The regression since the MSU game is crazy

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Stan

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This sums it up well. What could possibly have led to such a dramatic regression.

 

Even more depressing when looking ahead to next year.
 


Keep the players away from the local, regional and national media. Sequester them, so they focus.
 





short ornery norwegian said:
Is it really "regression?"

Or is it simply a case of facing stronger opposition and not measuring up?

Gophers vs teams with losing records: 4-0
Gophers vs teams with winning records: 0-3

I think that tells the story.
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Ahh, regression. 5 offensive line penalties, defensive lapses, that’s not a competition thing.
 

Stan said:
Ahh, regression. 5 offensive line penalties, defensive lapses, that’s not a competition thing.
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We obviously need louder speakers as well as defensive backfield practice-squad players jumping forward during practice...
 




Part of the regression is injuries. CrAB out for the year. Tanner out today. Mo didn't play versus Purdue which totally changed that game, and yet the Gophs still should have won except for some newfound terrible execution (dropped balls, missed kicks, stupid penalties) that didn't occur the first four games.

I don't know if Tanner could have done any better if he played tonight, but it's likely they don't start with RUTM for the whole first half with him in.

That said, it's the lack of execution, including dumbass defensive lapses, that's grating on me.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Is it really "regression?"

Or is it simply a case of facing stronger opposition and not measuring up?

Gophers vs teams with losing records: 4-0
Gophers vs teams with winning records: 0-3

I think that tells the story.
Click to expand...
On the plus side the remaining conference schedule features 5 teams that are either just above, at, or below .500.

We have our flaws......no doubt.....but our 5 remaining opponents (Rutgers, Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa and Wisconsin) all have some serious flaws as well.

As disappointing as these past 3 games have been, hopefully the team can pull together and still salvage something from this season.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Is it really "regression?"

Or is it simply a case of facing stronger opposition and not measuring up?

Gophers vs teams with losing records: 4-0
Gophers vs teams with winning records: 0-3

I think that tells the story.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. Games are week to week but we completely destroyed a ‘losing’ team who beat Wisconsin who completely destroyed a ‘winning’ team we lost to at home. The margin between west teams is thin, and right now we’ve sunk to the bottom.
 



Panthadad2 said:
Part of the regression is injuries. CrAB out for the year. Tanner out today. Mo didn't play versus Purdue which totally changed that game, and yet the Gophs still should have won except for some newfound terrible execution (dropped balls, missed kicks, stupid penalties) that didn't occur the first four games.

I don't know if Tanner could have done any better if he played tonight, but it's likely they don't start with RUTM for the whole first half with him in.

That said, it's the lack of execution, including dumbass defensive lapses, that's grating on me.
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I agree with the injuries part of this; however if you cannot trust YOUR guy that you recruited to even throw quick screens, or slants/out routes, why is he even in the game? That is the part that is upsetting. Tanner or not, this game was another dud in preparation, execution, and coaching.
 

Deep breath here - we are not good at the moment and absent noticeable improvement we are looking at 1-8 conf record - Rutgers next week is concerning to me
 

RoseGoldy said:
Shame on me but I genuinely was telling my father going into the Purdue game that we would need to keep our holiday plans open in case we got to the rose bowl. That won't be a problem!
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It's all your fault!!

shrek-pitchfork.gif
 

I do think we are beginning to get more pressure on the qb though. While we didn’t get home we did force Clifford to scramble several times. That wasn’t the case in previous games.
 

Stan said:
Ahh, regression. 5 offensive line penalties, defensive lapses, that’s not a competition thing.
Click to expand...

The correct answer is both better competition and regression. Had we played Rutgers and Northwestern after Michigan State, our team deficiencies would have been far less obvious.
 

CentralGopher said:
I do think we are beginning to get more pressure on the qb though. While we didn’t get home we did force Clifford to scramble several times. That wasn’t the case in previous games.
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True. Pressure was a bit better in the PSU game although we still didn't record any sacks. We've only had 3 sacks in 4 Big Ten games, two against Purdue and one against Mich St.
 

MNVCGUY said:
On the plus side the remaining conference schedule features 5 teams that are either just above, at, or below .500.

We have our flaws......no doubt.....but our 5 remaining opponents (Rutgers, Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa and Wisconsin) all have some serious flaws as well.

As disappointing as these past 3 games have been, hopefully the team can pull together and still salvage something from this season.
Click to expand...

Our three conference losses have been to opponents with a 9-4 conference record (69.2%). Before you get too confident about Iowa, realize that their three conference losses have been to opponents with an 11-1 (91.7%) conference record. Yes, one can say that their offense is terrible and you should win if you don't turn over the ball but that's easier said than done. Iowa's defense has forced 8 turnovers in four conference games while our offense has given up 8 turnovers in four conference games. Iowa has 7 turnovers of their own in conference play but 6 of those came in the Ohio State game.

