ESPN: Stats that defined 2016: Minnesota Gophers (29.3, 117.8, 9)

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BleedGopher

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per ESPN:

Here are three stats that help explain the 2016 season for each Big Ten team. Next up is Minnesota, which finished 9-4 and defeated Washington State in the National Funding Holiday Bowl.

29.3: Before the season, few people might have guessed Minnesota would lead the Big Ten West in scoring offense. But offensive coordinator Jay Johnson helped the Gophers increase their scoring average from one year earlier by a full touchdown, from 22.5 points to 29.3 points. It was due in large part to an improved rushing attack rather than a big boost through the air from quarterback Mitch Leidner. Though Leidner's passing numbers decreased, Minnesota's rushing touchdown number doubled from 17 to 34. Running back Rodney Smith made a substantial leap and finished with 16 rushing touchdowns -- second in the Big Ten behind Penn State's Saquon Barkley. Leidner added 10 rushing touchdowns and Shannon Brooks five. Minnesota also increased its rushing average from 144.1 yards per game to 183.6.

117.8: Minnesota's run defense was one of the best in the league, ranking second behind Wisconsin. The Gophers allowed only 117.8 rushing yards per game and produced some stellar outings this season. Five times this season, opponents failed to gain 90 yards rushing, including four games against Big Ten teams. Purdue gained only 23 yards on 28 carries, and Northwestern gained 63 yards on 33 carries. Minnesota saved one of its better performances for last, as Washington State gained 39 yards on 23 carries in the Holiday Bowl.

Nine: How big of a deal was it that Minnesota won nine games in 2016? It marked only the second time since 1906 that the Gophers won at least nine games. Minnesota won 10 games in 2003. The Gophers have been one of the more underrated, solid Big Ten teams of late. Over the past five seasons, Minnesota is 37-28 with five consecutive bowl appearances. The next step is for the Gophers to consistently compete for Big Ten West championships, and new coach P.J. Fleck gives the team a great opportunity to do so. Don't forget that Minnesota came within one game of winning the West back in 2014 before it lost at Wisconsin in the regular-season finale. Though the East division is loaded, the West could be friendlier for a team like Minnesota to rise up from the middle of the pack and produce a special season.

http://www.espn.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/140863/stats-that-defined-2016-minnesota-gophers

Go Gophers!!
 


You can't help but worry that this level of defense will not be there much longer. The big hope, I suppose, is that better recruiting will solve all problems.
 

More evidence it wasn't a performance based firing.

It is completely fair to say to the AD this is the correct baseline to measure future performance in the Fleck Era.

This is not to say it's not acceptable for a drop-off for a couple of years...this is acceptable because that's a normal consequence of installing a new culture (whatever that means)...

Bottom line is the cupboard is not bare. it is reasonable to expect a lot from this staff and future teams on the field...and assuming that Coach Claeys was found lacking in some areas covered under reasonable expectations of his contract...e.g., recruiting, fundraising, etc....then those are areas that should see measurable improvement within a couple of years.

Fortunately, it looks like there's a recruiting bump. This is a good thing.
 

Why is ESPN acting like 9 wins was good?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 




I hope we don't regret firing Claeys. Those are some pretty awesome numbers in support of him.
 

This is yesterday now all we have is tomorrow. The bar has been raised and Fleck is gonna need to hit it or a bunch more guys will be fired in 3-4 years and we will continue to be the largest University in the US that can't win a football anything.
 




We can not pay $18M to someone who doesn't improve on the past numbers. Improve in 2017.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
You can't help but worry that this level of defense will not be there much longer. The big hope, I suppose, is that better recruiting will solve all problems.
Click to expand...

I think Fleck is smart enough to not tinker much and have his defensive coaches hold steady while he ramps up the offense. This is not a rebuild in any way where you need to change most everything. He and his defensive coaches know a good thing when they see it.
 

diehard said:
We can not pay $18M to someone who doesn't improve on the past numbers. Improve in 2017.
Click to expand...

Even with all those great stats and 9 wins the recruiting was not good, attendance was down and the excitement was crappy. Not to mention possibly loosing ten players and having a new qb with little to no experience the program was not heading in the right direction. Since Fleck has arrived recruiting has jumped, excitement is coming back and most fans are looking forward to next year. Clayes did a good job. Didn't end the best for him here. But if he is that good he will be a hot commodity. Hasn't happened yet.
 



