Gold Rush
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- Nov 20, 2008
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No doubt about it, the Penn St. game was a great victory and a blast to watch if you were a Golden Gopher fan. Once again, we were able to pull out a win even though we made some mistakes that hopefully we can work on for next week's game vs. Iowa. I love it when we can overcome a mistake and you can learn from it without it costing you the game -- those are the most painful ones.
- Shannon Brooks fumble - completely foolish not to wrap that up when he was in heavy traffic and he was fighting for extra yards when the play was just about stopped. It's ok to keep fighting but you have to protect the ball.
- Paulson had a play where he just missed the blocker completely and QB Morgan just got smoked. That was almost an interception.
- Just because you have a 12 point lead at halftime doesn't mean you can kill the clock for 30 minutes. There's too much time left - keep running what was successful - if you can - and don't go into a shell.
- QB Morgan had an exceptional day but the one pass he didn't make - the little fade in the end zone to WR Johnson needs a little work because I would like to see that one again and this time it can be successful!
- The one play that really killed us on defense was their passes to the tight ends who weren't covered very well. They better work on that one because I guarantee Iowa is watching the tape from this game and will try to use their TE's the same way.
These are all things that maybe we could work on and improve upon and there are probably others as well. I don't want to sound like I am nitpicking or complaining because I thought the players and coaching staff all did an exceptional job playing against a top 5 team in the country that had 2 weeks to prepare for them. This wasn't a fluke that we got lucky on because Penn St. came in severely banged up or took us lightly because they were looking ahead to next week. They knew this was a big game going in and if they didn't, they knew it pretty much 5 minutes in when they got intercepted on their opening drive, the Gophers march down and score and the crowd is going crazy. Penn St. certainly made some mistakes too they will need to work on.
Maybe the most important thing for the boys to work on is to let it go and get ready for Iowa. If they are still celebrating the big win when they play Iowa, and lose as a result, then Penn St. STILL beat them - just ironically not in the week they played them!!
- Shannon Brooks fumble - completely foolish not to wrap that up when he was in heavy traffic and he was fighting for extra yards when the play was just about stopped. It's ok to keep fighting but you have to protect the ball.
- Paulson had a play where he just missed the blocker completely and QB Morgan just got smoked. That was almost an interception.
- Just because you have a 12 point lead at halftime doesn't mean you can kill the clock for 30 minutes. There's too much time left - keep running what was successful - if you can - and don't go into a shell.
- QB Morgan had an exceptional day but the one pass he didn't make - the little fade in the end zone to WR Johnson needs a little work because I would like to see that one again and this time it can be successful!
- The one play that really killed us on defense was their passes to the tight ends who weren't covered very well. They better work on that one because I guarantee Iowa is watching the tape from this game and will try to use their TE's the same way.
These are all things that maybe we could work on and improve upon and there are probably others as well. I don't want to sound like I am nitpicking or complaining because I thought the players and coaching staff all did an exceptional job playing against a top 5 team in the country that had 2 weeks to prepare for them. This wasn't a fluke that we got lucky on because Penn St. came in severely banged up or took us lightly because they were looking ahead to next week. They knew this was a big game going in and if they didn't, they knew it pretty much 5 minutes in when they got intercepted on their opening drive, the Gophers march down and score and the crowd is going crazy. Penn St. certainly made some mistakes too they will need to work on.
Maybe the most important thing for the boys to work on is to let it go and get ready for Iowa. If they are still celebrating the big win when they play Iowa, and lose as a result, then Penn St. STILL beat them - just ironically not in the week they played them!!
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