**Fresno State vs Rodents thread**

[bri]

From following the gamecast... Morgan seems like he's been pretty bad this game

16/23. (completion percentage of 0.695) 234 yards, 2 TD's. 0 Ints.

Pretty bad.

And when I posted that it was 2 fumbles and 1 TD

[D_H]

PJ will be gone in 3 years. He is 5 -13 in the Big Ten , that is who we he really is. He is good at beating cupcakes, but we all know that doesn't mean anything. He can row the boat to some Junior College after he gets fired from Minnesota. He's a used car salesman.

The only thing that might save him this year is he has an easy Big Ten schedule , does not play Michigan, Michigan State, or Ohio State.

[Teh DMB]

PJ will be gone in 3 years. He is 5 -13 in the Big Ten , that is who we he really is. He is good at beating cupcakes, but we all know that doesn't mean anything. He can row the boat to some Junior College after he gets fired from Minnesota. He's a used car salesman.

The only thing that might save him this year is he has an easy Big Ten schedule , does not play Michigan, Michigan State, or Ohio State.

In 3 years there will be enough data of him-with his recruits and philosophy-to make that decision. We'll see-I haven't been impressed but you have to give him some time.

[Hornets]

2-0 baby! How many teams in the country can say they are 2-0!!

RAH!

[hategreenticemase]

Nothing more exciting than college OT.

Of course he thinks the single dumbest fucking rule is ALL of sports - college OT - is "exciting". Would we have expected anything less from Mr "Look at me, I need immediate attention"!

[hategreenticemase]

Can we get Abe to ban this dipshit?

For what wanting Fresno State to win? You don't think PJ is actually going to win anything for Minnesota to you?

Big picture!

Dude, fuck off, seriously. You are the absolute worst person on this site. If you hate everything, go fuck off to somewhere else. Every fucking board all you do is bitch about the Minnesota teams. It must suck to hate everything.

Big picture? Did I miss the titles they were winning before he got here?

JFFL, a piece of advice for you as I dont believe you were at the old site. This pathetic piece of garbage is the single most infamous bit ever at the old site. He literally was banned and created new variations of same name, over 100 times. Thats no exaggeration. Yes, a grown ass man who on a daily basis got out of bed with sole purpose of annoying other grown me he does not know, on the internets. They tried banning his IP but he knows ways around that and just kept coming back.

Here he has been relatively tame in comparison, and for some reasons some rubes actually respond to his dumbass periodically (I never would think to talk sports with someone as pathetic and juvenile as him), but it would appear he is trying to ramp shit up again. The advice is this - never reply. Ignore. Pretend he doesnt exist. If everyone had done that at old board his dumbass would have grown bored and left years ago. All you are doing now is stoking him to do more.

[hategreenticemase]

To the quality rubes who watched the game - I was driving back from a college camp my daughter was at and missed the game. What was your take?

Sounds like from reading through this, we didnt play well and lucky to win? Some questionable play calls?

How was our OL play? DL?

Feek, hoping you have some analysis?

[feekdogg]

Line play was improved on both sides, but still a ways to go. Run blocking was much better. Pass blocking needs work. I wouldn't say they played poorly, they played sloppy. Fumbles, bad snaps, penalties. Weird play calls and poor clock management. Stuff that wasn't really characteristic of Fleck's teams.
If that stuff isn't there, they easily win by double digits. They started great, but repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.

[hategreenticemase]

Line play was improved on both sides, but still a ways to go. Run blocking was much better. Pass blocking needs work. I wouldn't say they played poorly, they played sloppy. Fumbles, bad snaps, penalties. Weird play calls and poor clock management. Stuff that wasn't really characteristic of Fleck's teams.
If that stuff isn't there, they easily win by double digits. They started great, but repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.

Thanks Feek! Always appreciate your insight.

Can you elaborate on the clock MGMT? That shit drives me crazy. It's just not that hard.

[hategreenticemase]

DP

[feekdogg]

Line play was improved on both sides, but still a ways to go. Run blocking was much better. Pass blocking needs work. I wouldn't say they played poorly, they played sloppy. Fumbles, bad snaps, penalties. Weird play calls and poor clock management. Stuff that wasn't really characteristic of Fleck's teams.
If that stuff isn't there, they easily win by double digits. They started great, but repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.

