The Best Case, The Worst Case, and The Most Likely
by Buck Bravo on Oct 24, 2009 2:57 PM CDT
in Gopher Football
4 comments
After an abysmal two weeks at Penn State and Ohio State, Minnesota is now 4-4 with 4 games remaining in the season. What are the possible outcomes for the year, and what will need to happen for each outcome to become a reality? I have plans at 3PM, so here's my 15 minute assessment:
The Best Case
Realistically, the best case scenario would be to defeat Michigan State, Illinois, and South Dakota State for a 7-5 record and a trip to a decent bowl game. What would be needed for this to occur?:
- Recover from the moral defeat of the last two weeks, and return to early season form by next Saturday.
- Use Marquies Gray more extensively at quarterback. Adam Weber's accuracy, decision-making, footwork, ability to recognize defensive schemes, and confidence have regressed. Even if Gray isn't quite ready to be the full-time starter, he needs to see at least half of the snaps.
- Mix things up on offense and avoid predictability. For example, don't huddle before every single offensive play. Catch the defense off guard by occasionally running two plays in a row.
- Keep going with the above-average defensive plan from early in the season.
The Worst Case
Minnesota's worst case scenario would be to lose to Michigan State, Illinois, South Dakota State, and Iowa for a 4-8 record. Here's how that could happen:
- The emotional catastrophe of the last two weeks carries through the next three weeks.
- Eric Decker remains injured.
- Adam Weber takes the vast majority of the snaps and Marquies Gray continues to be used sparingly. How this team uses Marquies Gray for the rest of the season may determine bowl eligibility, Brewster's future, and the program's future.
- The offensive play-calling remains the same.
- The defense loses their fire when they realize that the offense cannot score.
The Most Likely Case
Most likely, Minnesota will defeat either Michigan State or Illinois in a close game, and along with South Dakota State will get to 6 wins. With both Michigan State and Illinois playing at TCF Bank Stadium and having inconsistent seasons, there is a realistic chance that Minnesota can defeat one of them. South Dakota State should be beatable by a Big Ten team. They have no chance against Iowa. Hello Detroit?
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In my humble opinion, the most likely ...
is a 6-6 finish after MSU almost knocking off Iowa. Likely losses will occur with MSU & Iowa. They have a chance with Illinois & SDSU.
Gophs are in a tough spot at recruiting the next tier prospects (more 4 & 5 *) with losses to The Badgers, and dismal performance against PSU & OSU. They have a chance to turn the ship around ever so small this season if they can eak-out a victory against MSU and finish 7-5.
I think we will have to forget about even entertaining the thought of Seantrel being a Golden Gopher in spite of JD Pride. Seantrel can punch his ticket to go anywhere. Other than being close to family, he is thinking about the Pros.
It is a good idea to start building along the way Marquess & even one of the other QBs. Play Weber, but get Gray more involved. They need to build confidence with their other receivers.
As much as I like Decker, the Gophs are almost uni-dimensional this season. They mimic the Vikes last season with TJack only throwing passes aslmost exclusively to Bobby Wade. What difference does a season make. Now the Vikes Receivers & TEs are showing more confidence.
They need to take a page off the Farve playbook and start developing & distributing passes to the other receivers and even to the back more often. Hopefully, the O-Line will gain more experience & with addition of the new prospects the Gophs can protect their QBs better. With the Vikes winning, the O-Line & everyone else is playing with much more confidence. They really believe they can win on any Sunday.
The coaching needs to settle down, too. They recruited for the Spread Offense last year, and then this year they have an entirely new scheme and new assistant coaches. They’ve got to implement a good disciplined system like what Iowa does and play to the strengths of their talents.
Winning is infectious. It brings more confidence, and hopefully more wins can translate into recruiting wins.
The game against MSU is the most pivotal game of the season for the Gophs in all sense of the word. A 7-5 finish is what the doctor orders for this program.
They need to give either QB a whole series
Seems like 2 or 3 times in the first half it’ll look like Weber’s got his head on straight, then they’ll put in Grey for 2 or 3 plays and when Weber comes back he is out of it again. If they want to get Grey in the game (and they should) have him run a series start to finish, no-more of this 2 plays in the middle of a drive stupidity. Doing what they’re doing seems to screw with Weber’s head and makes him useless for the rest of the game.
This week was a great example. I think it was the second quarter. Up to this point the mulligans have been on drops and false starts, but the Goofs are moving the ball, and Weber has been just fine. We start with that ball around the 10, Weber makes 2 good throws on slants for a total of about 30 yards. The ball goes where only the target can catch it, receiver doesn’t have to make any major adjustments. Then they decide it’s MG time, 2 runs for 6 yards or so, bring Weber back in and he bounces a short pass that would have been a first down.
Why the hell go with Gray there? You can’t let Weber finish his own drive and then let MG have the next one. Coaching decisions like that are clearly not helping the kid get his head on straight. I don’t think it helps Grey either, he doesn’t need to learn that he only gets two downs to get the first, or that pressure situations are not his responsibility.
That ended up longer than intended.
Next Week
Tune in next week to see if Brew rides the Weber train out of town. If he can’t see that Gray is a better QB than Weber right now, I think we should get rid of him. Weber is playing too tight, he is trying to guide the ball all the way to the receiver which causes the pass to bounce to the receiver. I’ve been a big Brewser supporter because he is bringing in speed and talent, but this is such a no-brainer given our offense can’t move the ball with Weber. Gray can actually complete a pass to a receiver not named Decker, which is good because Decker may be out for the season or at least hobbled.
I’m getting really tired of waiting until next year. This was an embarassing loss against an OSU team that has no real offense either. You knew going in that all they had to do was keep Pryor in the pocket and don’t let him run outside for first downs. We didn’t stop that either.
Our D
had to have been exhausted after the offense could barely keep them off the field. They blew some plays all by their lonesome, but still. We still need some additional speed on D to at least contain someone like Pryor if he scrambles.
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 26, 2009 2:58 PM CDT up reply actions
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