14-3 to 9-7 is a big step backwards…

[Some Day...Maybe]

…with 2 of the toughest games on the schedule remaining.

In the 17 games after Robb Smith was let go, and up until the first game of the Mike Sanford era, the Gophers went 14-3 and averaged 33.5 points per game.

In the 16 games since Sanford Jr. was hired the Gophers have gone 9-7 and averaged 26.75 points per game. That’s a significant regression.

I miss Kirk Ciarocca and hope he wants to come back! Either way, I’d be shocked if Sanford isn’t let go after the season. The only way he has a chance of staying imo is if he goes 3-0. If the offense struggles this week he’s toast.

 

[#2Gopher]

I miss Kirk Ciarocca and hope he wants to come back!

I don't know. Something in my gut tells me that it wasn't a smooth let go when Kirk left for Penn State. With that I believe Fleck moved on and isn't looking back.

 

[NotAFanOfBecky]

…with 2 of the toughest games on the schedule remaining.

In the 17 games after Robb Smith was let go, and up until the first game of the Mike Sanford era, the Gophers went 14-3 and averaged 33.5 points per game.

In the 16 games since Sanford Jr. was hired the Gophers have gone 9-7 and averaged 26.75 points per game. That’s a significant regression.

I miss Kirk Ciarocca and hope he wants to come back! Either way, I’d be shocked if Sanford isn’t let go after the season. The only way he has a chance of staying imo is if he goes 3-0. If the offense struggles this week he’s toast.

Stop using reason and logic. That’s not allowed around here!

 

[RogueGopher]

2 NFL recievers not on the team anymore. Makes a MASSIVE difference. You see it every game. The level of play out of the WRs is just not the same, way more dropped passes and no big play maker outside CAB. Guys are young and unexperienced right now. They need more time to gROW.

(Also would like to add Sanford started in a Covid year, so it's a little unfair of a comparison...)

 

[SanDiegoGopherFan]

This whole “2 nfl” receiver thing needs some context.

how many here remember TJ and his dropped balls? Anyone?

also, who has looked at how many targets BM and TJ had in 2019 and how many of those targets were receptions.

then lets compare the number of targets vs completions from 2018 and 2019 to 2020 and 2021 from a % standpoint since you know covid year is guess we had a few less games?

 

[SMPLSGopher]

W-L doesn't solely fall on the OC and it's disingenuous to portray it that way. If you look at average points Sanford has given us 27.1 per game vs. 31.8 for KC. That isn't insignificant, but I'm not sure it's a huge difference either. And if you look at the same first 16 games that's also 27.1 ppg for Sanford vs. 23.3 for KC (or 25.6 if you count the full first 2 years).

Another way of looking more directly at an OC's talent is looking at consistency, or lack thereof. If the team had consistently scored their average points in every game in each year:

2017: +1 wins (22.1 ppg)
2018: +1/-1 wins = 0 (28.9 ppg)
2019: +1/-1 wins = 0 (34.1 ppg)
2020: +1/-1 wins = 0 (27.3 ppg)
2021: +2 wins (27.0 ppg)

That puts each OC at losing a net of 1 game they wouldn't have if they'd just met their average. I'm no fan of Sanford's, but outside of 2019 Kirk wasn't lighting the world on fire either, and even then he still had a dud of a game against Iowa.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

W-L doesn't solely fall on the OC and it's disingenuous to portray it that way. If you look at average points Sanford has given us 27.1 per game vs. 31.8 for KC. That isn't insignificant, but I'm not sure it's a huge difference either. And if you look at the same first 16 games that's also 27.1 ppg for Sanford vs. 23.3 for KC (or 25.6 if you count the full first 2 years).

Another way of looking more directly at an OC's talent is looking at consistency, or lack thereof. If the team had consistently scored their average points in every game in each year:

2017: +1 wins (22.1 ppg)
2018: +1/-1 wins = 0 (28.9 ppg)
2019: +1/-1 wins = 0 (34.1 ppg)
2020: +1/-1 wins = 0 (27.3 ppg)
2021: +2 wins (27.0 ppg)

That puts each OC at losing a net of 1 game they wouldn't have if they'd just met their average. I'm no fan of Sanford's, but outside of 2019 Kirk wasn't lighting the world on fire either, and even then he still had a dud of a game against Iowa.

Small correction but MN 2021 is at 25.9 (not 27.0) ppg currently with the offense facing the two most difficult defenses on the schedule coming up. MN 2019 was at 37.6 ppg at the same point in the schedule (after 9 games and pre-Iowa, Wisconsin, and Auburn), and in many of those games the offense left points on the field after going into shells in the second half.

