Played great except for the miscues

btowngopher

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Interesting how last week we had few big miscues but generally played poorly all around. This week we had a bunch of miscues, but can't point out a unit that played real poorly. Now hopefully by B1G play we'll have it all put together.
 

The two plays in the 4th where the snap was fumbled and the RB sat on the ball like a chicken, followed by the pretty TD pass to Bell and amazing catch..... that was the game in a nutshell.
 
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Interesting how last week we had few big miscues but generally played poorly all around. This week we had a bunch of miscues, but can't point out a unit that played real poorly. Now hopefully by B1G play we'll have it all put together.

No, they didn't. You cannot play great, "except for miscues." Devers gave up a touchdown. Minnesota's awful zone defense gave up a touchdown. Minnesota fumbled away multiple possessions.

That was an awful, awful game from the Gophers, and they got lucky to win.

But a win is a win. They have a lot to clean up from this game.
 

Killer penalties, absolute game killers.

What a roller coaster of a game and finish.
 

No, they didn't. You cannot play great, "except for miscues." Devers gave up a touchdown. Minnesota's awful zone defense gave up a touchdown. Minnesota fumbled away multiple possessions.

That was an awful, awful game from the Gophers, and they got lucky to win.

But a win is a win. They have a lot to clean up from this game.

Sure you can. You just say except for the miscues and look at how they played the rest of the game.
 


Sure you can. You just say except for the miscues and look at how they played the rest of the game.

Except for miscues, the Vikings looked great against Buffalo last year.
Miscues are what decide football games.
You can't look great if you're calling stupid defensive schemes, giving up a ton of sacks to an undersized line, and taking stupid penalties, all night long.

I don't want to be overly negative, so I'll say that there were a lot of "opportunities for improvement" tonight.
But I was/am pretty pissed with PJ after watching that game.
That was the most out of control performance I can remember from a Gopher team since Mason was giving up 30 point leads in the second half of bowl games.
 
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There were an entire season of critical miscues. At least three penalties after stopping them on 3rd down, and two turnovers that cost us points. It’s great to get the win, but they have a lot of things to clean up.

BTW, Coughlin was being held big time on that last play, and there was no flag. The refs were awful.


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I'm the most "win is a win" type guy, but I couldn't say they played great. They made plays when they needed to, and there were some fantastic ones! However, at the same time, there were moments where the offense couldn't gain a yard and the defense was shredded. The good news is the team can learn, they can actually learn a lot to be honest. There's a lot coaches can point out that went wrong this game, and how to improve next time, and fortunately there's a tally in the win column to boot.
 

well....if anyone thought we could go out to The Valley, commit all the crucial penalties and miscues that happened,
and still come away with a win....well....you're a genius, because that just doesn't happen. The fact that this squad
came away with the win says something
 



My point is, if they played like they did against SDSU AND had the miscues they had today, we would've gotten blown out.
 

I agree btown we had more plus this week, I think. Glimpses of okay that looks good. But way more wtf bad plays than last week.
Like you, I do think we’ll fix the bad hopefully increase the good. But our coaching decisions leave one puzzled in both games this year.
 

My point is, if they played like they did against SDSU AND had the miscues they had today, we would've gotten blown out.

SDSU was a better team than Fresno.
They came into the bank and punched the Gophers in the face all night.
They could stop the run.

Fresno didn't have a prayer when we decided to run up the middle.
 

I agree with the OP. It was weird in that for the most part we played really solid football but consistently then would have silly penalties on 3rd downs that didn't actually affect the play or have bad TOs that were unforced or semi forced. Obviously you are what the results say you are but those miscues were so frequent and so uncharacteristic and were also just these random, one off things that I find it easy to say 'except for the mistakes....'
 



Lots of mistakes but the good news is a lot of them are very fixable.
 

Lots of mistakes and miscues - and I was sick of running between the tackles 40 times a game - BUT, PJ's teams make big plays, offense, defense, special teams. Often one or two of these plays win the game, as Winfield did tonight (and in last year's FSU game). Murray Warmath's teams used to play Bob Devaney's teams even, but Nebraska would win with one or two big plays - often long passes - with scores like 7-0, 10-7, 14-7, etc. The Gophers had some phenomenal pass/catch plays tonight, and Winfield reminds me of what the LA Times said of Paul Giel many years ago: "He looks like a man, but runs like a cat."
 

well....if anyone thought we could go out to The Valley, commit all the crucial penalties and miscues that happened,
and still come away with a win....well....you're a genius, because that just doesn't happen. The fact that this squad
came away with the win says something

Yeah, if you listed off all the self inflicted wounds we had in this game nobody would believe we still came out on top. Especially on the road you shouldn't be able to win a game when you fumble 3 times and commit some terrible penalties that take away plays that would have ended drives for the other team.

