Mr. Streveler, your table is ready.

Mick Turition said:

Keep in mind the Gophers have by far the worst receiving corps in the Big10, probably in Division 1 football over all. Throw it over their heads or in the dirt, it probably doesn't matter much because they have severe problems catching the ones that hit them in the hands. And that's if they manage to get open. Wolitarsky with his size shows some promise but dropped the game winner.

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Gopher028 said:

THIS. Kill developed guys like Chandler Harnish and Jordan Lynch (heisman finalist!) for cripes sake....why can't he do it here?? I think Nelson is the long term guy..they just gotta work on his brain and COACH to his strengths and ADJUST during the game. Not always just after half time..

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gopherdudepart2 said:

The way the offensive line played tonight, they had so many problems not picking up the blitz off the edge. Running backs never once if ever picked up the blitz. You could see before they were coming from the end zone view, they were bringing the blitz and we did not adjust to it at the line. Not sure if that was the quarterbacks fault or the lines for not shifting the protections. I don't know how many times the left tackle flat out blocked nobody but it was far too many times.
It was as much blocking as it was anything else but the quarterback play was less than average. Nelson couldn't hit the broad side of a barn tonight, his timing was so off everyone could see that. He was so off it was almost embarrassing to be a Gopher fan in person in the first half. Leidner sure wasn't doing much either, they had a good defense but our offense played as bad as they did to end the season in the first half. To me this game was lost by the offensive front not picking up the blitz and the penalties were to frequent. Refs had some questionable calls but they did not decide the outcome of the game.
I don't know how many times someone came off the left edge untouched
but it seemed like it was at least 5 or 6 times where the left tackle did not block anybody and hardly got out off the snap of the ball. There should be just as much competition in the offensive line as there is in the quarterback position. We had major problems at the Left tackle spot and Right tackle spot all game quite frankly it is about as bad as we looked at those two spots all season.

Honestly I would rather they grab a junior college quarterback that has played a lot of football than start a redshirt Freshman in Strevlar and to be honest I don't trust either Leidner
or Nelson to be the guy next year. Nelson had horrible mechanics with his feet the whole game and the whole second half of the season, he never once set his feet when he was passing because I think he sensed the line was
not blocking anyone tonight and he was going to get killed. He was anticipating the blitz but could do nothing but heave up passes that were not near anyone . Nelson he was crapping his pants before they even hit him. Just zero pocket poise this evening and I just don't understand what happened to the confident quarterback that lead his team to victory against Penn State and Indiana, where was that guy tonight?
Mitch Leidner holds the ball to long, you need to have a clock in your head that says get rid of the dang ball, he just takes to many sacks for my liking. He takes a lot of sacks for a guy that has his mobility.
It is not the end of the world but I was extremely disappointed in the performance of the offensive and defensive lines tonight. We showed up and let a middling ACC team kick our butts up front that was a huge disappointment. The Gophers got zero pressure even
when we blitzed two extra men and we did that a lot. There was no passion on defense to play this game even if they played a lot of ball.
Hagemen didn't even show up for the game tonight, you could not find him with a search light he lost containment on the Syracuse winning score that was his responsibility to take the quarter back and finish him. Why do you bring a delayed blitz from a safety that comes up from the linebacker spot, just way to deep to even matter. If your
going to bring the damn safety bring him up to the line and at least get a chance for an overload. To me as flat as the players were in the first half with a little more want to and
creativity from the coaching staff we could have lit this team up. They really should have benched the left and right tackles and tried some new people and the defensive ends
didn't show up tonight either with the exception of Scott Ekpe. Just a disappointing end to the season. That said, Wolitarsky #82 has his hands in the right place and he catches that pass instead of letting them sluff off to the side like he did, he did everything right but catch the ball and with that any chance of a Gopher victory slipped away. It was just a crap game that I would just as soon forget. Kind of a waste of flying in, we have lost so many bowl games the last decade no wonder people are reluctant to pay the money to go. It was a fun experience but the loss leaves a little bitter taste, we should have beaten Syracuse, we let there quarterback make sandwiches and order pizzas back in the pocket all game. At least I have an early flight home and will get to see the one nice day left in Minnesota before we freeze our butts off. Texas is nice this time of year and the people were friendly everywhere we went. Houston really isn't that bad to drive in for being so spread out and having so many people. Coaches get a C- tonight for clock management and overall game planning. They could have made better in game adjustments to what Syracuse was doing with there blitzes, they were not really disguising where or how they were blitzing.
Hopefully the plan is in place to get better and we have some thumpers ready to step up in the offensive and defensive lines. We need a pass rusher that can beat someone one on one and create pressure without giving up containment.
This is a team the Gophers should have beaten, if the program was headed in the direction we all thought they were. A lot of questions left unanswered tonight. I think were just disappointed because we looked like we had turned the corner for the better, and tonight made it look like were back at square one in the quarterback again and that we do not have a starter on the roster. Gophers did not play well and they still nearly eked out a victory. We need to get better at blitz pickup and need to get stronger in the offensive and defensive lines, were not where we need to be yet but we just need to shed the oh no here we go again crap . Gophers are better than the team that showed up tonight this is a game they should have won this should have been a 9 to 10 win team and for that reason they underachieved a little bit.

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