Thanks Feel! Always appreciate your insight.

Can you elaborate on the clock MGMT? That shit drives me crazy. It's just not that hard.

You know the deal where the offense is lined up, then all the players look over to the sideline? Over and over again, they changed plays and Morgan's running around back there telling everybody the play while there's no time left on the play clock. I think this contributed to bad snaps.
That and they ended up taking a delay of game penalty right after a change of possesion.

[hategreenticemase]

Line play was improved on both sides, but still a ways to go. Run blocking was much better. Pass blocking needs work. I wouldn't say they played poorly, they played sloppy. Fumbles, bad snaps, penalties. Weird play calls and poor clock management. Stuff that wasn't really characteristic of Fleck's teams.
If that stuff isn't there, they easily win by double digits. They started great, but repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.

Thanks Feel! Always appreciate your insight.

Can you elaborate on the clock MGMT? That shit drives me crazy. It's just not that hard.

You know the deal where the offense is lined up, then all the players look over to the sideline? Over and over again, they changed plays and Morgan's running around back there telling everybody the play while there's no time left on the play clock. I think this contributed to bad snaps.
That and they ended up taking a delay of game penalty right after a change of possesion.

I fucking hate that check with me bullshit. To me it's the height of coaches arrogance, that they can solve any look the D gives them and they will know what to do against that look. Problem is, the focus is less on execution and belief in your plan and scheme, and more on being cute and outsmarting them. Not to mention, it invites disrupting flow of the game as well as the very type of mistakes you mention.

[bubu dubu.]

Line play was improved on both sides, but still a ways to go. Run blocking was much better. Pass blocking needs work. I wouldn't say they played poorly, they played sloppy. Fumbles, bad snaps, penalties. Weird play calls and poor clock management. Stuff that wasn't really characteristic of Fleck's teams.
If that stuff isn't there, they easily win by double digits. They started great, but repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.

Is your clock management thoughts a reference to the final drive in the 2nd half? I was following the game thread in Gopherhole, and they were going nuts, but I think that was great clock management. Gophers got the ball, I wanna say with like 5 minutes and change. If you get the TD with say 1:30 left, or more, Fresno has too much time, with 2 or 3 of their timeouts left. Gophers unraveled a bit when they got near the 20, but thankfully go the TD...I think running the clock inside 1 minute was the right thing to do.

The absurd amount of mistakes definitely were uncharacteristic of a PJ team though. I think those will be corrected to some degree. Gophers were lucky to get out with the win, but you do have to appreciate the mental toughness they showed, that even when they were making so many losing plays, they overcame it instead of folding...that is what is uncharacteristic of Gopher teams in the last several decades.

[bubu dubu.]

To the quality rubes who watched the game - I was driving back from a college camp my daughter was at and missed the game. What was your take?

Sounds like from reading through this, we didnt play well and lucky to win? Some questionable play calls?

How was our OL play? DL?

Feek, hoping you have some analysis?

They played fine. Looked like the better team, as opposed to week 1. Made some ludicrous mistakes though, that should have cost the game...showed a hell of a lot of mental toughness to over come those mistakes. Past Gopher teams do not overcome the idiocy they displayed. Morgan seemed to have no sense of pressure when it was there, sans a few plays. He also didn't appear to know how to absorb hits and hold on to the ball. There were huge problems with the center/QB exchange throughout the game. Some really bad penalties that cost us points...most notable one of the top of my head was when Fresno was around their own 20, and it was like 3rd down an more than 10 to go, Gophers hold them, then a Fresno and Gopher get into a shoving match and the Gopher grabs the other players facemask...automatic 1st down...Fresno gets a TD on that drive...then there was a series where the Gophers forced a 3 and out..Fresno punts, and some idiot gets in the way of his teammate catching the punt. Fresno recovers, and their offense gets a TD...that's 14 points they shouldnt have had, and some possible points the Gophers could have had on those ensuing drives that they didn't have the chance to get...

there was a really bad coaching move that seemed like it would have halted what thankfully ended up being the game winning drive...Morgan and the running backs were unstoppable on that drive, until they got to around the 20 yard line, and put Seth Green in for the Wildcat for the first time in the game. There was a fumble on a bad snap that resulted in a loss of yards, and that appeared to have halted all momentum...That would have been one of the biggest talkers had the Gophers lost...putting a cold player in to run an offense they hadn't run all game, while the offense they were running looked unstoppable.

