Off Season for Mitch

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TrapperDoo

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Most would agree - Mitch Leidner is tough as nails and he is a gamer. That's alot of stock by itself right there, and because of that I love the guy. Still, any honest assessment would include that he could be better with the passing game. If/when he dials in the passing game the Gophers become down right scary for everyone else in the BIG. I wonder what his plans are for the off season? Has he got some Pros to work with? At this level it needs to be automatic and unconscious. I anticipate significant improvement. Demry Croft will be on campus next year. Let's see it against Mizzou, Mitch!
 

I hope he is here working with the red shirts all off season.
 

I hope he has a decent game just so I don't have to here people b*tching about him and speculating about a JC QB for an entire offseason.
 

Would he be able to go and spend some time with Weinke's QB training or is there some kind of NCAA rule prohibiting that?

If I was Coach Kill I'd call Rich Gannon in the off season and see if he has extra time on his hands to mentor Leidner a little. Gannon is a sharp guy and lives in Excelsior I believe.
 

Triple D said:
Would he be able to go and spend some time with Weinke's QB training or is there some kind of NCAA rule prohibiting that? If I was Coach Kill I'd call Rich Gannon in the off season and see if he has extra time on his hands to mentor Leidner a little. Gannon is a sharp guy and lives in Excelsior I believe.
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Call Tony Dungy?
 



He should seriously work with Steve Clarkson. The guy is a legend in the field.
 

I'm sorry....But I'm just fed up with Leidner.

Didn't like him at all last year either.
 





Sorry for taking the homer glasses off.

He is a complete joke. He has the best TE in the country (I don't care he finished 2nd in award....he's the best TE), top 10 running back in the country, a solid oline, and the dude still mediocre.
 

GoMaroonGoGold said:
Sorry for taking the homer glasses off.

He is a complete joke. He has the best TE in the country (I don't care he finished 2nd in award....he's the best TE), top 10 running back in the country, a solid oline, and the dude still mediocre.
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He's got to do better than 49% completions, ranked near the bottom of list of 120 or so in the nation - though he does have some good days passing.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
He's got to do better than 49% completions, ranked near the bottom of list of 120 or so in the nation - though he does have some good days passing.
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Yep. I'm not kidding when I say he might be one of the worst QBs in the FBS. It's bad. Really bad. Embarrassing for the program. It just makes me cringe seeing the OSUs of the world have 3 (probably 4) QBs better than Leidner. I mean if we had a somewhat decent QB we could maybe be talking about a B1G championship.
 



TrapperDoo said:
Most would agree - Mitch Leidner is tough as nails and he is a gamer. That's alot of stock by itself right there, and because of that I love the guy. Still, any honest assessment would include that he could be better with the passing game. If/when he dials in the passing game the Gophers become down right scary for everyone else in the BIG. I wonder what his plans are for the off season? Has he got some Pros to work with? At this level it needs to be automatic and unconscious. I anticipate significant improvement. Demry Croft will be on campus next year. Let's see it against Mizzou, Mitch!
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Thanks for posting Mr. Leidner.
 

GoMaroonGoGold said:
Yep. I'm not kidding when I say he might be one of the worst QBs in the FBS. It's bad. Really bad. Embarrassing for the program. It just makes me cringe seeing the OSUs of the world have 3 (probably 4) QBs better than Leidner. I mean if we had a somewhat decent QB we could maybe be talking about a B1G championship.
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I'm guessing you are a "the glass is half empty" kind of a guy...
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I hope he is here working with the red shirts all off season.
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This. Over and over and over. Coach Kill said yesterday that he thought 3 of the red shirt WRs were good enough to have contributed in games this year. Hopefully they are as good as he is touting and if they are hopefully our offense takes another step forward next year which would make us a VERY dangerous team.
 

bottlebass said:
This. Over and over and over. Coach Kill said yesterday that he thought 3 of the red shirt WRs were good enough to have contributed in games this year. Hopefully they are as good as he is touting and if they are hopefully our offense takes another step forward next year which would make us a VERY dangerous team.
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He generally knows what he's talking about so I think this is exciting news.
 

