The Athletic: How Minnesota’s 2016 class helped turn the program around

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Spoofin said:
Well, I must admit, I didn't know you thought Claeys, Johnson, and Sawvel were good, or even adequate, coaches.
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I've always said Claeys is a good defensive coordinator, and Sawvel is a good DB coach. I'm not really sure on Johnson, haven't been overly impressed.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
I've always said Claeys is a good defensive coordinator, and Sawvel is a good DB coach. I'm not really sure on Johnson, haven't been overly impressed.
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Sure, but in 2016 - the year in discussion here and that you are providing stats on - Claeys was the HC (not the DC) and Sawvel was the DC (not the DB coach). What am I missing? I'm trying to figure out what we had going for us in 2016 other than RBs making something out of nothing.
 

GWG, do you understand all the stats you posted? I spent some time reading and don't fully agree with some of their methods to the madness in their rankings.
Biggest thing that doesn't make sense at the college level when ranking the OL, they only used RB carries to make that determination. Since Mitch was our third leading rusher that year, his carries would have had a positive impact on our ranking had those carries actually counted. College Football is different in that some teams use the QB often, others don't, but to say the QB doesn't count on running plays when you're running zone read schemes isn't right.
I then decided to look at the stats of just the BIG teams and see how the Gophers compared:
The Adj. Line Yards: MN finished 12, WI was 5 and Iowa was 3 but like I said above, the QB runs were not factored in.
In Standard Down Line Yards(how did the team do on standard running down and dist plays), MN was 6, WI was 5 and Iowa 2
Pass Down Line Yards(how did the team do on passing down running plays : MN was 8, WI was 13 and Iowa was 9
Opportunity Rate(The Percent of carries the line did it's job): MN was 4, WI was 11 and Iowa was 10
Power Success Rate: MN was 10, WI was 3 and Iowa 7
Stuff Rate(Percent of carries that had no gain or a loss): MN was 6, WI was 2 and Iowa was 4 Meaning WI had the least amount of those type of running plays
Adj. Sack Rate: MN was 6, WI was 9 and Iowa was 12
Standard down Sack rate: MN was 3, WI was 6 and Iowa 14
Pass Down Sack Rate: MN was 6, WI was 11 and Iowa 8
Ohio State was number 1 in every category dealing with rushing.
The one area that MN didn't do as well compared to WI and IA would be the the Power Success Category, From the stats, MN was a top half of the league in most OL categories, thus they were pretty good that year on the OL. Thanks for making the case :)
 

BilldGopher said:
Whatever one's opinion of Coach Claeys this little nugget about the 2016 class is his.

In a year we'll see where the 2017 recruiting class ranks at the end...and so on...

In the meantime these guys get to own a historic season for the program.

Progress.
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You are clueless.
 


GFBfan said:
GWG, do you understand all the stats you posted? I spent some time reading and don't fully agree with some of their methods to the madness in their rankings.
Biggest thing that doesn't make sense at the college level when ranking the OL, they only used RB carries to make that determination. Since Mitch was our third leading rusher that year, his carries would have had a positive impact on our ranking had those carries actually counted. College Football is different in that some teams use the QB often, others don't, but to say the QB doesn't count on running plays when you're running zone read schemes isn't right.
I then decided to look at the stats of just the BIG teams and see how the Gophers compared:
The Adj. Line Yards: MN finished 12, WI was 5 and Iowa was 3 but like I said above, the QB runs were not factored in.
In Standard Down Line Yards(how did the team do on standard running down and dist plays), MN was 6, WI was 5 and Iowa 2
Pass Down Line Yards(how did the team do on passing down running plays : MN was 8, WI was 13 and Iowa was 9
Opportunity Rate(The Percent of carries the line did it's job): MN was 4, WI was 11 and Iowa was 10
Power Success Rate: MN was 10, WI was 3 and Iowa 7
Stuff Rate(Percent of carries that had no gain or a loss): MN was 6, WI was 2 and Iowa was 4 Meaning WI had the least amount of those type of running plays
Adj. Sack Rate: MN was 6, WI was 9 and Iowa was 12
Standard down Sack rate: MN was 3, WI was 6 and Iowa 14
Pass Down Sack Rate: MN was 6, WI was 11 and Iowa 8
Ohio State was number 1 in every category dealing with rushing.
The one area that MN didn't do as well compared to WI and IA would be the the Power Success Category, From the stats, MN was a top half of the league in most OL categories, thus they were pretty good that year on the OL. Thanks for making the case :)
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It makes a lot of sense to not include QB runs as carries. There are many plays where a QB may run, but it may not have been a designed run. Sacks also count as carries in college. You really think Leidner's 3.3 ypc would help the OL metrics? The Gophers also tried to limit Leidner's designed runs his JR/SR years to try and keep him healthy. A lot of his runs came when he couldn't find anyone open on passing plays, and avoiding sacks.