WR group looks nice. Tyler Johnson had at least one dropped pass, which is becoming embarrassingly predictable for him, but he still had a nice game. Bateman has quickly become the best receiving option on the team. Autman-Bell and Morgan had the play of the game for the Gophers (well, maybe 1A or 1B with the Winfield int being the other one).

Morgan had at least 3 comeback pattern passes that could have easily been pick 6's, at least two of those, the WR did a great job of playing DB and preventing that from happening. Morgan had some nice stats, but I don't think that shows how he played...can't take that game tying TD pass away from him though. That was a great moment for him.

O-line started dominating in the 2nd half...other than the Gophers shooting themselves in the foot, Fresno had no answer for the o-line imposing their will. Might not be able to do that so easily in the Big Ten though, but it should still be a strength. They got exposed a little bit with some quick pass rushers...so running of course needs to be the key all season.

CBS kept showing this stat of the Gopher line vs the Vikings line, and the Gophers on average were something like 6'5 and 340, while the Vikings were 6'1 and 300. That's ridiculous.

[Ask Not]

The team has potential on offense. The receiver group is the best I can remember. Ibrahim is a tougher and smarter runner than Smith. What happened to Rodney Smith's eyeballs? - he just runs right up the back of the pile rather than pausing and looking for a hole. If I hadn't seen him in the past I'd wonder why he's getting any snaps.

If the defensive line doesn't start getting pressure, both against the run and the pass, it's going to be a long season. Carter Caughlin- where are you?

[hategreenticemase]

The team has potential on offense. The receiver group is the best I can remember. Ibrahim is a tougher and smarter runner than Smith. What happened to Rodney Smith's eyeballs? - he just runs right up the back of the pile rather than pausing and looking for a hole. If I hadn't seen him in the past I'd wonder why he's getting any snaps.

If the defensive line doesn't start getting pressure, both against the run and the pass, it's going to be a long season. Carter Caughlin- where are you?

Thanks guys, good analysis from rubes who have a clue, so its like I watched the game! I believe Feek questioned Rodney first game, so your take is interesting. Must just be a feel thing and the big layoff is hurting him? Too bad, the kid was damn good. Maybe it comes back.

What is deal with Brooks? Has he played?

[hategreenticemase]

To the quality rubes who watched the game - I was driving back from a college camp my daughter was at and missed the game. What was your take?

Sounds like from reading through this, we didnt play well and lucky to win? Some questionable play calls?

How was our OL play? DL?

Feek, hoping you have some analysis?

They played fine. Looked like the better team, as opposed to week 1. Made some ludicrous mistakes though, that should have cost the game...showed a hell of a lot of mental toughness to over come those mistakes. Past Gopher teams do not overcome the idiocy they displayed. Morgan seemed to have no sense of pressure when it was there, sans a few plays. He also didn't appear to know how to absorb hits and hold on to the ball. There were huge problems with the center/QB exchange throughout the game. Some really bad penalties that cost us points...most notable one of the top of my head was when Fresno was around their own 20, and it was like 3rd down an more than 10 to go, Gophers hold them, then a Fresno and Gopher get into a shoving match and the Gopher grabs the other players facemask...automatic 1st down...Fresno gets a TD on that drive...then there was a series where the Gophers forced a 3 and out..Fresno punts, and some idiot gets in the way of his teammate catching the punt. Fresno recovers, and their offense gets a TD...that's 14 points they shouldnt have had, and some possible points the Gophers could have had on those ensuing drives that they didn't have the chance to get...

there was a really bad coaching move that seemed like it would have halted what thankfully ended up being the game winning drive...Morgan and the running backs were unstoppable on that drive, until they got to around the 20 yard line, and put Seth Green in for the Wildcat for the first time in the game. There was a fumble on a bad snap that resulted in a loss of yards, and that appeared to have halted all momentum...That would have been one of the biggest talkers had the Gophers lost...putting a cold player in to run an offense they hadn't run all game, while the offense they were running looked unstoppable.