There is really no excuse for the amount of difficulty the offense has had, Bateman and TJ or not. Again, I’m a big believer people can gROW and this team in particular seems schizophrenic so nothing would totally surprise me over the last 3 weeks but the lows have been really low and curiously against average to bad competition, not heavyweight defenses. The highs have been slightly above average FBS output. I think we expected more with such an experienced group coming back. Hoping they can put it together on this home stretch.

 

[SMPLSGopher]

Small correction but MN 2021 is at 25.9 (not 27.0) ppg currently with the offense facing the two most difficult defenses on the schedule coming up. MN 2019 was at 37.6 ppg at the same point in the schedule (after 9 games and pre-Iowa, Wisconsin, and Auburn), and in many of those games the offense left points on the field after going into shells in the second half.

There is really no excuse for the amount of difficulty the offense has had, Bateman and TJ or not. Again, I’m a big believer people can gROW and this team in particular seems schizophrenic so nothing would totally surprise me over the last 3 weeks but the lows have been really low and curiously against average to bad competition, not heavyweight defenses. The highs have been slightly above average FBS output. I think we expected more with such an experienced group coming back. Hoping they can put it together on this home stretch.

With all the experience we have on offense I agree our performance has been disappointing. Bowling Green in particular - scoring 10 points against a team averaging nearly 40 points allowed against FBS competition outside our game. My goal though wasn't so much to excuse Sanford's performance, but rather to point out to the OP that Kirk had his share of struggles too. It's easy to look at 2019 through rose-colored glasses, but 2019 wasn't his normal performance in his time here. I'm on board with dumping Sanford, but I don't think bringing back KC is a magical solution to our struggles.

 

[Flecknation]

This whole “2 nfl” receiver thing needs some context.

how many here remember TJ and his dropped balls? Anyone?

also, who has looked at how many targets BM and TJ had in 2019 and how many of those targets were receptions.

then lets compare the number of targets vs completions from 2018 and 2019 to 2020 and 2021 from a % standpoint since you know covid year is guess we had a few less games?

Yes i'm tired of hearing 2 NFL players left that doesn't mean you have to run the same gameplay every single week and always run the same plays every single drive. people act like CRAB and Brown-Stephens, Spann-Ford, Jackson can't catch a ball. Yes there are not as good but they are still WR's and still great players who don't get targeted enough. Losing two player means slim that's why we recruit every year and its PJ's job to find players better than the last like he preaches every year. so people are gonna stay that 5 years from now? "Oh the gophers arn't good in 2026 because we lost two NFL players back in 2019-2020."

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

This whole “2 nfl” receiver thing needs some context.

how many here remember TJ and his dropped balls? Anyone?

also, who has looked at how many targets BM and TJ had in 2019 and how many of those targets were receptions.

then lets compare the number of targets vs completions from 2018 and 2019 to 2020 and 2021 from a % standpoint since you know covid year is guess we had a few less games?

Yeah, he wasn't perfect. I would think all of the people here that were annoyed with TJ's drops would now realize what we had now that it's gone.

TJ wasn't a perfect player but he was an historically good player for the U, as was Bateman. Despite his drops (and Bateman's last year), they are two of the best Gophers of our lifetime.

Talking about his drops also needs to be put into some context.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Yes i'm tired of hearing 2 NFL players left that doesn't mean you have to run the same gameplay every single week and always run the same plays every single drive. people act like CRAB and Brown-Stephens, Spann-Ford, Jackson can't catch a ball. Yes there are not as good but they are still WR's and still great players who don't get targeted enough. Losing two player means slim that's why we recruit every year and its PJ's job to find players better than the last like he preaches every year. so people are gonna stay that 5 years from now? "Oh the gophers arn't good in 2026 because we lost two NFL players back in 2019-2020."

I actually think the problem with our passing game is that we try to do way too much. We run overly complicated, almost NFL type of passing trees. That's lunacy considering how well we run the football.

 

[AZGopher8]

I have read many of the discussions comparing KC to Sanford. The one area that I don't think has been mentioned with any real specificity is the fact that Kirk set up his offense to evolve every week.

What I mean by that, is he would literally plan for the defensive coordinator of the other team to game plan to what he had been doing with the offense prior to that point. In the next game he would run some plays the defense would be anticipating. At key moments in the game, he would break out a new play designed to take advantage of the defense reading a past tendency and would exploit it to get a big play for the offense.

Everything he was calling on offense had counter plays that could be run from the original play. It became very difficult for the defense to key in one area because as soon as they began to cheat versus the run he would spring the pass designed to look like those runs. It was really fun to watch him work.

Contrast that to our current OC. His offense is not designed to take advantage of the defense very often. The plays are not set up to create mutiple options from the same set (and I am not simply referring to RPO plays). Even calling different plays from a standard set, there is no deception to the system. They are just different plays that the defense can read and react.

