What grade would you give the Gophers in the season opening win vs SDSU?

What grade would you give the Gophers in the season opening win vs SDSU?

  • A

    Votes: 4 2.5%
  • B

    Votes: 11 6.7%
  • C

    Votes: 66 40.5%
  • D

    Votes: 69 42.3%
  • F

    Votes: 13 8.0%

  • Total voters
    163

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What grade would you give the Gophers in the season opening win vs SDSU?
 


F to the post game show. Get out of the parking lot and it's over.

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B-

If they had lost, it would have been a big fat F.


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B-

If they had lost, it would have been a big fat F.


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I'll agree with both parts of this. A win is a win, and we are 1-0. The big coaching headscratcher for me was us burning a timeout to punt when trailing late in the 3rd quarter.

I'll reserve the right to modify my grade when Face the Facts runs this through his unimpressive win formula and tells me whether it is a * win.
 

Wow. Every grade given so far is very generous in my mind. I'm going to sleep on it and chime in tomorrow.
Nicest thing I can say right now is that I hope this was a wake up call, but just maybe SDSU is that good.
 

I gave an F but Im angry right now so factor that in.

Rashod Bateman gets an A. He will end up better than Tyler Johnson ever was. He already might be better
 




IMO gaining 3 yards per rush while giving up 5 yards per garners a D. We were fortunate they started an inexperienced, overconfident QB or that’s a big L.
 

Grade: D.

The Good:
- Bateman played like the senior.
- The running backs played well, but not great.
- Tanner Morgan played well, but had a few RPO read mistakes and threw the INT.

The Bad:
- The team wasn't ready to play.
- Both Sam's had an underwhelming game, and they were starters.
- Tyler Johnson had dropped two catchable passes.
- Kicking game suspect for both kicks and coverage.
- Defense was on it's heals most of the night.

The Ugly:
- SDSU's Rozeboom's extra long hair getting stuck in his helmet straps.
 

D

We won the game so not an F so I can't go there but it has to be only one spot higher than an F. Aside from the fact that we won the game, there was very little to be encouraged about. I'm still hopeful they can figure it out but tonight was unimpressive. Kickoff coverage was poor, Lantz on the only kick with distance missed it, the O-line didn't dominate and the D-line and LB's played poor.

On the bright side apparently Dunlap went back in the game for victory formation, Williamson's injury was likely only a cramp and we get Kamal back next week according to PJ.
 



I gave an F. In addition to the things listed by y'all. The game management was just brutally bad.
 

D. You got pushed around by an FCS school. We've all seen games where you lose even though you outplayed the other team. In this one, we won despite being outplayed. I know turnovers are part of it, but SDSU pissed it away.
 

D-

Can't give an F because it's a win.

Extremely disappointed in both offensive and defensive line play. The Gophers' inability to simply overpower and out-athlete a team from an inferior conference is inexcusable.

The one thing I will say in the Gopher's favor: they played hard and kept grinding, even though all the momentum went SDSU's way. They kept plugging away.
 

C
Only because they won and won by a TD.
It's also giving SDSU the benefit of the doubt that they are a good team.
If SDSU loses several games this year, then I'd call it a D, but it's probably a C / C-.
 

D which corresponds with disappointed. Last nights coaching was poor at best. SDSU can beat some lower level B1G teams. Almost got one last night.
 

I was at the game.
I was shocked to see Morgan's high completion rate, yet note how inefficient the offense looked. South Dakota was more complex in its offense than we were. It was tiresome to watch RUTM all night. Was Limegrover calling the plays?
On defense, we were also quite vanilla. The few times we ran some stuntz we caused SDSU's QB to make significant mistakes, but mostly we just let him sit back and throw.
I walked away thinking:
Either our kids struggle to absorb more complex schemes or our coaching staff struggles to teach more complex schemes. In either case, last night we seemed to be out coached.
C for our kids efforts.
D for our coaches ability to scheme and make adjustments.
 

C

I think SDSU deserves some credit. They were quicker than us and they out coached us on both sides of the ball. They found ways to compensate for our size advantage, exploit their speed advantage, and we were slow to adjust. They mixed the plays well to keep our defense off guard. We needed two very costly turnovers to win. We'll see how the kicking game progresses as the year goes on but last night we were happy that we weren't forced to kick a field goal.