Adj Line Yards is the most telling of them all because it's opponent adjusted, and the Gophers were one of the worst in the country.
Standard Down Line Yards, and Pass Down Line Yards, Opportunity Rate, are raw, un-adjusted for opponents and Iowa, and especially Wisconsin played more difficult schedules. Opportunity rate starts for when 5 yards are available, do you think you would have 5 yards available more against a weaker or tougher schedule?

Power Success Rate - for 3rd and 4th and short situations, the Gophers were one of the worst in the country, also un-adjusted for opponents.
Stuff Rate, un-adjusted and the Gophers were still ranked 92 in the country.

Adj Sack Rate - This is the only other stat adjusted for opponents and where it helps to have a QB that can move. Likely why the Gophers were better.
Standard and Pass Down sack rate, both un-adjusted for opponents, WI/IA both played more difficult schedules with QBs who didn't move well.

I think you're the one who didn't understand the stats posted. Thanks for not making a case :)
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
It makes a lot of sense to not include QB runs as carries. There are many plays where a QB may run, but it may not have been a designed run. Sacks also count as carries in college. You really think Leidner's 3.3 ypc would help the OL metrics? The Gophers also tried to limit Leidner's designed runs his JR/SR years to try and keep him healthy. A lot of his runs came when he couldn't find anyone open on passing plays, and avoiding sacks.

Adj Line Yards is the most telling of them all because it's opponent adjusted, and the Gophers were one of the worst in the country.
Standard Down Line Yards, and Pass Down Line Yards, Opportunity Rate, are raw, un-adjusted for opponents and Iowa, and especially Wisconsin played more difficult schedules. Opportunity rate starts for when 5 yards are available, do you think you would have 5 yards available more against a weaker or tougher schedule?

Power Success Rate - for 3rd and 4th and short situations, the Gophers were one of the worst in the country, also un-adjusted for opponents.
Stuff Rate, un-adjusted and the Gophers were still ranked 92 in the country.

Adj Sack Rate - This is the only other stat adjusted for opponents and where it helps to have a QB that can move. Likely why the Gophers were better.
Standard and Pass Down sack rate, both un-adjusted for opponents, WI/IA both played more difficult schedules with QBs who didn't move well.

I think you're the one who didn't understand the stats posted. Thanks for not making a case :)
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How'd did ML score 10 TD's rushing that year? Were they busted plays that he scrambled around and found the endzone or were they designed read plays were he kept the ball and scored? Pretty sure it would be the latter on all 10. Thus his rushing yards on running plays should be included.
I would bet his per carry ave. on designed running plays was better 3.3.
 

GFBfan said:
How'd did ML score 10 TD's rushing that year? Were they busted plays that he scrambled around and found the endzone or were they designed read plays were he kept the ball and scored? Pretty sure it would be the latter on all 10. Thus his rushing yards on running plays should be included.
I would bet his per carry ave. on designed running plays was better 3.3.
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ML7 had 111 rushing attempts his senior year (2nd highest of his career despite that effort to “limit his carriers”; 102,126,107,111). Seems like an awful lot of carries to disregard because some might have been unplanned scrambles or sacks.
 

Spoofin said:
ML7 had 111 rushing attempts his senior year (2nd highest of his career despite that effort to “limit his carriers”; 102,126,107,111). Seems like an awful lot of carries to disregard because some might have been unplanned scrambles or sacks.
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ML7 was trash. Give it a rest
 





HeHateMeMn said:
ML7 was trash. Give it a rest
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Mitch was just the face of the program that was good but not great. That kind of guy is always going to get heat. Mitch was far from perfect, but he was one of the toughest players we've ever had. He is a Gopher and he helped us win a lot of games.

Sometimes I don't think we deserve a good football program.
 




GopherWeatherGuy said:
It makes a lot of sense to not include QB runs as carries. There are many plays where a QB may run, but it may not have been a designed run. Sacks also count as carries in college. You really think Leidner's 3.3 ypc would help the OL metrics? The Gophers also tried to limit Leidner's designed runs his JR/SR years to try and keep him healthy. A lot of his runs came when he couldn't find anyone open on passing plays, and avoiding sacks.

