How Cal will stop us!

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Interesting breakdown. Interesting stats regarding passing completions by Weber on 1st & 2nd down vs 3rd down. Also, didn't realize that he was that bad at staring down his receiver(s). He really has to get past that. The last thing I found interesting/concerning is that when Weber rolls out it's virtually always to the right and that he nearly 100% of the time throws the ball to Decker, regardless of coverage. Hmmm....

Go Gophers
SKGopher
 

Weber did do a noticeably better job of not locking onto his receiver during the Air Force game. Hopefully, he will improve on that against Cal.
 

Saskatchewan Gopher said:
Interesting breakdown. Interesting stats regarding passing completions by Weber on 1st & 2nd down vs 3rd down. Also, didn't realize that he was that bad at staring down his receiver(s). He really has to get past that. The last thing I found interesting/concerning is that when Weber rolls out it's virtually always to the right and that he nearly 100% of the time throws the ball to Decker, regardless of coverage. Hmmm....

Go Gophers
SKGopher
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Less so this year as far as going to Decker, I didn't see the Syracuse game so I can't speak for that. Last year I thought that was the main problem. Teams that had the talent to stop Decker stopped the Gophers because Webber wouldn't exploit the mismatches resulting from the focus on Decker.
 

So the strategy is to put Minnesota in 3rd and long situations? I've never heard a coach say that he wants to put the opponent in 3rd and short going in to a game. :)

What they don't show is the play where he looks to Decker who was covered and then hits his secondary target Brandon Green running a post pattern for a 15 yard gain. If the primary route is open why would you look him off and throw to a secondary route? The only play I remember in that video where Decker was well covered and Weber still threw it to him was the 3rd and 1 double team that Decker caught for a 20+ yd gain.

I'll be the first to admit Decker is too high of a percentage of our offense and that scares me but Syracuse and Air Force failed to take him away so you can't blame Weber for throwing consistently to his best WR.
 


grunkiejr said:
So the strategy is to put Minnesota in 3rd and long situations? I've never heard a coach say that he wants to put the opponent in 3rd and short going in to a game. :)
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I said out loud at the Air Force game that I would rather see us with a 3rd and 9 than 3rd and 1. The guy next to me looked at me like I was crazy. By the end of the game, he was agreeing with me. I was only half kidding.
 

grunkiejr said:
So the strategy is to put Minnesota in 3rd and long situations? I've never heard a coach say that he wants to put the opponent in 3rd and short going in to a game. :).
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I haven't heard a coach say that either. But there have been Gopher games (in the past several years) where I have preferred our opponent be 3rd and 3 rather than 3rd and 9 because we had no prayer of stopping the 3rd and 9 pass, but could on occasion stop a 3rd and 3 run.
 

Interesting analysis; however, let's use the KISS principle here and not overthink things. Decker gets the ball because he's one if not the best receiver in America. I don't see this as a weakness per se; but a strategic oppty. If cal can't stop the weber/decker combo, I am sure we will do it all day long, as we should. If they key on decker, that gives us other weapons (troy, hayo, tow arnett, run game, etc.) to bring to "bear"...on paper the bears win, but we are at home, emotional atmosphere, cal has "road" block and our D is strong. The fact that cal has played 2 very poor teams to date does them no service-we know they have talent, but are they a good football team? Not sure we or they can seriously answer that. We have absolutely no way of knowing if Cal is a top ten team. Or, if we are a top 25 team. Certainly our wins have more quality and tell us more about us than theirs do about them to this point.
 

grunkiejr said:
I'll be the first to admit Decker is too high of a percentage of our offense and that scares me but Syracuse and Air Force failed to take him away so you can't blame Weber for throwing consistently to his best WR.
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Our secondary is much better than AF and the Orange. I'm sure Decker will have some receptions but if Weber is forcing the ball, there will be interceptions. Syd Thompson will sniff out any badly thrown balls, and the guy on the other side Hagan isn't bad either.

-kap
 



That is good analysis. If 4th quarter Weber plays all game, we will do ok. I am predicting a win (and was dead on the first game and only 4 points off the second) but who really knows? Cal sure looks good.

If they stomp us and I don't throw a hissy fit (about 50-50 chance of that), I will be cheering for them to win the national championship. Great school, great place to attend school, and nice to see a quality program challenge the traditional powers.

I think Stoudamire has huge up side at wr. Maybe we see him break out. Maybe Hayo shows up. Maybe Weber is that good or we can run the ball. Running back is a question mark but at least our #1 back is not newly converted from LB like Alex Daniels was in the first Cal game.
 

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