It wasn't all bad on our side. Bateman was spectacular in the first half. Tanner had a very solid performance for the first game of the year. Not a great night for the RBs but they did manage to do something with the holes on the too-few occasions they got them. On the whole, I thought the pass coverage by the DBs was pretty good.
 

D. And only because we snuck a lucky win.

We got physically manhandled by an FCS team.
 

D for disappointed and discouraged
 

D. And only because we snuck a lucky win.

We got physically manhandled by an FCS team.

Well said! Concise, to-the-point and extremely accurate. This raises huge red flags for me.

I'm trying to take solace in the fact that many of our guys played much, much better than this at the end of last season, while competing with much better opponents (Purdue, Wisconsin, GA Tech). Hopefully they can return to that form, and do it right quick. The upcoming road trip to Fresno State looks pretty daunting as of this morning. We are about to take a step up in weight class.
 

I'm going to give it a D, however, South Dakota State would not be the worst team in the Big 10 this year.

I'm not making any excuses, I hated our inability to stop anything wide. I hated our kick coverage and the way our DL played. Our OL didn't play great, but that's not a bad front 7 and they were selling out on the run. We really should have opened up our offense more.

If we would have won a close game against them, I would have given it a C because I think they're better than some of the Big 10 teams we will face.
The fact that I think we were extremely lucky to win, I'll give it a D.
 

C+

Most everything has seemed to have been covered. I usually will always give the benefit of the doubt when it's a first game because you never know what you're going to get. The OL was a little concerning, along with the LB play. I did not like our special teams play, and I HATED using a time out to then punt. I didn't have a problem with a punt (it was a 1 point game in the 3rd quarter & field position is always important, no reason to risk it), but a serious football coach is going to have to explain to me sometime why you don't just take a 5 yard penalty in that situation rather than take a time out. To me, the time out is more valuable than having to punt at our 45 rather than the 50. Knowing that our punter pretty much has a max of 42-45 yards on a punt anyway, it probably would have resulted better letting him try to boom it rather than have a mediocre attempt at placement that resulted in near the 20 anyway.

Not all was bad; Bateman was spectacular. Even though their stats weren't big, I like the potential of the Smith/Mo combo, which will only be enhanced if/when Brooks comes back. Can still add Bryce in the mix too. I didn't think the tackling was poor. I didn't think Morgan played poorly either. Yes, he had the pick, and I also didn't like the deep throw to Bateman in the 3rd Q when they had it pretty covered (even though Bate got his hands on it & almost made the play). When the D was playing ahead of the sticks & SDSU was held at bay on 1st down, it seemed like the D was able to get it to 3rd & Long & 4th down (I'm sure that's the case for most defenses, but still have to do it).

The special teams is concerning; penalties was concerning (uncharacteristically...I think that will get cleaned up & won't be an issue). Their ability to run outside was concerning (don't know if it was because of poor DE/LB play, or scheme in where we were trying to protect the middle a bit more). Johnson having a pair of drops was not good.

This team can still be special; but got to get to work & get better. I'm sure the players & coaches would agree. I like SDSU as a team & we still got a win against a team where we made a lot of mistakes. I don't think you can ever get lower than a C if you win the game.
 

D, and not an F only because it wasn't a loss.

It was ugly enough. A flukey win -- at home -- against a lower-level opponent. An outright gift.

No disrespect to SDSU, though. Impressive program.

JTG
 

C
I was very disappointed when I finally got to bed last night. However this morning I remembered that I had watched a sloppy Miami Florida game. Vikings have been sloppy as well and they are pros, or at least suppose to be.

First games are tough and we did play a good team. They were the underdogs, went to a BIG 10 stadium, pretty much a full house, 20 Minnesotans with a chip on their shoulders as they didn't get offers from the U. May have taken South Dakota lightly as to mindset during the week. Remember the way you practice is how you perform in the game. It may have caught up to them.

I'm looking for and expecting better things next Saturday.
 

I could never give a win (especially over one of the best programs in FCS) less than a B. If this was one of the worst teams in FCS, ya maybe. But it's a win. Tough to give any win less than a B.
 

What happened to contain? Isn't that like top 3 things for a defense?
 

A win is a win, sure. And a D is a passing grade. But it won't get you to the next level.
 




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