Gophers football hasn't had many teachable moments yet, but team is hungry to learn

BleedGopher

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per Randy:

The easy way and the hard way

"There's two ways to learn — the easy way or the hard way,'' Gophers quarterback Tanner Morgan said. "You can learn the easy way from others' mistakes. … If another quarterback makes a mistake, 'OK, let me learn from this.'"

The hard way, of course, is the Gophers making the mistake themselves. Situational awareness is especially important for the Gophers during this early stretch of the season against less-than-stellar competition. The team has remained mentally sharp for the most part in blowout victories over New Mexico State and Western Illinois.

Colorado, a Power Five opponent, should offer more of a challenge. The Buffaloes, though, are 0-2, and the Gophers beat them 30-0 last year in Boulder, so guarding against overconfidence becomes important. Coaches and players always aim to treat each opponent the same in order to breed consistency, but human nature can take over, with the urge to relax after success.

Safety Tyler Nubin embraces the lessons from across the college football landscape. The clips that he and his teammates saw Sunday showed him how Alabama avoided the upset at Texas, how Kentucky beat Florida in The Swamp, how Iowa State edged Iowa in a game in which each team lost a fumble while going into the opponent's end zone.

"We always talk about knowing how to win games, not just lose the game less,'' Nubin said. "You see it a lot of times across the country. It's a game of situations. Whoever can play the situations best in that moment is going to win the game. We try to take advantage of every single situation we're in. Learning from other teams makes that easier.''


Go Gophers!!
 




If the writer (or anyone else — looking at you, KFAN) is trying to say that nobody learns anything in blowout wins against "lesser" teams, I strongly disagree with the premise.

In each of the first two games, both blowout wins, the Gophers have had a chance to let a large number of players get game experience, including players waaaaaay down the bench.

Those players learned from that experience. Not only that, but their coaches and team mates learned a little about them in the process as well.

Every kid wants a chance to play. Especially now, in the era of easy transfers, it is important to give all players a sense of being part of the team.
 


If the writer (or anyone else — looking at you, KFAN) is trying to say that nobody learns anything in blowout wins against "lesser" teams, I strongly disagree with the premise.

In each of the first two games, both blowout wins, the Gophers have had a chance to let a large number of players get game experience, including players waaaaaay down the bench.

Those players learned from that experience. Not only that, but their coaches and team mates learned a little about them in the process as well.

Every kid wants a chance to play. Especially now, in the era of easy transfers, it is important to give all players a sense of being part of the team.
For the players that have been on the team for a while, the 2019 NC slate taught them a lot, for others, the 2020 Maryland and 2021 Bowling Green and Illinois games. A well coached team has few "fatal" mistakes but still might have half a dozen small ones. That's how you learn. A well coached team thinks of every contingency. Getting players in the game that perform well (eg. Kaliakmanis and Jelen, et al.) is just as an important lesson. I also think this is the first Fleck team to have a lot of game-playing depth, and he knows it. I don't think he completely trusted his roster until now.

Can't disagree with you at all.
 




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