This, in my opinion is a major difference in our two past OC's. About the only time I really remember recognizing a play designed to take advantage of the defense with some level of deception was on the touchdown pass out of the wildcat.

 

[HitMeAgainIAmStillMoving]

This whole “2 nfl” receiver thing needs some context.

how many here remember TJ and his dropped balls? Anyone?

also, who has looked at how many targets BM and TJ had in 2019 and how many of those targets were receptions.

then lets compare the number of targets vs completions from 2018 and 2019 to 2020 and 2021 from a % standpoint since you know covid year is guess we had a few less games?

I remember the drops. Once we learned to throw the ball near him not to him, things got much better.

 

[goldengophers]

Let's not forget about the misuse of Bateman in 2020. Mike Sanford and Bateman overlapped and it was not pretty.

 

[matt]

2 NFL recievers not on the team anymore. Makes a MASSIVE difference. You see it every game. The level of play out of the WRs is just not the same, way more dropped passes and no big play maker outside CAB. Guys are young and unexperienced right now. They need more time to gROW.

(Also would like to add Sanford started in a Covid year, so it's a little unfair of a comparison...)

Sanford’s offense would look much better if he could figure out when to call what plays. If he could adjust his playcalling to take what the defense was giving him, the offense would look much better. CrAB, Wright, MBS, Daniel Jackson, and BSF are capable pass catchers. They aren’t Bateman and Johnson, but they can absolutely be the receivers in a strong offense. The OC needs to put them and the running game in better positions to succeed by adjusting to what the defense is giving him.

 

[Flecknation]

I actually think the problem with our passing game is that we try to do way too much. We run overly complicated, almost NFL type of passing trees. That's lunacy considering how well we run the football.

That's on the OC we have practice for a reason. We need to bring back the simple short slant routes we need more short passes and less hold on to the ball and wait for the 40 plus yard passes then get sacked or pressured.

 

[Dakota2]

Yes i'm tired of hearing 2 NFL players left that doesn't mean you have to run the same gameplay every single week and always run the same plays every single drive. people act like CRAB and Brown-Stephens, Spann-Ford, Jackson can't catch a ball. Yes there are not as good but they are still WR's and still great players who don't get targeted enough. Losing two player means slim that's why we recruit every year and its PJ's job to find players better than the last like he preaches every year. so people are gonna stay that 5 years from now? "Oh the gophers arn't good in 2026 because we lost two NFL players back in 2019-2020."

It makes one wonder how Rossi can possibly field a defense without all the guys he lost to the NFL the last two years.

 

[Gophers1992]

W-L doesn't solely fall on the OC and it's disingenuous to portray it that way. If you look at average points Sanford has given us 27.1 per game vs. 31.8 for KC. That isn't insignificant, but I'm not sure it's a huge difference either. And if you look at the same first 16 games that's also 27.1 ppg for Sanford vs. 23.3 for KC (or 25.6 if you count the full first 2 years).

Another way of looking more directly at an OC's talent is looking at consistency, or lack thereof. If the team had consistently scored their average points in every game in each year:

2017: +1 wins (22.1 ppg)
2018: +1/-1 wins = 0 (28.9 ppg)
2019: +1/-1 wins = 0 (34.1 ppg)
2020: +1/-1 wins = 0 (27.3 ppg)
2021: +2 wins (27.0 ppg)

That puts each OC at losing a net of 1 game they wouldn't have if they'd just met their average. I'm no fan of Sanford's, but outside of 2019 Kirk wasn't lighting the world on fire either, and even then he still had a dud of a game against Iowa.

We put up 431 yards in that "dud" of a game in Iowa, and Tanner threw for over 10 YPA.

 

[Johnnyboy18]

It makes one wonder how Rossi can possibly field a defense without all the guys he lost to the NFL the last two years.

He pretty much didn't last year.

 

[50PoundHead]

Yeah, he wasn't perfect. I would think all of the people here that were annoyed with TJ's drops would now realize what we had now that it's gone.

TJ wasn't a perfect player but he was an historically good player for the U, as was Bateman. Despite his drops (and Bateman's last year), they are two of the best Gophers of our lifetime.

Talking about his drops also needs to be put into some context.

The other thing that people miss is that the presence of Bateman and Johnson changed the defense. The guys we have right now may be good receivers, but I don't see them as requiring the other team to make considerable adjustments in their game plans. Autman-Bell may be drawing NFL paychecks next season, but he was the third-best receiver on the 2019 team. I'm not dogging on Autman-Bell, but the other two were really good--and I mean really good--college receivers.

