Ryan Burns: Five takeaways from Minnesota's close victory over Ga Southern

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https://247sports.com/college/minne...orgia-Southern-five-takeaways-recap-135616933

1) KIRK CIARROCCA NEEDS TO REVAMP HIS OFFENSIVE PLAY CALLING
I'm not sure there's a nice way to say it, but the play-calling for this game was just brutal. Absolutely brutal.

Head coach PJ Fleck said after the game that this is an inside zone team, which is entirely accurate. This issue though is, all the read option inside zone isn't working. Minnesota ran the ball 48 times on the day for 93 total yards. That's 1.9 yards per carry against Georgia Southern. Now, this is a 10-win team from a season ago, but for a Big Ten team, that's frankly really bad.

Minnesota's ball carriers not named Tanner Morgan rushed the ball for 110 yards on 40 carries, for 2.75 ypc.

We'll get to the offensive line in a bit, but if you're Ciarrocca, you have to give them a chance. Everyone in the stadium knows that inside zone is coming, and when that's the case play-after-play and drive-after-drive, the opposing defensive coordinator likely knows as well. That means your guys up front don't have a chance. The offensive line is already struggling to get a push, but if the opposing front seven already knows the run is coming, plus their +1 in the box (seven guys in the box, with only six Minnesota blockers), you're definitely not going to win. It's not a scenario that is setting your offense up for success.

The play-calling needs to change. You have two wide receivers in Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman who for my money, are the best Gopher wide receiver duo that I've seen in my 27 years on this earth. Yet, the first instinct on each drive is to run the ball up the middle, which is an area that you little success in through three games. That just doesn't make sense to me.

You can still be an inside zone team, but the way you go about it HAS to be more creative. A prime example is just the way the second half unfolded.

- Minnesota ran the ball 29 times for 18 total yards. That's less than a yard a carry, YET, Ciarrocca kept going back to it again and again and again.

I just don't understand why. It wasn't working. I know you want to drain the clock as you're leading, but the offense then got off-schedule and Morgan was put into tough situations. In the second half alone, there were five third downs of nine plus yards. That's not a recipe for success. The self-scout and more importantly adjustments have to come after the bye week. Right?

What makes the running game usage even more baffling is Minnesota was on their fourth and fifth string running backs for a majority of this game.
 

Lots of good stuff in there. I really enjoy his takes, and the notes at the end!
 

At the end of last season, after Faalele was inserted into the lineup, our offensive line was dominant and became the lynchpin to our late season success. They simply dominated the line of scrimmage in the Purdue, Wisconsin and Georgia Tech games.

So my question is: what the hell has happened to them?

The running game is the number one problem right now. I'm not even sure what the second-most pressing concern would be.

The big guys up front have gone from dominant to being pushed around. It's mystifying to me.
 

No doubt the OC can do a better job but I think that's not exactly at the top of the list when it comes to areas in most need of improvement. They managed to put up 35 points and almost 400 yards despite an INT, a sack/fumble returned for a GS TD, and a blocked FG returned for a GS TD.

Areas most alarming to me at this point;

- Schleuter at LT is a massive, massive concern at this point. It's frustrating that there's not a better option at this point. Maybe we see a different starting 5 up front in the coming weeks.

- The kicking game seems shaky at best. A miss XP and a blocked FG already (and that's with not exactly that many opportunities), and I don't know what to think about kicking that final KO out of bounds at the end of the game. Unless he was told to do that, that is just plain unacceptable and egregious.

- The defense gave up less than 200 yards but still plenty to clean up, missed tackles, missed assignments.

Plenty to work on and two weeks to get ready for Purdue on the road.

At the end of the day, it's really, REALLY hard to be too upset about accomplishing the two biggest goals at this point in the season; coming out of the NC schedule 3-0 and doing so relatively injury-free (pending an update on the guys dinged up yesterday). 100% mission accomplished.
 

And it's great to have a BYE week headed into the first Big Ten game of the season, not only that but the first road Big Ten game of the season.

Would be great to have a solid victory over Purdue and put the bad taste of what happened last season at Maryland to rest.
 


I'll note the first two offensive plays were passes...
 


No doubt the OC can do a better job but I think that's not exactly at the top of the list when it comes to areas in most need of improvement. They managed to put up 35 points and almost 400 yards despite an INT, a sack/fumble returned for a GS TD, and a blocked FG returned for a GS TD.

Burns describes the most obvious and easily fixable problem from yesterday: play calling. Taking away Tanner's rushing numbers that obviously were very bad because of sacks, the rest of the run game still managed only 2.75 yards per carry yet there were considerably more run plays than passing plays. The passing game netted 9.8 yards per pass and has been performing very well to date this season. The run/pass ratio would have been more lopsided had the team not been forced to pass in the last 3 minutes with no time outs.

The receivers (and QB too) have been remarkably clutch so far this season but sooner-or-later putting them into so many "must-do" situations because of all the wasted downs on plays that aren't working is going to take its toll.
 

I'll note the first two offensive plays were passes...

Here's what's interesting to me...we clearly run to set up the pass, particularly the inside zone setting up RPO passes to TJ. The first two pass plays were notably awful looking, produced no open receivers, and had one INT and one near INT.

Is it true the Gophers need to waste downs slamming into the middle to be an effective passing team? Maybe so. It seemed the two least open pass plays of the game had no runs precede them. Why doesn't Washington State or Oklahoma have to do this? Why did the Gophers become effective in the final drive passing when there was zero threat of the run? My suspicion is that we need to get guys open by running 3-5 WR sets and not by slamming Rodney into the line 25 times a game.
 



Is it true the Gophers need to waste downs slamming into the middle to be an effective passing team? Maybe so. It seemed the two least open pass plays of the game had no runs precede them. Why doesn't Washington State or Oklahoma have to do this? Why did the Gophers become effective in the final drive passing when there was zero threat of the run? My suspicion is that we need to get guys open by running 3-5 WR sets and not by slamming Rodney into the line 25 times a game.

Well said! I'd say the reverse is looking truer at this point: we're going to have to pass to set up the run.
 




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