Adj Line Yards is the most telling of them all because it's opponent adjusted, and the Gophers were one of the worst in the country.
Standard Down Line Yards, and Pass Down Line Yards, Opportunity Rate, are raw, un-adjusted for opponents and Iowa, and especially Wisconsin played more difficult schedules. Opportunity rate starts for when 5 yards are available, do you think you would have 5 yards available more against a weaker or tougher schedule?

Power Success Rate - for 3rd and 4th and short situations, the Gophers were one of the worst in the country, also un-adjusted for opponents.
Stuff Rate, un-adjusted and the Gophers were still ranked 92 in the country.

Adj Sack Rate - This is the only other stat adjusted for opponents and where it helps to have a QB that can move. Likely why the Gophers were better.
Standard and Pass Down sack rate, both un-adjusted for opponents, WI/IA both played more difficult schedules with QBs who didn't move well.

I think you're the one who didn't understand the stats posted. Thanks for not making a case :)
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For me, one of the enduring frustrations about our OLs, going back to Brewster, were the number of false start penalties we took. We seemed to average at least one per game, for teams that were usually ill-suited to convert 1st and 15.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Mitch was just the face of the program that was good but not great. That kind of guy is always going to get heat. Mitch was far from perfect, but he was one of the toughest players we've ever had. He is a Gopher and he helped us win a lot of games.

Sometimes I don't think we deserve a good football program.
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Mitch was an okay QB
Not bad. Disappointing as he didn’t get as good as you would think a 4 year starter would get.
IMO it is not Mitch’s fault he didn’t develop as well as I think he could have.
Also not his fault he was our best QB.

People should lay off Mitch
 

Mitch was fine but was on a team good enough to make major waves if he was actually good. That said, his WRs weren't the greatest
 

oleboy41 said:
Mitch was fine but was on a team good enough to make major waves if he was actually good. That said, his WRs weren't the greatest
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Mitch & Co. are the example of just a handful plays here or there ... could have changed perception a great deal.

That was what always confused me about the folks happy to see Mitch go... dude maybe would never make those plays, but he was so close.... and there's zero reason to think the next man up would be even that close.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Mitch & Co. are the example of just a handful plays here or there ... could have changed perception a great deal.

That was what always confused me about the folks happy to see Mitch go... dude maybe would never make those plays, but he was so close.... and there's zero reason to think the next man up would be even that close.
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I disagree. Mitch was at best an average Power 5 QB and honestly that was only because of his running ability which was efficient but far from dynamic. It was very reasonable to hope/expect for a QB that could be an average to above average QB. I'd argue that Annexstad in his few games starting as a true frosh was a far better passing QB than Mitch ever was. Mitch was tough, a solid leader and a decent short runner. He wasn't a good QB though, overall.
 

oleboy41 said:
I disagree. Mitch was at best an average Power 5 QB and honestly that was only because of his running ability which was efficient but far from dynamic. It was very reasonable to hope/expect for a QB that could be an average to above average QB. I'd argue that Annexstad in his few games starting as a true frosh was a far better passing QB than Mitch ever was. Mitch was tough, a solid leader and a decent short runner. He wasn't a good QB though, overall.
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Agreed. 100%
 

You know, to outsiders, I'd never say this, but we are all Gopher fans here, so I'll let myself say this...


9-4 in 2016? So what? Who the hell did we beat?

We only played 2 ranked teams and lost to them both.

Our other two losses were to teams who, granted, did receive votes in the final poll, so if the ranking was a Top 50 ranking or something, then our other 2 losses would then also be to ranked teams, #28 Nebraska and #33 Iowa, and our BIGGEST WIN of the season was against #41 ranked Washington St. WOW, so impressive!!! lol

Don't get me wrong, you can tell by my moniker, I liked Jerry Kill, and while he was healthy, he was improving the team, brick by brick. But it was a slow pace that was slowed down by Kill's health issues and off the field bs. But in retrospect, it led to our getting Fleck, so to me, it's all good. In fact, I thought Kill's 8-5 seasons were more impressive than the 9-4 2016 season. Hell, had we beat either Iowa or Nebraska and finished 10-3, we may still not have got into the Top 25 rankings for the season.

If I was asked to rank the best Gopher teams of the 21st Century, I'd actually rank the 2018 - 7-6 season over the 2016 - 9-4 season, as the 2018 team actually beat a Top 20 ranked team, and our win over Wisconsin was a better win than the Wash St win, and the Georgia Tech win was better than the 2nd best win of the 2016 season and we played a tougher schedule.
 

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