For the coaches it is the best thing in the world. We got to 2-0 but there shouldn't be any players feeling like the season is going to be a cakewalk after these first two games. Lots to work on but thankfully it comes after getting the W again.
 

Interesting how last week we had few big miscues but generally played poorly all around. This week we had a bunch of miscues, but can't point out a unit that played real poorly. Now hopefully by B1G play we'll have it all put together.

If you overlook the fact that I'm old, fat, balding, nearsighted, and hairy, I'm a babe magnet.
 

Seriously, did Fresno score any touchdowns without a 3rd down penalty gift from the Gophs or a short field? I can't think of any.

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Man, those two long conversions on the final drive in regulation were a thing of beauty.
 

Just finished watching after having to work late. Far too hyped up to go to sleep right away. My thoughts.

1. We won. We're 2-0. Very winnable game coming up. Hopeful for another 3-0 start to the season

The Good
2. Tanner Morgan. Dude is a winner. Doesn't let his miscues take him down. Comes back each time. Very impressed with him. Great game manager. He won't wow you with arm strength but he does just enough to get you wins. Very happy he is our starting QB.
3. Bateman. Guy once again made great plays multiple times. He's a special talent and Fleck/Simon will make him better (can see it already from FR to SO years).
4. AW11 once again making huge plays. This dude will have an easy share of highlight type plays whenever he leaves for the draft
5. Lantz with an absolute clutch kick. Very smooth. Seemed like he'd been there before. Hope it's how he looks the rest of the season as we'll need again multiple times if this is how the coaching staff is going to try to win games.
6. Morgan to CAB. First career receiving TD an absolute beauty and one I'm sure he'll cherish forever.
7. Overall thought the DBs had a good game aside from the one blown coverage over the top on the RB wheel route for a score. They were being asked to cover for far too long with the anemic pass rush

The worrisome
8. DL looked non-existent again. Sacks they came up with were often coverage sacks. Showed moments. But no extended wins out there. Needs to get better or we're going to be hurt in B10 play
9. LBers showed flow issues again. Was hoping we'd look a lot better with Martin back but we clearly are still missing Cashman
10. Punt receiving is scary once again which I hate. Can argue the refs bungled that call (more on them later) but it's inexcusable how often we let the ball hit the turf both when we can't catch and when we let it roll. Gotta be cleaned up whether that's in the scout room seeing how far to expect punts to go or with coaching on the field.


The far too ugly
11. I'm ok if Devers doesn't play another snap. For a senior that play was horrendous. Totally changed momentum when we looked far superior early in the game
12. Use of timeouts. We called one prior to a 50 yard FG attempt. I don't know if Fleck was sold it was going to be a fake or what, but that was extremely odd.
13. Wildcat call when we're marching the ball late. Bad snap leading to a fumble. Why you'd call the wrinkle (was one of the only times I agreed with Murray all night) is just overthinking. Felt like a high school coach thinking he's being crafty and screwing his team over and luckily it didn't cost us.
14. That was one of the worst broadcasts I've heard in awhile. Color commentary was horrendously biased or they just asked him to cow to the home squad and refs. Hard to say but it was difficult to listen (they apparently also found our size on the offensive line to be key like some fans do)
15. the refs. From the broken mike system to the very odd array of penalties they called (lots of holding not called, then they call a Faalele one that was a guy falling down, the roughing the passer called by the guy 30 yards away but not the one from 15 feet away was very weird, the "holding" on Thomas, the odd muffed punt situation, multiple missed holding calls both ways). Was like they couldn't decide how tight a game to call and then threw flags repeatedly in big moments. Love watching when they play and the refs don't impact the outcome unless they absolutely need to step in, these guys got themselves into the spotlight in many bad ways going both ways.

But hey all in all we won a game on the road against a team that will contend in their conference. Solid win. Guys should be proud for showing some guts. Win next week. Get healthy (we need you CC45). RTB
 

Except for miscues, the Vikings looked great against Buffalo last year.
Miscues are what decide football games.
You can't look great if you're calling stupid defensive schemes, giving up a ton of sacks to an undersized line, and taking stupid penalties, all night long.