When Mitch is 'on' he's OK and when he's 'off' he's horrible. I finally rewatched the 2nd half of the Ohio State game this weekend. His horrible interceptions in the 2nd half probably cost us that game.

All that being said- he is better this year than last and I hope he is better next year than this year. The best thing for Mitch would be to open up the QB position in camp and make him win it instead of anointing him QB1 for next year now. Sounds like we may have some able arms capable of throwing it downfield coming into the equation.
 

bottlebass said:
This. Over and over and over. Coach Kill said yesterday that he thought 3 of the red shirt WRs were good enough to have contributed in games this year. Hopefully they are as good as he is touting and if they are hopefully our offense takes another step forward next year which would make us a VERY dangerous team.
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It's not only that, Kill knows he doesn't have a competent WR on the field right now. Maxx gets double teamed and none of the other WRs can get open consistently. This leads me to my biggest disappointment this year: Donovan Jones. He hasn't progressed at all.
 

Ol Mitcheroo

DougMN said:
When Mitch is 'on' he's OK and when he's 'off' he's horrible. I finally rewatched the 2nd half of the Ohio State game this weekend. His horrible interceptions in the 2nd half probably cost us that game.

All that being said- he is better this year than last and I hope he is better next year than this year. The best thing for Mitch would be to open up the QB position in camp and make him win it instead of anointing him QB1 for next year now. Sounds like we may have some able arms capable of throwing it downfield coming into the equation.
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+1.

I'll go even further- we may see Streveler play the 2nd half of the bowl game.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
It's not only that, Kill knows he doesn't have a competent WR on the field right now. Maxx gets double teamed and none of the other WRs can get open consistently. This leads me to my biggest disappointment this year: Donovan Jones. He hasn't progressed at all.
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Donovan Jones made some big plays for us this year. He was the ONLY wide receiver to actually go up and catch balls/take balls away from defenders/make athletic plays on the ball. He had 11 catches for 253 yards and 2 touchdowns this year which are better numbers than last year... But I was hoping for more the way he ended the season last year. It seemed like he was catching 2-3 receptions every game the 2nd half last year and this year he had a lot of 1 reception games and some no reception games. Still, he was the only guy who actually fought for the ball and made good catches besides Maxx.
 

Positives for Mitch are he's big, seems to have a good arm. He is at this best passing once the running game has been established, and he can get into rhythm using play action. There is no question he is a great runner, and much of our offensive improvement this year is from both him and Cobb improving.

However, he's bad at most other parts of the passing game, so bad I don't know if an offseason is going to fix that. He is really slow in the pocket, collapses when under pressure, and misses too many open receivers. It seems like he doesn't have the ability to find receivers other than the primary, just based on the number of times he throws into coverage when the receiver is not even close to being open. It's like he's decided before the play he's going to throw to someone no matter what.

Right now as a passer I would probably rate him 2/10, and if you watch any other lower level bowl game or even FCS playoffs you will be frustrated to no end because you will see other QBs for these teams doing things that he can not. He is in his third year in the program, so at this point in his development I would have expected more. But I am holding out hope that the jump from SO to JR will be significant for him, as it often is. It just seems like he is so far away. I'm hoping his issues are a matter of familiarity/confidence, because if they are then he can get better at some of these things.
 

wait!what? said:
+1.

I'll go even further- WAIT!

we may see Streveler play the 2nd half of the bowl game. - WHAT?
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All kidding aside, I got thinking about this: this is the final game of the season. Jerry wants to win this game more than anything. During the year, he's said that the "hot-hand" will get the ball. I believe he was NOT considering this option during the regular season since he didn't want a quarterback controversy.

All bets are off for the Bowl Game. I think if Moose struggles; this really is a possibility.
 


wait!what? said:
+1.