I don't know if it's Fleck or Sanford, but I'm having Kill/Limegrover flashbacks because there appears to be this stubbornness that insists that the game must absolutely be won in the trenches.

 

[Plato]

The OC schemes the next game from what he sees in practice and what he has seen in studying film of the next opponent's defense.
MN lost their two best RBs who made the OL line look better than it was.
BB is a good coach who beat NE and MN with less talented players.
He saw that stopping Martinez, no genius decision that, was the answer to beating NE and stopping MN's weakened running game was the answer to beating MN.
Fleck is now mostly fielding players he recruited.
If they are not as good as players he inherited that is his fault in recruiting less talented players.

 

[Some guy]

I actually think the problem with our passing game is that we try to do way too much. We run overly complicated, almost NFL type of passing trees. That's lunacy considering how well we run the football.

That is absolutely not true of the game last Saturday

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

That is absolutely not true of the game last Saturday

I disagree. There were a number of plays last week where we simply needed to throw a 10 yard hitch or just immediately swing it to the WR.

I agree that we, a couple of times, ran max protect plays passing downs. That happens and I don't even have an issue with that.

However, Illinois was GIVING us a ton of simple things and we simply didn't even attempt those things.

 

[Some guy]

I disagree. There were a number of plays last week where we simply needed to throw a 10 yard hitch or just immediately swing it to the WR.

I agree that we, a couple of times, ran max protect plays passing downs. That happens and I don't even have an issue with that.

However, Illinois was GIVING us a ton of simple things and we simply didn't even attempt those things.

Our passing game last Saturday was overly simplistic, not overly complicated.

I agree with your take that we didn’t take what they gave us. But we are so simple we don’t even have a 5 step passing game. We are the opposite of complicated right now.

we basically have shot plays and that’s it

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Our passing game last Saturday was overly simplistic, not overly complicated.

I agree with your take that we didn’t take what they gave us. But we are so simple we don’t even have a 5 step passing game. We are the opposite of complicated right now.

we basically have shot plays and that’s it

I think our definitions of complicated and simple are different.

If there are easy plays available that we simply are not taking, that is my definition of being overly complicated. IMO, take those things until they take them away, then go back to running the football.

 

[Some guy]

I think our definitions of complicated and simple are different.

If there are easy plays available that we simply are not taking, that is my definition of being overly complicated. IMO, take those things until they take them away, then go back to running the football.

See I think we are overly simple because we literally aren’t doing anything except throwing 2 man play action and slamming it into the line

 

[VolitileGopher]

Small correction but MN 2021 is at 25.9 (not 27.0) ppg currently with the offense facing the two most difficult defenses on the schedule coming up. MN 2019 was at 37.6 ppg at the same point in the schedule (after 9 games and pre-Iowa, Wisconsin, and Auburn), and in many of those games the offense left points on the field after going into shells in the second half.

There is really no excuse for the amount of difficulty the offense has had, Bateman and TJ or not. Again, I’m a big believer people can gROW and this team in particular seems schizophrenic so nothing would totally surprise me over the last 3 weeks but the lows have been really low and curiously against average to bad competition, not heavyweight defenses. The highs have been slightly above average FBS output. I think we expected more with such an experienced group coming back. Hoping they can put it together on this home stretch.

We put up 431 yards in that "dud" of a game in Iowa, and Tanner threw for over 10 YPA.

And...a game in which TJ dropped a VERY catchable ball that could have led to a win if he doesn't drop it? They were in position to win. They didn't make the plays.

 

[Dakota2]

I think our definitions of complicated and simple are different.

If there are easy plays available that we simply are not taking, that is my definition of being overly complicated. IMO, take those things until they take them away, then go back to running the football.

Running a route down University Ave may not be complicated but it does take awhile .

 

[Some Day...Maybe]

It makes one wonder how Rossi can possibly field a defense without all the guys he lost to the NFL the last two years.

Great point!

 

[short ornery norwegian]

I could be wrong, but I get a sense that, once Mo was hurt, Fleck and Sanford decided that they had to play everything close to the vest to have a chance to win.

And, as the depth at RB has shrunk, it seems that the offense has shrunk with it.

On the passing game, I would say this - I would take an 8-yard completion over a long incompletion every day. There needs to be a check-down or short route on every passing play - and with the current Gopher offense - I just don't see those routes. Or the QB can't see those routes.

I would be throwing the ball to BSF at least 4 or 5 times a game. More drag routes. More quick 10-yard down-and-outs. Help Morgan understand that it's not a choice of "20 yards down the field to CRAB" or nothing. It's often a choice between a 7-yard completion vs a sack or a throw-away.

stay out of 2nd-and-long or 3rd-and-long at all costs.