I don't want to be overly negative, so I'll say that there were a lot of "opportunities for improvement" tonight.
But I was/am pretty pissed with PJ after watching that game.
That was the most out of control performance I can remember from a Gopher team since Mason was giving up 30 point leads in the second half of bowl games.

The thing is that most of the miscues we had tonight were uncharacteristic and/or mental errors that are easily fixable. Over the first two years of Fleck tat the U, Minnesota has been the least penalized team in the nation so it's easy to believe those untimely penalties will be fixed. Mo rarely if ever fumbles and in Fleck's last year at WMU, WMU gave the ball away the least among any team in the entire nation so it's easy to believe that that will be fixed.

It's different and more encouraging compared to if the other team flat out just beats you fair and square, runs it down your throat and is simply the bigger, faster, stronger team. That takes a lot longer to fix but that wasn't the case tonight. We were arguably the better team and many Fresno State fans even admitted that.
 
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Anyone else notice how P.O.'d PJ was in that game? Numerous times losing it on camera. Lots of covering of the face with that play card while he dropped f bombs into the mic (on the one angle you could clearly see that). I think he was not happy with the refs nor his teams play. Good to see him bark some I thought.
 


This reminds me of a High School coach I used to know. after every game (usually a loss), his post-game speech would be "you played hard, you were in that game. If you just take away 2 or 3 of those big plays by the other team, we had a chance to win."

Of course, the reality is you cannot take away those big plays by the other team. And, if you keep seeing the same pattern every game, there is a reason for that.

Bottom line, the Gophers are 2-0 and they have not come close to playing a complete game. So, plus side, they have a lot of room to improve. worry side, they cannot keep making mistakes (turnovers, penalties) if they want to be a contender in the B1G West.

I just hope that we don't have to go through this every game - it may be good for the ratings, but it's bad for my nerves.
 

Anyone else notice how P.O.'d PJ was in that game? Numerous times losing it on camera. Lots of covering of the face with that play card while he dropped f bombs into the mic (on the one angle you could clearly see that). I think he was not happy with the refs nor his teams play. Good to see him bark some I thought.

Noticed it as well. He was really mad at the refs after the Gophers had a false start. Anyone know why? He was livid for awhile. Maybe Fresno St was simulating the snap?
 

Noticed it as well. He was really mad at the refs after the Gophers had a false start. Anyone know why? He was livid for awhile. Maybe Fresno St was simulating the snap?

I know he was not happy about the timing of starting the play clock several times as well then stopping the offense where we tried to play fast. Idk with that one specifically but he was as livid as I’ve ever seen him
 

I know he was not happy about the timing of starting the play clock several times as well then stopping the offense where we tried to play fast. Idk with that one specifically but he was as livid as I’ve ever seen him

Noticed it as well. He was really mad at the refs after the Gophers had a false start. Anyone know why? He was livid for awhile. Maybe Fresno St was simulating the snap?

Among other things, I think there was a clear Fresno defensive offsides on at least one key play that didn't get called...at least that's what my poor lip reading skills gleaned from it.
 

I'm the most "win is a win" type guy, but I couldn't say they played great. They made plays when they needed to, and there were some fantastic ones! However, at the same time, there were moments where the offense couldn't gain a yard and the defense was shredded. The good news is the team can learn, they can actually learn a lot to be honest. There's a lot coaches can point out that went wrong this game, and how to improve next time, and fortunately there's a tally in the win column to boot.

Generally, you learn a lot in defeat as a team like the Gophers did last year. Fortunately, this game was won and they are going to learn a lot from the miscues. Stupid stuff like the Devers' foible that nearly caused the team a victory needs to be nipped in the butt. It was nice to see PJ Fleck used it as a teaching moment with Devers instead of berating him. The players know that they need to put team first in order to win. I can see why kids would want to play for him.
 

Seriously, did Fresno score any touchdowns without a 3rd down penalty gift from the Gophs or a short field? I can't think of any.

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25 of Fresno State's 28 points in regulation came as the result of either a Gophers' turnover or defensive penalty that kept a drive alive after a third down stop.

The game didn't need to be that close, and they sure played a hell of a lot better than they did against South Dakota State. Still lots to improve, but the mistakes aren't hard to fix. They won the game, they're 2-0. That's really all that matters. Tanner Morgan stepped up with a huge throw to CAB, then the keeper in overtime was a perfect play. They're getting better every week, which is all Coach Fleck is asking for.
 

Bateman could take the light rail down Washington Avenue and be the Vikings #3 receiver TODAY.
 




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