseheads – I mean Packers.  Ah, basking in the glory…..

To focus more on the Gophers, they won Big Ten offensive AND defensive player of the week, with Adam Weber, the QB from Shoreview MN  throwing for over 400 yards, and Garrett Brown earning several tackles for loss and a forced fumble and recovery.  Wow.  Looks like they rebounded from the beatings by PSU and tOSU – let’s just hope they can keep it up.  Hopefully they will, with the next opponent being Brewster’s alma mater, Illinois.  Woo hoo!  I smell a bowl game in Minnesota’s future.

Gopher O-line – the future

The Minnesota Golden Gophers’ offensive line has been more than a little disappointing this year.  Let’s take a look at where it has been and where it appears to be going.

Tim Brewster arrived as head coach in the 2007 season, and that year the Gophers had a respectable offense – not great, but not awful.  (If you are wondering, the 1-11 record was due to the worst defense in the country…  Literally the worst: they were ranked 119 out of 119.  How Everett Withers got hired away by UNC, I’ll never understand.)  In spite of absorbing a new head coach, a new offensive coordinator and a completely new offensive system and starting a freshman quarterback, the offense achieved respectability because they had an experienced, senior-led offensive line.

Well, as experienced seniors do, they graduated and left the 2008 Gophers with an offensive line composed of sophomores and redshirt freshmen.  You can imagine what happened to the offense – it traded places with the defense in terms of awfulness (although they didn’t reach 119 out of 119).  Complicating things was the loss of the best running back to a knee injury at the beginning of the season.  The sophomores and redshirt freshman linemen were thrust into the breach against defenses loaded with experienced juniors and seniors who had spent their entire college careers playing in one defensive system for one coordinator.  Fortunately for the Golden Gophers, the departed Everett Withers was replaced by  Ted Roof, a former Duke head coach, whose brilliant work and the help of some quality junior college transfers lifted the Minnesota defense to respectability.

So now where are we?  The 2009 Golden Gophers started the season with a brand new offensive coordinator and a brand new offensive line coach/running game coordinator.  The OC is a wunderkind who brought in a pro-style offense that is completely new to his charges.  The new OL coach has an impressive resume, with experience tutoring the offensive line at Southern California during national championship seasons.  Prospects for these two coaches appear very bright.

However, even though the OL is approaching a respectable level of maturity (a senior, 3 juniors and a sophomore), the new coaches have brought in a whole new offensive system.  The offense is absorbing this new system while playing against experienced defensive units well-schooled in the systems used to construct their game plans.  Being 4-4 at this point of the season against a tougher schedule than those of previous years is a real achievement.

So now let’s look at the future.  In 2010 I project the Gopher offensive line will include:

LT – (will be a) Sr – Dominic Alford 6′ 3″ 336 – will live up to the level of talent his coaches have projected for him, after a year and a half of working with OL coach Tim Davis

LG – Jr – Chris Bunders 6′ 3″ 320 – incumbent who has graded out as the best offensive lineman more than once after games this year

C  – Jr – Ryan Wynn 6′ 5″ 295  – won the starting spot in going into 2009 before back problems caused  him to sit out the year

RG – Sr – Matt Carufel  6′ 5″ 305 – 4-star Notre Dame transfer and Cretin Derham Hall grad who should really blossom with a year of experience with Davis and the new system

RT – Sr – Jeff Wills – 6′ 7″ 350 -  JC Transfer who has been somewhat controversial because of difficulty living up to the outrageous expectations inspired by his size.  Has had to learn an entirely new offensive system as well as how to play in the Big 10 without the redshirt year afforded Carufel

Wild Cards that could affect the continuity of the line and the offense:

• The possibility of bringing in another JC transfer.  Not my favorite idea, after seeing how long it has taken Carufel and Wills to adapt to the offense.  In my mind, it would be better to redshirt a JC transfer if he has a RS year available.
• Two Brewster freshman scholarship recruits are redshirting this year (as are a couple of walkons), and given the talent upgrade we’ve seen from Brewster recruits over their predecessors, I see it as slightly possible that one of these youngsters could displace one of the linemen listed above.
• Health and injuries.  Having a quintet of experienced linemen play a whole season together is not rare, but it is not something you can bank on.
• Retention of coordinators.  Given Brewster’s history of losing coordinators, it must be seen as a possibility that OL coach Tim Davis, who is also “running game coordinator” could be spirited away by an SEC  team or somebody else with more money to spend, as were Ted Roof and Everett Withers after previous seasons

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The most exciting thing about the future of the offensive line at the University of Minnesota is the list of 6 recruits currently committed to come play for the Golden Gophers (a 4-star and five 3-star recruits), with the slight possibility of adding a super-recruit or two.  We should soon see the weakness of the offensive line become a major strength.

Obviously, 6 recruits can’t all play, but it is likely that one or two will be moved to the defensive line and possible that one or two will bail before actually signing with Minnesota, or an upperclassman could transfer out.