WR group looks nice. Tyler Johnson had at least one dropped pass, which is becoming embarrassingly predictable for him, but he still had a nice game. Bateman has quickly become the best receiving option on the team. Autman-Bell and Morgan had the play of the game for the Gophers (well, maybe 1A or 1B with the Winfield int being the other one).

Morgan had at least 3 comeback pattern passes that could have easily been pick 6's, at least two of those, the WR did a great job of playing DB and preventing that from happening. Morgan had some nice stats, but I don't think that shows how he played...can't take that game tying TD pass away from him though. That was a great moment for him.

O-line started dominating in the 2nd half...other than the Gophers shooting themselves in the foot, Fresno had no answer for the o-line imposing their will. Might not be able to do that so easily in the Big Ten though, but it should still be a strength. They got exposed a little bit with some quick pass rushers...so running of course needs to be the key all season.

CBS kept showing this stat of the Gopher line vs the Vikings line, and the Gophers on average were something like 6'5 and 340, while the Vikings were 6'1 and 300. That's ridiculous.

Thanks, good stuff. To me, if this OL gets to "very good", then in spite of a mediocre qb, we can be damn good on offense. Similar to Mase in 03. Our receivers are sick. Who the F would have ever thought that possible?

[feekdogg]

My biggest gripe is the chickenshit move to not try and win the game after the TD. On the road, all momentum on your side. Go for 2.

[HeHateMe]

My biggest gripe is the chickenshit move to not try and win the game after the TD. On the road, all momentum on your side. Go for 2.

Not surprised based on the opponent. If it was a better team I think you try to win it then.... lesser team, they played it safe of course.

[Ask Not]

My biggest gripe is the chickenshit move to not try and win the game after the TD. On the road, all momentum on your side. Go for 2.

I agree. Ibrahim wouldn't be denied 2 yards.

[Face The Facts]

Shannon Brooks dressed and did the OT coin toss by himself.

He has not played yet.
He got injured during the Indiana game last year so it hasn't quite been a year yet.

[bubu dubu.]

My biggest gripe is the chickenshit move to not try and win the game after the TD. On the road, all momentum on your side. Go for 2.

No...maybe if they hadn't been shooting themselves in the foot, and didn't look like the better team, but not for what they displayed. Gophers were showing they could easily drive on them, and Fresno offense had been stalled. Take your chance in OT

[Style]

My biggest gripe is the chickenshit move to not try and win the game after the TD. On the road, all momentum on your side. Go for 2.

No...maybe if they hadn't been shooting themselves in the foot, and didn't look like the better team, but not for what they displayed. Gophers were showing they could easily drive on them, and Fresno offense had been stalled. Take your chance in OT

This is my stance as well. I'm a big proponent of going for two there if it seems like the other team is just better. If I have the better team, which I think the Gophers were, I'm going to OT.

[Style]

My recap:

Like others, I was pleased with what appeared to be improved skill. I know you don't just get more skilled in a week, but the skill level was more evident versus FS than it was against SD. The issue was unforced errors. Frustrating to watch, but leaving with a W, is encouraging because those are things that can be easily fixed. I was more nervous for the season after the SD game than I am now after the FS game. Someone mentioned after the first game something along the lines of, "If we can't push around SD, who can we?" That was a concern of mine. That seemed to be a talent problem. After seeing a more physical product on Saturday, I'm much more confident in the team heading towards BT play.

If this is the Rodney Smith we can expect in 2019, it may be time for him to have more of a role as a coach/mentor than actual player. He looks pretty awful. Unfortunate because he seems like a quality person that would be easy to root for (example: 40 yard challenge). But through two games, Mo has outplayed him and IMO it hasn't been very close.

I'd still like to see more creativity on offense. The TV team made sure we all knew the Gophers OL was bigger than the Vikings OL. There needs to be a bit more to the playbook as we near BT play. Johnson hasn't torn it up by any means. I'd like to see him get some easy balls and the staff to develop ways to get him in space to make some plays.