The only conference team we've beaten has a 1-3 conference record. The good news is that we have 3 opponents remaining with that conference record (Rutgers, Northwestern, and Iowa). Nebraska is 2-2 but their two wins have come against teams with a combined 2-7 conference record. They don't appear to have the kind of defense that has given us fits in recent weeks so that should help. At this point, unless we improve significantly over the next few weeks, I don't see us beating Wisconsin this season.
 

All teams have injury problems at this time of the season.
The teams that keep on winning have talent stacked in the three-deep, tOSU for example.
I suspect that right now a successful season for MN and WI fans would come down to the last game and who wins the AXE.
Going to any bowl would help because of the additional weeks of practice but the Rose Bowl is out of reach for both teams.
 

cjbfbp said:
Our three conference losses have been to opponents with a 9-4 conference record (69.2%). Before you get too confident about Iowa, realize that their three conference losses have been to opponents with an 11-1 (91.7%) conference record. Yes, one can say that their offense is terrible and you should win if you don't turn over the ball but that's easier said than done. Iowa's defense has forced 8 turnovers in four conference games while our offense has given up 8 turnovers in four conference games. Iowa has 7 turnovers of their own in conference play but 6 of those came in the Ohio State game.

The only conference team we've beaten has a 1-3 conference record. The good news is that we have 3 opponents remaining with that conference record (Rutgers, Northwestern, and Iowa). Nebraska is 2-2 but their two wins have come against teams with a combined 2-7 conference record. They don't appear to have the kind of defense that has given us fits in recent weeks so that should help. At this point, unless we improve significantly over the next few weeks, I don't see us beating Wisconsin this season.
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No doubt Iowa has had a tough schedule to date in terms of conference games and we clearly are not in a position to feel confident about facing anyone right now.

That said, the Iowa offense is terrible and the key to beating them is to play solid D and protect the football. Their offensive struggles are not really a function of who they have played, they have been bad on offense against everyone this year.
 

The problem is like this:

- the first three games were absolutely meaningless, as those teams were absolutely terrible
- the win at MSU seemed amazing at the time, and got everyone excited ... but has turned out to be almost meaningless because MSU is not even a shell of what they were last year.


That is as big a factor as anything.

We then played three actual good teams, and lost them all. Could've still won the home game (Purdue), but neither of the road games were really close at all. ILL should've won by a lot more than they did, they just didn't score TD's and settled for FG's on a few of the earlier drives.



We need to get our confidence back against Rutgers. I don't think it's going to be an "easy" game, by any means, but we need to find a way to win.

Going to Nebraska, where they're going to look at us as a must win if they want any chance to go to a bowl game this year, is going to be way tougher than it appeared only a few weeks ago.
 

Plato said:
All teams have injury problems at this time of the season.
The teams that keep on winning have talent stacked in the three-deep, tOSU for example.
I suspect that right now a successful season for MN and WI fans would come down to the last game and who wins the AXE.
Going to any bowl would help because of the additional weeks of practice but the Rose Bowl is out of reach for both teams.
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There are injuries as normal. And then there's injuries at #1 WR (possible NFL prospect), #1 RB (All-American quality), and #1 QB (maybe replaceable, but not on a crazy environment road game). Add in #2 WR that's a headcase and probably out for a while. Those all hurt more than most.
 

Even if Tanner never got punched in the helmet by ILL's kung-fu master true freshman ... I don't think he makes a lick of difference in Penn State.

We didn't/don't have receivers who can get open and our OL can't give him time. He's a statue. At least AK gives us some speedy legs to snag a first down.


We have to get creative on offense. Something that, so far, KC and Fleck have refused to allow or put effort into.

The mantra up to this point has seem to be to try to assert that "the guys just have to choose to play like they did against MSU".


We have to find new ways to get the ball into Mo and BSF's hands with the ability to move the G-D chains. Give our defense a rest. Score points.
 


bonin21 said:
247sports.com

2022 College Football Team Talent Composite

In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.
247sports.com 247sports.com
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Those rankings have very little value. 5 of the top 10 teams in the current AP poll are in the top 10 in those talent rankings (Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Clemson, Oregon). So looking at that you could surmise that the rankings can identify the best players overall and those top players tend to go to a handful of schools.

But when you compare the top 25 teams in terms of talent (according to the recruiting sites) with the current AP top 25 it paints a different picture. There are 12 teams (4 of them in the top 10) supposedly in terms of talent that are not even in the current AP top 25.

4-Texas A&M
6-Texas
9-Oklahoma
10-Notre Dame
12-Florida
13-Miami
17-Florida State
18-Auburn
21-Washington
22-Stanford
24-Nebraska
25-Arkansas

Pretty sure this also doesn't factor in the Transfer players but I could be wrong on that.
 

And how many times has a team ranked 50+ in those rankings won a division in a power five?
 

All I can say is that after fifty-some years of this I am used to it and know how to cope.
 

bonin21 said:
And how many times has a team ranked 50+ in those rankings won a division in a power five?
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The problem with your logic here is that it doesn't work both ways.

The fact that the best teams just also happen to have the best talent, doesn't prove that non-traditional power teams surging in the rankings for a year or two will guarantee they win a division.
 

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