My $0.02, Badger Game

[stevedave23]

-I was very impressed with Wisconsin's offensive line. They controlled the LOS on offense, especially in the 2nd half.

-The gophers were outcoached. Flat out outcoached. Wisconsin made excellent 2nd half adjustments and MN made very few.

-I don't have a problem with the gophers throwing to Decker on 1st & Goal on the 1. If Decker is being covered man to man on the goal line they should throw to him every time IMHO.

-The gophers outplayed Wisconsin on special teams. As I've said each week, this will come up huge at some point this season.

-The officiating today was horrendous. Bill Witvoet is the worst referee in the big ten, period. The officials made bad calls against both teams. The bottom line is that the officials had a huge impact on the game. A lot of influential, momentum changing calls against both teams...the sign of bad officials.

-Troy Staudemire had an incredible game. Great returns, great catch and a great block on Hayo Carpenter's screen pass.

-If there has been one thing that has kept this program down for the past 20+ years it's been 3rd downs on defense. And today was no different.

-I loved the effort the gophers gave today. The players played hard and the team didn't give up.

 

[GoldenBoy13]

Thanks for the analysis sd. I could not believe the call for the Wisky touchdown which was supposedly down at the half yard line. Definitely looked like it was in the first time. Also can anyone please explain to me what was being called on the kickoff returns? Those two holding calls were costly. I didn't see them, but could be biased. Unlike a lot of people I am still not ready to write off Brew. I am not the biggest supporter of him, but whenever I get upset with him I realize there are still major areas where we need to develop/recruit some big time talent. I think a huge mistake was that Brew didn't go after many OL the first year and now we are stuck with at least two guys that are getting beat consistently. Wills also still needs to get into better shape. It looked like he was beat instantly towards the end of the game. Maybe I am just wrong on all of this but its my point of view.

 

[scools12]

"If there has been one thing that has kept this program down for the past 20+ years it's been 3rd downs on defense. And today was no different."

sd23 - this is most intelligent thing I have ever read on this board. well done!

 

[EG#9]

-The gophers were outcoached. Flat out outcoached. Wisconsin made excellent 2nd half adjustments and MN made very few.

If Wisconsin had lost this game, their fans would be screaming that they were out-coached. For some reason, Decker faced a lot of single coverage and the Gophers took advantage. At halftime, the Gophers should have been up by more than 3.

-I don't have a problem with the gophers throwing to Decker on 1st & Goal on the 1. If Decker is being covered man to man on the goal line they should throw to him every time IMHO.

Completely disagree, even though the play was open. The Gophers are going to get the same coverage on 2nd or 3rd down as they do on 1st at the 1/2 yard line. You try to run it in first. The fact that they scored so easily doing this exact same thing late in the 4th quarter makes the decision even more cringe-worthy.

-I loved the effort the gophers gave today. The players played hard and the team didn't give up.

I really disagree with this as well. I didn't see a team playing with its "hair on fire" to break a 5 game losing streak against a rival. I think it's really tough to give up that much rushing yardage and still be praised for giving great effort.

 

[NewEngland_Gold]

Nice analysis.

From an ESPN view, it looked to me that Becky had superior talent in key O/D areas, but that Minny dominated ST play.

To their credit, the G's did play very hard throughout the game, never gave up and certainly showed a lot of heart and toughness in all phases of the game.

Some of the obvious snafus can be fixed with skilled coaching if Brew & Crew are up to the challenge...the talent gap can only be closed realistically by continued "balls-out" recruiting of superior athletes wherever they may reside.

 

[Mulligan]

Wisconsin was simply a much more physical team than us, but our coaches today didn't have a great day. That might have affected one of the most critical calls of the game. 1st and goal on the one and we try a pass? Come on, you redid your offense so you can ram the ball in. In the second half, after we got a break on the too many men on the field penalty, we did steamroll it in from the same spot.

In the second half, they basically relied on one play. Motion to one side and send Clay behind a pulling lineman to that side. I can't believe how long we just sort of stayed in the same defense and let them pound us. Clay would get to the line going full blast with usually a blocker left and just rumble. I don't think we quit; they just wore our key defenders down. It looked like we finally started to shift on Wisconsin's third drive and became more aggressive attacking them. Was that when they ran the bootleg?

Our strength on defense is our tackles and linebackers, but they were overmatched the second half. Of course, they got little help from our secondary. It's really a non-physical bunch. Theret is the only one of the four who seems to really tackle; the others sort of throw themselves at the ballcarrier, preferably at an angle.

God, I'm tired of losing games like this. I really doubt there are too many programs where there have been so many painful losses this decade. At least the Twins won so I crawled off the ledge.

 

[husker70]

When I saw Witvoet, I had a very bad vibe. Have we ever won a game he officiated? Does someone have that stat?

Bill Witvoet is the worst referee in the big ten, period. The officials made bad calls against both teams. The bottom line is that the officials had a huge impact on the game. A lot of influential, momentum changing calls against both teams...the sign of bad officials.

Great teams, and only great teams can overcome a bad call, at a bad time. And when they are bogus, or just not right it makes it seem like you are playing uphill all day.

I