Minnesota vs. Indiana State Halftime Recap: BLOWOUT

Minnesota is destroying Indiana State at halftime, 38-7. Before we get to the highlights, a quite note about the stupid moments and why people really shouldn’t overreact to them.

Minnesota is better than Indiana State. They are A LOT better. Yet Minnesota did silly things. Let’s recap them:

• Two DB starters announced before game as suspended for violation of team rules
• 6 penalties
• 4 dropped passes
• 2 kickoffs out of bounds
• One bad pistol snap

In fact, that bad snap and a false start penalty happened ON THE SAME PLAY, which LOL.

It might sound like I’m cranky, but I’m really not! This is all correctable stuff. As ustreet said in our TDG Slack convo:

Stop doing stupid shit is the new brick by brick

It’s a simple mantra and an important one. Now, procedural penalties, bad snaps, poor decision making, and dropped passes could happen all year. If that continues we might have a problem. But for now I’m comfortable sitting with giving the Gophers time to clean it up.

Why am I comfortable?

Because Mitch Leidner bailed Minnesota out of every stupid hole they dug. Please remember that the stat line above includes 4 drops on passes that should have been caught.

Drew Wolitarsky is having a game. That Maxx-like toe drag catch was pretty.

Other things the TDG staff loved about the 1st half:

• LEGITIMATE BLOWOUT OF AN INFERIOR OPPONENT
• True freshman Tyler Johnson got his first career TD as a Gopher.
• Kamal Martin’s first sack
• Consistent pressure on the QB
• Kobe McCrary and Rodney Smith getting lots of chances and making the most of them for the most part.
• Zo Craighton making his first appearance for the Gophers.
• That Claeys kept his foot on the gas at the end of the first half. And that when the clock got low, they chose to give Emmit Carpenter a chance to practice field goals.
• Drive chart FTW (this is prior to the FG):

• ALSO, THIS HAPPENED:

That’s honestly a short list given how well things are going.

What did you love about the 1st half?