Better team than most of you think!

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MNSpaniel

MNSpaniel

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Middle Tenn. is a better team than most of you Negative Nellies think. Last year they were 10-3 with wins over Maryland and they put up 42 points against Southern Miss in their bowl game win.

I don't think the results have been that much different if their starting QB had been there. They scored immediately most of the time they had the ball. Offense wasn't their problem. This spread or fast paced offenses are designed to have open lanes and be QB friendly. Look at what Northwestern has done with multiple QBs or Texas Tech would switch in two or three QBs in a season and not miss a beat. Look at what Weber did when we ran it.

I'm watching the USC game and I don't think we will be able to run on them like we did tonight. I also think our young defense will have a tough time with them.

However, with that being said I think some of you need to take a breather. They beat a lot tougher opponent than most of you think. Enjoy the victory. I'm sure there will be plenty of times when you can bitch and moan during one of our losses.
 


I agree that mtsu is better than a lot on here think (and i think considerably better than syracuse last year), I do disagree that offense wasn't their problem.

They essentially had a productive quarter of offense. That was largely because of our ground game keeping them off the field, but also because they didn't make a lot of 1st downs. They had a good 2nd quarter and one nice run in the third quarter but other than that, they did a pretty poor job. They couldn't keep MN off the field (even make a couple 1st downs to give their D a breather).

MTSU had 9 drives and by my count 5 of them ended in 3 and outs, that means that offense was certainly part of the problem. I am not 100% sure that Dasher would have made the difference and I don't think the game was nearly as close as the score (easily could have been 37-14), but yeah their offense wasn't awesome tonight (and our D wasn't nearly as bad as some people think). If you told me that our D will hold opponents to 50% 3 and outs and a +2 margain on the TO advantage, i'd think you were nuts.
 

Gift for the obvious

JPIIGopher are you saying I have a gift for the obvious ... thank you ... some of us are born with this and others just luck into it.
 

still think we win

You never know when someone is not playing how they would have affected the game. However, I think our offense controlling the ball like they did just kept their offense off the field for the most part.

It sounds like Dasher is the real deal so he may have been a huge difference maker for them. If so...it was about time we got a break. Usually, someone's star player is coming back just in time to play us.
 


Yeah, I wasn't really saying that we'd win or lose if Dasher had been playing because frankly it doesn't matter. I doubt Iowa cared that we didn't have Decker last fall.

I'm just saying that their offense wasn't that good last night. I would definitely agree that our offense was largely responsible for limiting their possesions but they were also pretty ineffective at staying on the field to give their defense a break. We dominated the TOP and they still punted 5 times, so we got a lot of stops tonight (most of them without giving up a 1st down).
 

Yea, MTSU is a pretty good team. Sadly, they are viewed as a typical directional school by the casual fan. One of my friends who's a big NFL and casual college fan asked me today how the Gophers did. I told him it was a nail-biter, but we pulled it out 24-17, and I was happy. He asked who we played. I said Middle Tennessee State. He said, "wow, is this the last year for Brewster?" I tried to convince him MTSU was a decent team, he just rolled his eyes. I might of as well have said we beat North Texas.
 

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