I'll go even further- we may see Streveler play the 2nd half of the bowl game.
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You might see Streveler come in for a series of downs if Mitch is looking tired or nicked up after a long run. I haven't seen anything from this coaching staff that doesn't make me believe they 100% believe Mitch on a bad day is a better answer than hoping for a the best day from anyone else.
 

Mitch has thrown some brilliant balls at times (30 yard pass to Maye v. Nebby, multiple passes to Maxx, Michigan game when he was on) that make you want more. He has also thrown some horrendously bad footballs (bounce passing 4-yard swing passes on multiple occasions) that make you wonder what in the world he was thinking. I was no fan of ML7 when PN9 was here last year, but he has won me over this season. I choose to be optimistic and think that ML7 can improve on his preformance this season with the glimpses of good passing we saw this year.
I am hoping next year he is at the point where the game "slows down" for him and he is able to make better decisions. Next year I will expect over 55% comp percentage and a 2/1 TD to INT ratio. I think he is capable.
 

Writing Mitch off as horrible is silly. As is claiming with certainty that he'll be good. Truth is by all objective measures that I'm aware of Mitch is somewhere between mediocre and bad statistically. That said stats don't exist in a vacuum. Putting aside his play for a second there are a few factors
- poor WR play. Our WRs just haven't gotten open a ton against man coverage. There have been good moments, sure but they aren't consistently giving the QB a ton to work with and none scare defenses enough to stop them from doubling Maxx.
- Our scheme isn't one that will ever be conducive to high percentage passing. We've seen very little high percentage passing from the playbook whether that's WR screens, RB screens, hitches, quick outs, slants, etc. We run a ton of posts, skinny posts, corners and go routes. Limey wants to get big chunks through the air which means lower percentage throws.

All that said Mitch needs to be better. Has to be more accurate and complete the easy throws that are there due to scheme and he's missed on way too many of those. He improved a ton this year in terms of seeing the field (remember him being a sitting duck against CB blitzes from Cuse last year because he just never saw them?) and making better decisions with the ball as well. He needs to get more comfortable in the pocket and more consistent with his mechanics which will help to elimate the random one hoppers and 3 row specials he throws.
Mitch is who he is though. He's not a guy that was a prolific touch passer or even a great athlete. He's made himself into a decent runner but he'll never be a Colin Klein or Braxton Miller running the ball. What he can be is a solid, consistent runner and a solid, consistent passer. Next year will be year 2 as a starter for him and he'll have 3 upper class WRs along with a stable of talented RS frosh to throw to. IF Maxx comes back he'll have the best TE in the country as well. We'll know all we need to know about him then. And if he doesn't get it done then it'll be next man up
 

bottlebass said:
Donovan Jones made some big plays for us this year. He was the ONLY wide receiver to actually go up and catch balls/take balls away from defenders/make athletic plays on the ball. He had 11 catches for 253 yards and 2 touchdowns this year which are better numbers than last year... But I was hoping for more the way he ended the season last year. It seemed like he was catching 2-3 receptions every game the 2nd half last year and this year he had a lot of 1 reception games and some no reception games. Still, he was the only guy who actually fought for the ball and made good catches besides Maxx.
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I actually think this is something he needs to get a lot better at, especially on the long ball. There's been multiple long passes where he has misjudged the ball, was stumbling, or let the ball come to him instead of attacking it.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
He's got to do better than 49% completions
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For me, this is where it starts and stops. This in itself tells you he is inconsistent and not great. However, going as extreme as others do on a QB that was 8-4 this year and gave us a chance at a division title is just silly. Comparing what we have to what tOSU has is even sillier.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I actually think this is something he needs to get a lot better at, especially on the long ball. There's been multiple long passes where he has misjudged the ball, was stumbling, or let the ball come to him instead of attacking it.
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I may be the biggest DJ4 fan out there. Watching him in practices and I think he may be the best athlete on this team. I liked a lot of what I saw this year, but overall I was disappointed. Everything you wrote is correct. I worry he might transfer out to where he can have more impact (likely smaller school - maybe back to QB).
 

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