Glen Mason says 3 more wins is very important and feasible

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Mason sees improvement

Former Gophers football coach Glen Mason was the analyst for the Big Ten Network’s coverage of the team’s 48-31 home loss to Iowa on Saturday, which dropped the Gophers to 3-2 on the season heading into an almost impossible matchup with Ohio State next weekend in Columbus.

Still, Mason said he saw a big positive in this game from the Gophers.

“Today if I took one thing away about [the Gophers] I would say it’s their attitude,” Mason said. “No matter what happened in that game, they kept playing, they kept playing hard, they never gave up and they fought right down to the final whistle.”

While the Hawkeyes were able to attack the Gophers defense, it was just as impressive the way a young Gophers offense put up 31 points and 320 yards against an Iowa squad that was giving up 13.0 points and 260.5 yards per game heading into Saturday.

“I thought Minnesota did a good job of trying to exploit some weaknesses that the Iowa defense had. Iowa played two freshman corners, and they did a good job with the wide receivers that they have. Minnesota has some very talented, young wide receivers,” Mason said. “The other thing I was really impressed with was that Gophers run defense. Iowa has an awful good offensive line. They totally shut that running game down.”

The Gophers’ season has been a struggle of late with back-to-back losses by a combined score of 90-44, but Mason has seen improvement.

“They’re young, P.J. Fleck keeps talking about that, and I would agree with that,” Mason said. “You have three [wins] under their belt and you like to show improvement, I think the minimal goal is you’d like to find three more victories to get to a bowl, which would be very important, and I think that is feasible.”

http://www.startribune.com/mike-zimmer-says-vikings-will-benefit-from-tough-schedule/495366081/

Go Gophers!!
 

Yep. Important and feasible.

The five games starting with Nebraska on Oct. 20 will determine how this season will be perceived.

JTG
 

OK, today's game was an improvement over the Maryland debacle but it was still a bad day as Minnesota relates to its future opponents. I watched Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana and Nebraska today. They all have weapons and look capable of putting up 30 on the Gophers. Plus, Purdue has stopped beating itself with stupid, late penalties and has lots of play makers to go with two experienced quarterbacks. And Minnesota has to come out of the trip to Columbus without more key injuries. Feeling pretty gloomy today. I am reminding myself about how grateful I should be about my "real" life.
 

If the defense can make some adjustments and ZA starts making better decisions as he gets more experienced, I could see winning every game other than @OSU and @Wisconsin.

If the defense can't figure things out, I could see losing the rest of the season or at best beating Illinois and no one else.

We have enough games that should be close that it should be really easy and appropriate to judge Fleck. Not winning against the better teams is understandable with a young team. Not winning a ton of toss ups (we were favored in all of them before today by ESPN) would look really bad. Winning at least 4 of them would look really good and and be reassuring that the program will be good once his recruits are juniors and seniors.

There's certainly potential for the rest of the season after next weekend to be exciting.
 

Annexstad had a tough game. He's got to work on his long balls, he lofts them too much IMO. He did have some good long throws, but he's not consistent enough yet. Bright side is he has 3 more years to hopefully hone that skill.
 


Not winning against the better teams is understandable with a young team. Not winning a ton of toss ups (we were favored in all of them before today by ESPN) would look really bad. Winning at least 4 of them would look really good and and be reassuring that the program will be good once his recruits are juniors and seniors.

There's certainly potential for the rest of the season after next weekend to be exciting.

The ESPN power index gave use a slightly better than 50% chance of beating Maryland but Maryland was favored in all betting lines I saw. Maryland really destroyed us so I don't think one can say "We should have won that game."

Yes, there is potential for the rest of the season but as one goes through the components of the roster and compares those to the past four or five seasons, one could say:

Receivers: much better
QB: good short-to-medium range accuracy, poor long-range accuracy, one-dimensional because of no running ability, takes far too many sacks; better than Croft but not yet as effective on the whole as Leidner
Offense: more diversified but not necessarily more effective (clearly better than last year, though)
Defense: much worse except for the linebackers (Big Ten opponents' 45 pts. per game average and 62% completion rate are pretty clear evidence)
Special teams: worse
 


3 more wins is a good minimum level of acceptability.


@OSU

@Neb
Ind
@Ill
Pur
NW
@Wis


5 games that we should compete in.
The way the defense is playing, I could see us give up 30 in all of these games.
 

I’m surprised Mase managed to stop talking about Nate Stanley’s INT long enough to mention it.