But that’s how you build a quality roster in college football…

Latest thoughts on local teams

- It was hard being a football fan in Minnesota this weekend. The Gophers lost badly to “the” Ohio State University (expected) and the Vikings lost to the Steelers (not unexpected). In fact if you throw in the Gopher hockey team off to a miserable start, the local pro hockey team (the Minnesota Wild), the disappointing ending of the Twins season last week at the hands of the hated Yankees and the miserable prospects for the Timberwolves (for multiple years),  “Minnesohta” fans are having a tough go. Maybe Farvelous can help with that.
- Brett Favre is doing as expected.  Maybe even better, with a couple of last second wins already.  The question is whether he can continue to stand up through the season. He looked great last year with the Jets till this time of the year, but then….   This week in Green Bay should be fun…
- The Gopher football team is sure taking a bashing in the online discussion boards. C’mon – did anyone really expect them to have a chance against tOSU?  The game was close for a half and then the not-so-golden Gophers melted down. The season record is right where 90% of people predicted it would be at this point in the season, so what’s the complaint? The Gophers will be fine with a couple more years of patience.  Some small progress this year and next and then big progress in 2011.  If you consider schedule strength, this is a much better team than the one Brewster took over from Mason.  His team couldn’t even pretend to play defense.
- Patience!  That’s what it takes in college football. You don’t get to draft at the top of the first round, or trade with other colleges to shore up weak points. You have to go out and painstakingly recruit position by position. And then it takes 2 or 3 years (plus the redshirt year) before most of your recruits have the experience and knowledge to be ready to compete on a substantially higher level.  Remember Mack Brown, head coach of Texas?  He went something like 1-10 in each of his first two years at UNC (with Tim Brewster as his assistent, don’t forget).  Now Mack is one of the deans of college coaches at Texas, with a perennial winner and a national championship under his belt.  Patience!  Be glad we only had one one-win season with Brew.

Brett Favre – Favrelous

Brett Favre showed why the Vikings signed him when he threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to win the game with 2 seconds remaining on the clock.  Wow!!!    And he threw it to Greg “who was that guy” Lewis, a sub seeing his first game action.

Until that point, I had been thinking Brett looked a little old – at least in the leg department. His arm strength looked as good as ever, including and especially on the final pass. On the other hand, the legs seemed missing to me.

I know when the Vikings signed him, I pictured him scrambling for 18 yards on 3rd and 15 – like he always did for the Packers against the Vikes. Well not only has he not been doing that this year, he doesn’t even seem to have the “pocket sense” to move around in the pocket and avoid oncoming rushers.

Perhaps it is the stricture of “manage the game” that coach Childress has him under, but I find myself a little worried. We’ll probably see next Monday night against the fore-mentioned Pack…..

Gophers and Northwestern

Well, I predicted this (in my mind), but you’ll have to take my word for it, since I didn’t post it… The Gopher offensive line showed up today for the first time this season. The Gopher football team defeated Northwestern University to open their Big 10 season with a win.

The o-line has had a tough time until this weak. First, against Syracuse, they were penalty ridden and not very good. Then against Air Force they struggled against a smaller, quicker defensive line, and in week three they were overmatched by the Cal Bears.

Congrats to the O-Line for beginning to show what they are made of by protecting the qback and opening holes for over 160 yards of rushing. We’ll need a lot more of that to continue to have success through the rest of the season.

Are the Twins done on August 10th

No, of course not.  They are within reach of the teams ahead of them, have several games left against those teams, and are no more flawed than the teams they are chasing.

But it is time to start worrying.

• Has the starting pitching rotation proved to be too young and inexperienced?
• Can a team survive with mimimal production from the middle infield?
• Can a bullpen survive when it is continually asked to cover for starters who only cover a couple of innings

Two recent trades for Orlando Cabrera and Carl Pavano provide a little bit of hope.  Cabrera adds experience and mentoring and hopefully Pavano can do the same for the young (all rookies and 2nd year men) starting rotation.

Ah, August in the NFL

The month when NFL teams (and, of course, their fans) all believe they can compete for the Super Bowl – granted some with more validity than others.

The month when a story about an unknown rookie named Asher or Jasper can really get the blood going…  Or a story about Percy Harvin brings out daydreams of football in January – this could be the year!!!

If only the Vikings had a proven quarterback…  They are the only team being thought of as a contender for their division and beyond who doesn’t have an experienced, capable signal caller – just a couple of unproven journeymen.  Will one of them step up and fulfill the so far undiscovered promise?  I guess that is what the season will tell us.

Update to “diving into first base”

While I still stand by my theory that Punto increases his speed when he dives head-first into first base the way he aims to – which is to touch the base with his hand before landing with the rest of the body.  If he achieves that my theory works.

However, if he lands with his body first (which he does frequently, by my observation), the drag slows him down and he would be better off running through the bag….

Oh well.   As Emily Litella would say “never mind.”

Top 4 factors in the Gophers’ recruitment of Seantrel Henderson

First of all, let me say that the success or failure of landing one recruit does NOT determine the success or failure of a recruiting class, except maybe at places like “Rivals.com”.  Recruiting classes can only be judged as a whole, and only after 2 or 3 years.  Does the class improve the overall talent level of the team?  While I hope the Minnesota lands Seantrel Henderson, Tim Brewster will not rise or fall based on whether or not Henderson becomes a Gopher.

That said, here are my top 4 factors:

4.  How does SH get along with Tubby Smith and the basketball team.  (And why would he want to go to USC if basketball is a factor.  The USC  hoops program is a mess.)

3.  How does the U of M football team fare in the 2009 season.  Not necessarily how many games do they win, but do they stay competitive in most of their games.  Winning 7 or 8 but getting blown out in the rest would not be good.  I’m sure SH will want to see that the program appears to be going in the right direction.

2. How does the offense perform under the new Offensive Coordinator and with another year of experience for what is still a pretty young unit.

1. How does the offensive line perform under new OL coach Tim Davis.  Davis comes with a sterling reputation, but if I were Seantrel, I’d want to see what happens in the trenches and whether Davis lives up to his rep.

I don’t mean to imply that I think Seantrel is the Gophers’ to lose, but I do believe that unless Tim Brewster and his coaches make a major gaffe and turn SH off, the Gophers will be in the hunt till the end because of the home town factor.

All of that said, I am going to try to sit back not get caught up in all of the hubbub that surrounds the recruiting of an 18-year old and the many silly, misleading and downright false stories that will swirl around this amazing prospect until signing day.