I'm really happy that neither Kramer or Clark have seen action to date. With two games down, and a likely bowl ahead, 11 games remain. Three of those games we'd need Morgan to go the distance. Of the other 8, Kramer and Clark can chop it at 4 each and preserve their redshirts. I think this is an extremely important detail as I've talked about it a few times already this year.

The defense has been underwhelming. I'd like to see more of a "killer instinct" from the group as a whole. Hard to put my finger on any player/position/coach, but they don't seem to be too inspired right now.

This FR kicker might be something. He had a few clutch moments over the first two games. Hopefully it sticks.

Looking for a big win on Saturday. This team appears to have played at about 60-70% of its potential. Lots of room for improvement remains. That's an encouraging sign for a team that's 2-0 with a pretty quality win on the road.

[feekdogg]

My biggest gripe is the chickenshit move to not try and win the game after the TD. On the road, all momentum on your side. Go for 2.

No...maybe if they hadn't been shooting themselves in the foot, and didn't look like the better team, but not for what they displayed. Gophers were showing they could easily drive on them, and Fresno offense had been stalled. Take your chance in OT

This is my stance as well. I'm a big proponent of going for two there if it seems like the other team is just better. If I have the better team, which I think the Gophers were, I'm going to OT.

If I have the better team, I trust they can get 2 yards. Especially when it just took a near miracle to get to that point.

[Face The Facts]

Tanner Morgan is looking good as long as he doesn't fumble.
WR's are as good as we've had in 40 years.
RB's should be as good. Ibrahim is solid. Smith isn't hitting his stride yet. He's running into people instead of finding the holes. When Shannon Brooks comes back, he'll be outstanding I think.
Also Wiley is probably going to get carries at some point.

Defensive line isn't there yet. Coughlin is playing through something.
Secondary is good.

The O-line isn't in sync yet. Far better against FS than SD. They have players with skill. That should be something they get better at week by week.

This is a good team and a fun team to watch.

I believe they had 3 major penalties on 3rd downs where we stopped them which eventually led to TD's. Could have been 14 to 21 points off Fresno's score with that taken into effect.

[jffl_commish]

I'm hoping they get a blowout this weekend so they can get some of the freshmen some time before it really matters, especially the QB's. Better to get them in now for a series or two before they have to on the road in Big 10.

[hategreenticemase]

My recap:

Like others, I was pleased with what appeared to be improved skill. I know you don't just get more skilled in a week, but the skill level was more evident versus FS than it was against SD. The issue was unforced errors. Frustrating to watch, but leaving with a W, is encouraging because those are things that can be easily fixed. I was more nervous for the season after the SD game than I am now after the FS game. Someone mentioned after the first game something along the lines of, "If we can't push around SD, who can we?" That was a concern of mine. That seemed to be a talent problem. After seeing a more physical product on Saturday, I'm much more confident in the team heading towards BT play.

If this is the Rodney Smith we can expect in 2019, it may be time for him to have more of a role as a coach/mentor than actual player. He looks pretty awful. Unfortunate because he seems like a quality person that would be easy to root for (example: 40 yard challenge). But through two games, Mo has outplayed him and IMO it hasn't been very close.

I'd still like to see more creativity on offense. The TV team made sure we all knew the Gophers OL was bigger than the Vikings OL. There needs to be a bit more to the playbook as we near BT play. Johnson hasn't torn it up by any means. I'd like to see him get some easy balls and the staff to develop ways to get him in space to make some plays.

I'm really happy that neither Kramer or Clark have seen action to date. With two games down, and a likely bowl ahead, 11 games remain. Three of those games we'd need Morgan to go the distance. Of the other 8, Kramer and Clark can chop it at 4 each and preserve their redshirts. I think this is an extremely important detail as I've talked about it a few times already this year.

The defense has been underwhelming. I'd like to see more of a "killer instinct" from the group as a whole. Hard to put my finger on any player/position/coach, but they don't seem to be too inspired right now.

This FR kicker might be something. He had a few clutch moments over the first two games. Hopefully it sticks.

Looking for a big win on Saturday. This team appears to have played at about 60-70% of its potential. Lots of room for improvement remains. That's an encouraging sign for a team that's 2-0 with a pretty quality win on the road.

Nice detailed report, thank you.

Cant wait to get thru today and on to some real football!!!