They were really bullish on the Gopher defense yesterday for looking like a sieve. I suppose they did stop the run OK.
 



I’m surprised Mase managed to stop talking about Nate Stanley’s INT long enough to mention it.

They were really bullish on the Gopher defense yesterday for looking like a sieve. I suppose they did stop the run OK.

Before a defense can do ANYTHING in Big Ten play, they MUST be able to stop the run and force the other Big Ten team to beat them with the pass. Playing Iowa with their decent offensive line and zone blocking as tough as they did yesterday was encouraging.


The Gopher turned the ball over four times on interceptions yesterday. They sometimes gave Iowa excellent field position. Throwing the ball as much as the Gopher did yesterday absolutely hung the defense out to dry.


NOTE TO Fleck et al ( Staff members): to win Big Ten games you MUST stop the run AND pound the rock yourself. Otherwise you lose games that could have been competitive games in the Big Ten by between 10 and 21 points. To compete with Indiana, Purdue, Illinois and Nebraska this season...the Gopher MUST be able run the ball more, throw the ball a little less and stop the run. Make Illinois, Nebraska, Indiana, Purdue & Northwestern beat you with the pass. Ohio State and Wisky will beat you with the run...and then they will look all-world with their passing games. They will be able to pound the rock and stop your run this year, I fear. Northwestern may be able to do that as well

But, Coach Fleck: while I do see some signs of improvement with your wide outs...I am not seeing signs of your Gopher team playing BIG TEN FOOTBALL. To do that you must be able to stop the run and beat other Big Ten teams with the run. You are NOT giving your defense a chance to contain Big Ten teams by turning the ball over four or five times and giving up field position. By throwing so many incompletions...you keep saving time for the other team to have more completions and sustained drives and to pound the ball down the throats of your defensive unit. Help your defense out, Coach. Don't continue to throw the ball away so darn often against a team like Iowa. Quit taking time outs for the other team's offense by throwing so many incompletions... Against Illinois...Purdue...Indiana...Nebraska and Northwester: make them beat you with the pass by stopping the run. Same with the stinking badger. Go to Columbus and get that one over. But focus on stopping the run. Make tOSU pass the ball. Sell out on stopping the run...make them pass. Same for wisky. Maybe For the rest of the season: focus on stopping the run. will score 72 points that way...maybe they won't. But in Madison force them to pass. Run the ball. Stop the run. That is Big Ten football. It is easier said than done...I also realize that.
 
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@OSU

@Neb
Ind
@Ill
Pur
NW
@Wis


5 games that we should compete in.
The way the defense is playing, I could see us give up 30 in all of these games.

If we are where I think we are, Indiana, Illinois, and Nebraska should be gimmes. I'd expect us to be able to beat Purdue too. And that's assuming we don't steal one of the others.
 

If we are where I think we are, Indiana, Illinois, and Nebraska should be gimmes. I'd expect us to be able to beat Purdue too. And that's assuming we don't steal one of the others.

I think Purdue and perhaps even Northwestern at home will be easier than the Indiana one. I agree there should be 3 wins there somewhere.
 

If we are where I think we are, Indiana, Illinois, and Nebraska should be gimmes. I'd expect us to be able to beat Purdue too. And that's assuming we don't steal one of the others.

I haven't seen anything out of either the team or the coaching staff to give us any gimmes. Our B10 record is atrocious, average margin of loss is what, like 17 points in the last few games dating back to last year? How can you seriously think we can have a single gimme, just curious what you see.
 



3 more wins is a good minimum level of acceptability.

3 more wins matter for one reason and one reason only. More practice time to develop the youth on the team. We won’t be able to use youth as an excuse next year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


Win or lose, I just want to see improvements. For example, I see improvements in the receivers for the most part. C.A.B is really turning into a nice player and has great hands, Bateman is looking legit, if we can get Tyler Johnson to not drop a pass whole game I think we are getting there. Improving shows good things could happen next few years. Regardless, I will be watching every snap. Hope they can pull an upset at the end of the year!
 

I haven't seen anything out of either the team or the coaching staff to give us any gimmes. Our B10 record is atrocious, average margin of loss is what, like 17 points in the last few games dating back to last year? How can you seriously think we can have a single gimme, just curious what you see.

Thank you! I'm seeing what you're seeing.
 


It's all going to depend on whether Fleck wants to win now, or build for the future. If he wants to win now, he needs to determine the best 22 players (especially on OL and Defense) and roll with them, disregarding the redshirts.
 




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