clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Minnesota Football Post-Game Review - Colorado State Week 2

Gophers Win, Yet Feels Like A Loss; Decisions Have To Be Made

By dvits14
Troy Babbitt-USA TODAY Sports

In my first post with TDG I talked about how much I enjoy this community. I can't express enough how much I respect the fact we can have healthy discussions without cheap shots or personal attacks that take place in other forums. Let's all try and remember that this week as we discuss what we saw in Saturday's win over CSU and what the team needs to do moving forward. It's ok to disagree, but lets remember we are all in this together and we all want to see the same thing; the Gophers be the best they can be. So let's keep things civil and have a discussion.

Last week in the Stroll I defended Mitch Leidner in the TCU loss, unfortunately I can't defend him after the CSU win. Bad Mitch showed up yesterday, plain and simple. It was not a good day for him. Yet he once again showed why people are so torn on him. He was darn near flawless on the winning drive go ahead drive. He made a big-time, cold-blooded pass to Maye for the go ahead TD. That drive and pass are why all of us sit here and scratch our heads and wonder where that is all of the time? It's maddening.

As I'm sitting here typing this I am gaining a much better appreciation for why coaches make so much money. I don't know what to do about the QB situation. I'm honestly at a complete loss for what to do. Do you continue to ride Mitch and hope that Good Mitch shows up more often than not? Do you keep riding him but have a shorter leash on the days bad Mitch shows up? Who do you turn to in that situation? For those still calling for Streveler to start, well, him switching numbers should tell you all you need to know about that...

Dating back to last season even, there have been a lot of people clamoring to see Perra play. I'm torn on this issue. There is a reason he didn't receive a single FBS scholarship offer to play QB (I mean no disrespect by that, just stating the facts). There are deficiencies in his game as well. He throws a pretty ball, there is no denying that. That said, until this past week, the majority of his snaps in practice have been against the third and fourth team defenses. Is that really showing a lot then? Let's see what he can do against Murray and BBC in practice before we anoint him the next Tom Brady. So is handing the reigns over to a Walk-On RS-FR the answer? I honestly don't know. Part of me says lets temper our expectations for him. Another part of me is now starting to say, what the heck, throw him in there and see what he can do. I don't just don't know.

There is another faction of fans and media clamoring to see Croft play. I don't know what to do here either. I was at the fall scrimmage, the kid has the "it" factor. A blind person can see his talent. But to me, he needs to add a good 15-20 pounds to take the pounding he is going to take in the B1G. Does that matter though? I don't know. I honestly don't. More importantly, is he ready to take over the reigns? There are going to be massive growing pains for him. My opinion, you protect his Red-Shirt and don't play him unless absolutely necessary. I would start Rhoda over Croft if you have to. Then next year you can truly have the conversation about playing him. However, if you are going to turn to him, you don't turn back. You ride it out for better or worse. But that's just my opinion.

All I know for sure is this, whatever decision is made, said decision will have massive ramifications for this program going forward. Now, with all of that said, I do want to also say the CSU offensive debacle was a system wide failure, not just a QB failure.

Wow, did I really just hammer out a 700 word article without even mentioning they beat CSU? All of this consternation and it's after a victory. We've come a long way Gopher fans. A long way.

Now let's get to what really matters. The top hashtags for the CSU game were:

#SkiUMah

#Gophers

#MINNvsCSU

Steven Richardson deserves a serious hat tip for his play in the CSU game and @yorka1982 does just that.

Who says Gopher fans don't travel? @NadineBabu proves that theory wrong.

There wasn't a lot of great things to discuss offensively, but @jdmill points out that Drew Wolitarsky may have had his coming out party. So this is what he can do when healthy? I like it!

I agree @michellev3 I agree.

@NateGelber I can't really add much to this...

@BenjaminJDawson asks the truly important questions.

National reporter @Ivan_Maisel noticed an interesting trend that should be discussed more as well. Why did we pass 45 times when the run was working?

@Matthewkrier totally nails Mitch's performance in the CSU game.

And last but not certainly not least, the Karma gawds struck our old friend Bert once again. You just can't make this stuff up.

So what were you favorite Tweets this week?

#SkiWhewMah

In This Stream

Minnesota Football defeats Colorado State 23-20: Post Game Recap, Review, and Thoughts

View all 31 stories

More From The Daily Gopher