Meyerchiro34 said:
Even with all those great stats and 9 wins the recruiting was not good, attendance was down and the excitement was crappy. Not to mention possibly loosing ten players and having a new qb with little to no experience the program was not heading in the right direction. Since Fleck has arrived recruiting has jumped, excitement is coming back and most fans are looking forward to next year. Clayes did a good job. Didn't end the best for him here. But if he is that good he will be a hot commodity. Hasn't happened yet.
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Everyone keeps talking about attendance for 2016. We had three non conference games against no real big time opponents nor did we play Whisky and Nebraska at home. I believe if we had played Penn State or Michigan at home, that would have increased our attendance as well. Everyone seems to blame Tracy C for this problem, what about the extra increase in cost that the former Norwood T added to every season ticket holder. Plenty of blame to pass around to everyone besides Tracy C. Maybe he had something to do with part of it but there were other more mitigating issues else where.
 

Meyerchiro34 said:
Even with all those great stats and 9 wins the recruiting was not good, attendance was down and the excitement was crappy. Not to mention possibly loosing ten players and having a new qb with little to no experience the program was not heading in the right direction. Since Fleck has arrived recruiting has jumped, excitement is coming back and most fans are looking forward to next year. Clayes did a good job. Didn't end the best for him here. But if he is that good he will be a hot commodity. Hasn't happened yet.
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Just not true. Program was absolutely still heading in the right direction. Fleck's recruiting class will end up basically where the Gophs have been the last several years, ranked around 50.

Also not sure how you gage jump in excitement. If there would not be more buzz and coverage after hiring a new HC who had the national exposure Fleck had in 2016, I would be extremely surprised.
 

DRJ said:
Everyone keeps talking about attendance for 2016. We had three non conference games against no real big time opponents nor did we play Whisky and Nebraska at home. I believe if we had played Penn State or Michigan at home, that would have increased our attendance as well. Everyone seems to blame Tracy C for this problem, what about the extra increase in cost that the former Norwood T added to every season ticket holder. Plenty of blame to pass around to everyone besides Tracy C. Maybe he had something to do with part of it but there were other more mitigating issues else where.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree. 2015 also was the high water mark for the last 30 years in average attendance. Very unattractive 2016 home schedule. As has been discussed to death, the donation increase was the main reason for the drop, with big jump in cost for 2016. I went from 4 to 2 tix because of it. Coyle got it right freezing the increase schedule, and will get some fan support back if he actually rolls it back or narrows the seats with the donation.

I fully expected the season tix and attendance to increase for this year based on the freeze and better home schedule. A new coach will add to that increase.
 

Meyerchiro34 said:
Even with all those great stats and 9 wins the recruiting was not good, attendance was down and the excitement was crappy. Not to mention possibly loosing ten players and having a new qb with little to no experience the program was not heading in the right direction. Since Fleck has arrived recruiting has jumped, excitement is coming back and most fans are looking forward to next year. Clayes did a good job. Didn't end the best for him here. But if he is that good he will be a hot commodity. Hasn't happened yet.
Click to expand...

Recruiting sites ranked us low, they also ranked us low in the prior 4 years, and the players ended up being pretty good. Attendance did stink, but part of that was a terrible home schedule, with only a down Iowa as any kind of a draw. Rutgers, Purdue, Northwestern, and the two crappy non conference teams. Only Oregon St was a good home environment and the only night game.
 

I don't think Penn State would've helped attendance at all if we had them at home. Remember PSU was 2-2 when we played and had just come off a 49-10 thrashing at the hands of Michigan.

Had PSU lost to the Gophers, I think Franklin's seat would've been heating up. They would've been 2-3 with losses to the Gophs, rival Pitt, and Michigan.
 

PMWinSTP said:
<b>I think Fleck is smart enough to not tinker much and have his defensive coaches hold steady while he ramps up the offense. </b>This is not a rebuild in any way where you need to change most everything. He and his defensive coaches know a good thing when they see it.
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I sure hope so. I look at it a little like when a company buys another company. They often buy that company because it is successful. Even so, the new owners usually are determined to make it "even better" by doing things their way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. They always seem to tinker tho.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

PMWinSTP said:
I think Fleck is smart enough to not tinker much and have his defensive coaches hold steady while he ramps up the offense. This is not a rebuild in any way where you need to change most everything. He and his defensive coaches know a good thing when they see it.
Click to expand...

That remains to be seen. When you bring in an entirely new staff, with new coordinators, that generally means new schemes and new systems. Now, the new defense could turn out to be similar to the old defense, but there will be changes - bet on it.

Plus, you get egos involved. Keeping the "old" defense could be seen as an admission that the former defensive coaches had a better scheme than the new coaches. Can't have that.

So, I strongly expect there will be changes and differences - with the onus on the returning players to adjust to the new system. Could be some growing pains, especially early in the season.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
That remains to be seen. When you bring in an entirely new staff, with new coordinators, that generally means new schemes and new systems. Now, the new defense could turn out to be similar to the old defense, but there will be changes - bet on it.

