How on earth is it possible to go years with no a single competent QB?

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Ole Miss backup Jordan Taamu threw for 368 vs Arkansas today and ran for another 80 or so. Allegedly Claeys vetoed him for Neil Mclaurin which is really perplexing. I mean, scouts and coaches disagree on players all the time but when a good JUCO drops in your lap...almost have to think Taamu turned us down for one of a variety of reasons. Green promised job, etc. Too cold...tenuous contract situation with staff. Who knows. Whatever, it's frustrating. Still hopeful Croft can develop along with the rest of the offense...need three games to form a trend line.
 


grumps said:
False premise.
Either you are saying what we had was good enough and you never wanted to try to compete at a higher level.
Or you are arguing that championships can be won without a quality QB, in which I haven't seen that.
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Define championships. Wisconsin won with mediocre at best QBs save Russell Wilson.
 

grumps said:
Who do you want to play instead?
The former walk-on Sr QB?
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Well, no, but maybe it's time to give Green a try. My guess is that Fleck wants to start one of his QB recruits next year and the failure of all three current active roster QBs this season would be the perfect justification. Might as well give Green a chance to fail (or maybe even succeed a little, who knows?).
 

cjbfbp said:
Well, no, but maybe it's time to give Green a try. My guess is that Fleck wants to start one of his QB recruits next year and the failure of all three current active roster QBs this season would be the perfect justification. Might as well give Green a chance to fail (or maybe even succeed a little, who knows?).
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I haven't heard anything about Green other than comments from the internet from random people that Green is not close. Whatever that means. Could mean PJ's dog house, could mean no understanding of offense. Could all be lies as well.
 


Winning will do a lot to a QB's self-confidence, and so will experience which Croft is lacking.

He messed up by being suspended early in the season. Should they have start him him over Rhoda barring suspension?

Can someone help put some meat on the bones of Croft? He looks too thin. He needs to put on at least 20 pounds!
 


gopher7 said:
It's a amazing just how bad our QBs have been the past 15 years. We haven't even been able to recruit a good one by accident.
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This is what has been so frustrating for me anyway, but having said that, our o-lines have played a role in that also IMO.
 

Golden Shower said:
Didn't he also lose to Iowa this year at home? Asking for a friend.
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That was Jacob Park, not Kyle Kempt. They switched quarterbacks for the Oklahoma game.
 



When I was at Minnesota-Morris, we had Dale Mehr from Holdingford, who was better than any of these guys. He ended up on the Vikings roster during training camp and would be a practice squad-caliber player if he played today - which makes him as good or better than any Gopher QB in recent memory save Weber and maybe Leidner. I just can't get my head around why the Gophs have, by and large, not been able to find Division 1-caliber quarterbacks. It's one of the great mysteries of our time.
 

Word said:
That was Jacob Park, not Kyle Kempt. They switched quarterbacks for the Oklahoma game.
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In fairness, neither Park nor Kempt lost that game. Park threw for over 300 yards and 4 TD's, but their defense gave up almost 40 points to an Iowa team that MN held to 17 last night playing without 4 of their top 5 DB's.

Both Park and Kempt are probably better than any of our QBs which is sad. That said, their WRs make a TON of plays. I'd love to see a couple of those guys in maroon and gold.
 

STPGopher said:
Define championships. Wisconsin won with mediocre at best QBs save Russell Wilson.
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Wisconsin's program has pretty much made the quarterback irrelevant. Put together a good defense, great offensive line, and they have a knack for finding one great running back after another. The quarterback just has to manage the game and not screw it up.
 

Yesterday was a depressing spectacle. Groundhog Day.
 



Pompous Elitist said:
Ole Miss backup Jordan Taamu threw for 368 vs Arkansas today and ran for another 80 or so. Allegedly Claeys vetoed him for Neil Mclaurin which is really perplexing. I mean, scouts and coaches disagree on players all the time but when a good JUCO drops in your lap...almost have to think Taamu turned us down for one of a variety of reasons. Green promised job, etc. Too cold...tenuous contract situation with staff. Who knows. Whatever, it's frustrating. Still hopeful Croft can develop along with the rest of the offense...need three games to form a trend line.
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Where did McLaurin end up?

I still think Kill's impatience in 2015 when he got ticked at Leidner for whatever reason and burned Croft's redshirt was a bad decision. It may or may not have set Croft's development back, but I think a few snaps last year (and a start in place of Rhoda for the game Leidner missed) might have made a difference for him this season.

It just shows how important the QB position is. Even at Wisconsin which doesn't have a great passing attack, you have a QB who is a very good game manager and doesn't make mistakes. Like others have said, you have to go back a bit in our history to have the same thing.
 

