Every problem from last year still remains

I am really disappointed with what I saw today. Adam Weber not only has not taken step forward, but appears to have taken a step backward. From his first pass of the game which was a "where the hell are you throwing the ball?" to his constant staring down of his primary receiver, Weber didn't look like the upperclassmen I hoped he'd look like.

The offense still runs through Decker- way too many plays designed for Decker and Weber seems incapable of going anywhere else.

The Offensive Line is horrific- Can we either suck at Run Blocking or Pass Blocking and not both? If that is too much to ask, can we at least not commit penalties while sucking?

The Defense can't tackle and committed another personal foul- When Syracuse had their drives, it was in part due to the first defender on the scene for the Gophers never making the tackle. We couldn't make it through a game without a personal foul either. Between the personal foul and the false starts by the Oline, the improvement in discipline I hoped for is not there. Maybe this one aspect can be chalked up to being the first game.

Biggest concern: Zero pressure from the Dline, especially the ends. If the Gophers can't get a pass rush on Syracuse, can you imagine how long Big Ten QB's will have to survey the field?

I am not saying this team cannot improve, but to see the EXACT same issues this year as last year is a really, really bad sign.

umm did you watch the last drive? yea decker had a lot of receptions again but also B. Green started gettin into it. it would be good to get him in it gettin 4-5+ catches a game. WHERES HAYO!?!?!

Right you are - it's still a QB-heavy offense that goes south if the QB is off - and Weber was way off today. Decker is great, but too many plays to him will result in injury, as last year. Running game of 100 yards against Syracuse translates to 20 yards against many Big Ten teams - we still have no running game. O-line causing all kinds of penalties. Offense didn't click until Weber went into the shotgun (last year's offense) in the long final drive. We don't have a new offense yet. D played well, especially in the second half, but missed tackles, as you say. Happy to get away with a W, but a very disappointing show by the offense. The D has made progress, the offense hasn't.

EG#9 said:

to see the EXACT same issues this year as last year is a really, really bad sign.

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Agreed. I have been an overly aggresive Brewster supporter on the board because I've loved what he done for recruiting and figured the coaching would continually improve. I will give him a couple games here, but I'm close to disgruntled. Few thoughts:

1) His lack of O line recruiting in his first couple/few classes has killed him. Got a couple decent prospects last year, but Gjere will be his first sure fire recruit for the O line. It may be too late for him to help though?

2) The penalties, clearly something is not making it into these guys heads.

3) Bad timeouts, bad challenges, not have special teams units ready, WTF!!

4) Weber lead a nice drive at the end, but why was Gray not given a drive to change things up. Sorry to be blunt, but Weber is an average QB at BEST!!! Seriously, he is just not a QB that will lead to you any significant V's. Missing open guys and just not being able to work anyone else into the passing game is brutal. We have other talented WRs and clearly there are times when they are getting space.


Starting to lose the faith in Brew, as was said before, seems like the same old problems. Hopefully the adjustmens get made.

I've got to COMPLETELY disagree with you on point one

sonnygarcia said:

Agreed. I have been an overly aggresive Brewster supporter on the board because I've loved what he done for recruiting and figured the coaching would continually improve. I will give him a couple games here, but I'm close to disgruntled. Few thoughts:

1) His lack of O line recruiting in his first couple/few classes has killed him. Got a couple decent prospects last year, but Gjere will be his first sure fire recruit for the O line. It may be too late for him to help though?

2) The penalties, clearly something is not making it into these guys heads.

3) Bad timeouts, bad challenges, not have special teams units ready, WTF!!

4) Weber lead a nice drive at the end, but why was Gray not given a drive to change things up. Sorry to be blunt, but Weber is an average QB at BEST!!! Seriously, he is just not a QB that will lead to you any significant V's. Missing open guys and just not being able to work anyone else into the passing game is brutal. We have other talented WRs and clearly there are times when they are getting space.


Starting to lose the faith in Brew, as was said before, seems like the same old problems. Hopefully the adjustmens get made.

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Our issues on the o-line are not talent related. There is enough talent on the line. Over-feeding, under-conditioning, under-coaching has been our problem, not talent level. The only guy out there who shouldn't be is Dom "Ole" Alford. He looks like an Offensive lineman in the uniform, but gets beaten like a rented mule regularly. I said before the season the fact that he was being considered part of the solution did not bode well for this team.

