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Minnesota Football Week 3: Three Stars, 4 Quarters, 5 Thoughts

Who were the stars for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team in last week's win over the Kent State Golden Flashes? It's Time for 3 Stars, 4 Quarters, 5 Thoughts.

By Norsk_Gopher

In the end, the image below is what really matters....well, not to life but in our fandom.

Minnesota Football 2015 vs Kent State

Via Twitter.com/GopherFootball

Three Stars

#12 Cody Poock (RS So. - LB)

He had a great game. I'm feeling pretty good about him.

#37 Peter Mortell (RS Sr. - P)

The best thing to ever come out of Wisconsin. He continually flipped the field.

Defense as a Whole

Elite in pass defense. I was worried about the run D at the start of the game, but by the end of the day they brought me around. Along with Peter Mortell, they D made the following happen.

Honorable Mention - The Fans

Huge crowd at this came. Very, very cool. No more booing of Minnesota players please (not that I don't understand it).

Four Quarters

Minnesota vs Kent State Stats

Via Twitter.com/GopherFootball

1st Quarter

The Kent State Golden Flashed showed some interesting play calling, going with 9 straight runs including a going for it on 4th down in Minnesota territory. Luckily they had a penalty on their 6th run setting up 2nd & 25, followed by 3rd & 20+ which essentially killed their first drive. After that....you know what? I'm not going to do the rest of this article. Instead.......

Ten Thoughts

Read my rant. It may or may not make sense. One point may contradict another point. It may be the confused rambling of a random guy. It will include typos.

  1. Passion - It is okay to care and complain about the performance of a coach or a player.
  2. Caring is Creeping - Don't take your passion to far, don't take it out on the players (by continually harping) or fans who disagree with you. To tag them in a tweet and then complain (which I kinda accidentally did when I replied to a tweet). I overhead someone at a bar wish harm on ML7 this last weekend, and that was when he was 4-4 passing. He said he would never wish harm on any player....except for Mitch (just hurt enough so he was replaced). Like that makes it ok. This is not cool.
  3. Calm Down - I can't believe that some people, media or fans, are talking about Minnesota already having reached their ceiling under Jerry Kill. Now in the long run, it could be true (I don't believe that) but there is no evidence to support that now.
  4. Beware of What You Wish For - Some asked for a more balanced rushing/passing attack. Guess what? We got it. Guess what again, I think it is largely a positive.
  5. Limegrover, Limegrover; Send Rodney Right Up the Middle - People sure do love to complain about Limegrover's play calling. As I said earlier, its ok to do so. However, I again don't think its been that bad. Exciting? No. Bad? No. He has a plan even if we don't approve of it. I like the new balance. I, like you, don't always like the execution.
  6. Where is the Depth - People are complaining right now about the lack of depth, especially on the offensive line and the wide receivers. People say by now, with 5 years we should have the depth. I understand this and mostly agree with this....however... For the offensive line we have had a huge rash of injuries and not just this year. We have had multiple players end their careers short. True we had this last year on the defensive line and in that case our new recruits were able to step up. That's not so easy on the offensive line. Most offensive line players truly are not ready to play, or at least start, until their redshirt junior year. True, we have some now upperclassman players who just haven't seemed to pan out. Guess that, that happens to every team and those players were recruited early in Kill's time here. It will get better...or not (I think yes). At wide receiver we are very, very young. Past recruits just didn't work out for one reason or another. That said, Maye and Wolitarsky are serviceable. Look at tight end, we are playing with 3 of our top 4 hurt yet I think they are doing pretty good. You can disagree.
  7. Strength and Conditioning - Well Norsk_Gopher, why are we getting so many injuries, I thought our S&C program was supposed to prevent that. Well....so did I; however, S&C can't prevent major injuries (like fractures) or concussions. Some of those injuries can be reduced by technique or S&C. Sometimes S&C and braces can hurt as it prevents what might have been a minor injury but when pushed too far the injury can become major.
  8. The Trenches - Our offensive problems don't end with the offensive line but they do start there and in my opinion are at least 75% of the problem. Who do I blame, is it Mitch, Limey, or Kill. Nope. I blame MOLHoG. That's the Minnesota Offensive Line Hating God. I think Mitch has improved and if he had good protection it would show. Right now he is scared, I don't blame him.
  9. Don't Forget the Good - Hey, Mitch didn't fumble last week. Rodney looked good considering the holes he was giving. I didn't see too many drops (I wish the KS DB had dropped a couple). Peter Mortell is awesome.
  10. Defense - Defense. Defense.

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