50PoundHead said:
It just shows how important the QB position is. Even at Wisconsin which doesn't have a great passing attack, you have a QB who is a very good game manager and doesn't make mistakes. Like others have said, you have to go back a bit in our history to have the same thing.
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Leidner's completion % was lower, but he really wasn't that different than the Wisconsin QBs in terms of "mistakes" (intereceptions). I think Leidner and Weber can generally be considered similar to most of Wisconsin's "game manager" QBs.
 

Word said:
Leidner's completion % was lower, but he really wasn't that different than the Wisconsin QBs in terms of "mistakes" (intereceptions). I think Leidner and Weber can generally be considered similar to most of Wisconsin's "game manager" QBs.
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It always baffles me that a run-centric team like Wisconsin can get the WRs and TEs open consistently. I think Fleck's passing offense is more sophisticated that what Kill/Claeys implemented, but the lack of a good trigger man becomes more obvious because of that. Tyler Johnson has been open a lot this year and I can't think of many passing plays under the previous regime where we saw guys as open on the outside. I don't watch as closely as I used to, but that's my impression.
 


50PoundHead said:
Where did McLaurin end up?

I still think Kill's impatience in 2015 when he got ticked at Leidner for whatever reason and burned Croft's redshirt was a bad decision. It may or may not have set Croft's development back, but I think a few snaps last year (and a start in place of Rhoda for the game Leidner missed) might have made a difference for him this season.

It just shows how important the QB position is. Even at Wisconsin which doesn't have a great passing attack, you have a QB who is a very good game manager and doesn't make mistakes. Like others have said, you have to go back a bit in our history to have the same thing.
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I really wish Fleck had kept McLaurin and let Rhoda go. McLaurin was only going to be around for two years anyway.

I'm not sure Croft is any worse today because of his redshirt being burned as a freshman. He just took the redshirt as a soph anyway. As I recall, Mitch was really terrible in a particular game (Was it against Northwestern?) and also a little banged up so Kill had to put in somebody else. I recall most of the posters on this board screaming to take Leidner out in that one.
 

cjbfbp said:
I really wish Fleck had kept McLaurin and let Rhoda go. McLaurin was only going to be around for two years anyway.

I'm not sure Croft is any worse today because of his redshirt being burned as a freshman. He just took the redshirt as a soph anyway. As I recall, Mitch was really terrible in a particular game (Was it against Northwestern?) and also a little banged up so Kill had to put in somebody else. I recall most of the posters on this board screaming to take Leidner out in that one.
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McLaurin didn't go to class.
 


Some Day...Maybe said:
Play them both!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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If only we played the likes of OSU bringing Rhoda back would be a great strategy. We are building for the future at this point and the kid is improving. With the many posts are you Rhoda's relative or something?
 

Pompous Elitist said:
If only we played the likes of OSU bringing Rhoda back would be a great strategy. We are building for the future at this point and the kid is improving. With the many posts are you Rhoda's relative or something?
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Are you Croft's relative?
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Are you Croft's relative?
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No. He's not been good but there is no value to playing Rhoda and some value in seeing if Croft can develop into a viable QB. If you haven't hard we have a bit of a five alarm fire going on in recruiting.
 

Part of the QB situation involves coaching. I remember when Daunte Culpepper was QB for the Vikes. A Vikings coach - may have been the OC, don't remember - said that they basically adjusted the offense so Culpepper wouldn't have to make as many decisions - cut down the # of reads so he could just make a couple of checks and let the ball go.

In other words - find out what the QB does well - ask him to do those things.
find out what the QB doesn't do well - and don't ask him to do those things.

That does not mean you change the system or change the offense. It just means you take a realistic approach to working with a young QB, and don't put more on his plate than he can handle.
 

I really hope we can bring in a CC QB for next year. The o-line needs help too but that will also improve with recruiting depth
 

Wisconsin seems to have been able to build a program with similarly average quarterbacks. I don't think that is issue #1. Mason couldn't put together a good enough defense. Brewster couldn't manage either side of the ball. Kill fixed defense but never got the offense clicking. Claeys tough to say in one year, defense played well. PJ too early to tell as well, seems like defense is trending to be good enough, offense meh...
 

EG#9 said:
It's really been amazing. If you discount MarQueis Gray running a trick play with the Dolphins, the last Gopher QB to throw an NFL regular season pass was Cory Sauter...who was recruited by Jim Wacker. Even more shockingly, I believe Sauter is also the last Gopher QB to make an NFL regular season roster (not practice squad and obviously not counting Gray as a TE). That's quite a difficult feat for P5 college team that does not run the option to achieve. Iowa and Wisconsin, while certainly not setting the world on fire with their passing games in most seasons have had numerous guys make rosters: Stanzi/Beathard recently for Iowa, Tolzein and of course Russell Wilson for Wisconsin.
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I still don't count Wilson as a Wisconsin guy
 

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