Plus, you get egos involved. Keeping the "old" defense could be seen as an admission that the former defensive coaches had a better scheme than the new coaches. Can't have that.

So, I strongly expect there will be changes and differences - with the onus on the returning players to adjust to the new system. Could be some growing pains, especially early in the season.
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I would expect changes too.

I really don't think it is helpful for a new coordinator to come in and just adopt what was done before. He doesn't know everything the last guy did... might not know how you make adjustments in that system just because of film.

There's no complete hanover or anything....

Each HC, OC, CD, and etc has to do their own thing that they think is best. If that means adopting sure, but I don't think there is necessarily an obvious system to just adopt and do for the new guy because somehow it will continue to work.
 

Spoofin said:
I sure hope so. I look at it a little like when a company buys another company. They often buy that company because it is successful. Even so, the new owners usually are determined to make it "even better" by doing things their way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. They always seem to tinker tho.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Agree somewhat. Having been through those, unless the CEO was brought in because of poor performance, the changes are more nuanced and happen over time.

For a B1G example, look no further than Mich. Harbaugh came into a team with a very good defense. His focus was on the offense. Win results were immediate. That's why I can't understand those who are pushing down 2017 expectations for Fleck.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I would expect changes too.

I really don't think it is helpful for a new coordinator to come in and just adopt what was done before. He doesn't know everything the last guy did... might not know how you make adjustments in that system just because of film.

There's no complete hanover or anything....

Each HC, OC, CD, and etc has to do their own thing that they think is best. If that means adopting sure, but I don't think there is necessarily an obvious system to just adopt and do for the new guy because somehow it will continue to work.
Click to expand...

Not brain surgery or rocket science, and this is not a turnaround or rebuild. Change will happen gradually on defense because I think Fleck and his staff know a good thing when they see it. Experienced, successful coaches are well schooled in the different schemes.

I expect Fleck to focus his changes on offense because he knows that is the low hanging fruit where he can get the most immediate, positive impact.
 

I also think people overrate the defense a little bit based on how bad it was at the end of the Mason years and into the Brewster years. There's no doubt the overall FBS ranking of the defense has increased significantly. However, the majority of the B1G has good defenses. I used the S&P rankings because they factor in everything including strength of schedule, field position, turnovers etc.

Rankings:
2011 Overall: 89 B1G: 10
2012 Overall: 69 B1G: 9
2013 Overall: 65 B1G: 9
2014 Overall: 31 B1G: 6
2015 Overall: 24 B1G: 8
2016 Overall: 23 B1G: 6

In reality the Kill/Claeys era brought our defense from a bad B1G defense to an average B1G defense and our record mirrored these rankings pretty well.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
I also think people overrate the defense a little bit based on how bad it was at the end of the Mason years and into the Brewster years. There's no doubt the overall FBS ranking of the defense has increased significantly. However, the majority of the B1G has good defenses. I used the S&P rankings because they factor in everything including strength of schedule, field position, turnovers etc.

Rankings:
2011 Overall: 89 B1G: 10
2012 Overall: 69 B1G: 9
2013 Overall: 65 B1G: 9
2014 Overall: 31 B1G: 6
2015 Overall: 24 B1G: 8
2016 Overall: 23 B1G: 6

In reality the Kill/Claeys era brought our defense from a bad B1G defense to an average B1G defense and our record mirrored these rankings pretty well.
Click to expand...

B1G have had great defenses throughout. Your stats actually back up it's rating.

Same stats different take shows nationally Gophs have improved dramatically, moving 60+ spots cannot be considered as being overrated. Nationally, the five better B1G were top 15 this year, and the seven better were top 20 last year.
 

PMWinSTP said:
B1G have had great defenses throughout. Your stats actually back up it's rating.

Same stats different take shows nationally Gophs have improved dramatically, moving 60+ spots cannot be considered as being overrated. Nationally, the five better B1G were top 15 this year, and the seven better were top 20 last year.
Click to expand...

I think we're one of maybe two bowl games where the almighty B1G Defense showed up this year....
 

Well if history is any indication or new DC will be brilliant next year with a top 10 defense and then fade once he has to coach his own players ensuring that by year 4 we will be back to Mason era defenses, just he did at Arkansas. Then it will be Fleck rowing his boat back to the MAC
 


Stats that defined the 2016 Gophers:

173.6 - passing yards per game
4 - passing TDs in Big Ten play
1 - number of WRs with more than 20 catches
1/7 - combined touchdowns to interceptions in second half vs. PSU, Iowa, Neb, Wis

This team simply could not pass the football when they needed to. To me, that sums up the season.
 


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