EG#9 said:

Biggest concern: Zero pressure from the Dline, especially the ends. If the Gophers can't get a pass rush on Syracuse, can you imagine how long Big Ten QB's will have to survey the field?

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I thought they brought consistent pressure on Paulus, they had him scrambling around quite a bit. A lot of his passes were also on screens and short passes where he got rid of the ball fairly quickly, there's only so much pressure you can get in those instances. I think they'll be fine.

Tail of two halves.

The secodn half the defense was much better than the first. Take away the one pass to Mike Williams for the TD and their offense really didnt do all that much. In the second half they did nothing at all. I think our starting D-line is less of an issue than our O-line which looks like it spent more time bulking up at the nearest buffet place than in the weight room.

The offense also looked better in the second half and started to get a running game going. The Gophers must show much better production in the future especially with better teams coming up on the schedule. Brandon Green had 3 catches on the final drive which was big.

The question I asked myself as I watched this game and a couple others. Why are coaches so quick to get everyone into the game for a series instead of letting the team get a rythem then start bringing in other guys. Gophers go up 14-3 and get the ball back and all of a sudden we see the Wild Gopher formation or whatever we call it, we then see Eskridge at RB, and we get away from the rythem we needed to start with. From that point on we were killed in the first half. Let the starters get the game started, build the momentum over the first quarter and a half then bring some of the other guys in. To me the team hurt itself early when they started tinkering around with the players on the field and it was clear the starters needed to get in a better groove as the first two scored came in a short field situation.

The problem with the first game is we started with a BCS Conference school which means no warmup with a team like SDSU. I think it would be better in the future to get the season started with an easy one before heading into a game against a BCS conference school because even the bad ones will give you a challenge especially in there house. I like the tougher schedule but the order of opponents is important as well.

For what it's worth, here were my observations:

1. I think the OL played alright, but they need to get better. Our RBs/WRs did average over 4.1 yards/carry. Not great but not terrible either.

2. Weber still locks on the receivers a lot, and it's usually Decker. They showed a replay sometime in the 2nd half where Weber threw an incomplete pass to Decker when there were 5 or 6 guys around him. At the same time, Green had 1-on-1 coverage at the top. It was nice to see him throw to Green on that last drive. Decker is a stud, but he can't lock on him all the time. Let's see what Green, Hayo, and others can do.

3. I liked the wildcat. It looks like we'll be able to do a lot of things with Stoudamire and Gray. I'm sure we'll see more wrinkles to our offense as we get into the Big Ten season.

4. I thought the defense played pretty well. Even though we didn't have a lot of sacks, I thought they were getting pressure on Paulus. We tackled pretty well (except for those few plays in overtime, but we made up for that with the pick).

5. Still too many penalties and bad timeouts. There's no excuse for your punt return team to not be ready. It is the first game so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully we see improvement.

6. Statistically, we dominated in the 2nd half. We had 45 offensive plays, they had 23. Syracuse had 3 first downs in the 2nd half, but two were because of penalties (personal foul and pass interference). Also, if my math is correct, we outgained them 232 to 38. If it weren't for a few mistakes like Weber's fumble, I think we come out of halftime and win by two TDs.

Guess we could be Oklahoma this morning.... I'll take the W.

I expect the team will learn a lot from their performance and you'll see a better Gopher team next game.

Let Gray Play! lol.......

I think Brewster is trying to hard to pound the rock when it's obvious our strongest area on Offense is our passing game, if we have to air it out let's air it, let the fear of the passing game open up the running not vice versa like it was in the past.......

watch BYU's Max Hall then look at Weber throw. Weber gets happy feet even when he's not under pressure. He need to set and throw. He rarely seems to spot a secondary receiver. He rarely makes good fakes (like even Paulus did). And he should have run a few times to keep the D honest.

upchurch said:

watch BYU's Max Hall then look at Weber throw. Weber gets happy feet even when he's not under pressure. He need to set and throw. He rarely seems to spot a secondary receiver. He rarely makes good fakes (like even Paulus did). And he should have run a few times to keep the D honest.

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The thing about Weber is at times he looks great and other times he looks horrible.......