Land of 10,000 Mistakes: A Minnesota Gopher Football Analysis

[Minnow]

LAND OF 10,000 MISTAKES: AN ANLYSIS OF GOPHER FOOTBALL

 

Minnesota has never looked worse than in the 2022 SimCFB season. The Gophers went 0-12 after getting a bowl game birth the season prior where the lost.

The season was not as bad as the record suggests....it was worse. Let's take a look at the key factors that went into this historically bad season.

Preseason Strategies

Head coach Minnow gathered one of the more interesting recruiting classes seen, deciding to go after low potential high star players in the hopes of winning now rather than later.

 

With RB Fish Liggins who united last year's team now gone to the NFL Minnow looked towards other players to fill that gap...mainly on the defensive side.

Preseason rankings did not exist for the Big 10, but many valued the gophers top talent on the defensive side of the ball.

 

The 2nd year coach saw the low potential of the players and decided to redshirt mostly offensive talent as they were the youngest part of the team.

 

Of Minnesota's 15 redshirts, 12 were on the offensive side, 2 on Special Teams, and 1 defensive player being redshirted. The stripping of talent on the offensive side of the ball meant the offense would have to rely on players from last year to step up and fill in depth, something that the Gophers would become familiar with in blowing games in the 2nd half.

 

Players such as QBs Ben Haeg a 6'4" Field General and Cre'von Lauer a 4 star Scrambler would sit out the year to learn from the god awful QB Adrian Johnson (more on that later). One player that Gopher hopefuls looked at to start this year was WR Aaron Holiday a surprising 4 star signee from Georgia, but he sat out to see this pathetic mess.

 

The Good?

 

Four 4 star A OVR players all lined up for the Gophers on the defense with 3 of the 4 being Seniors. The Run Stopping Trio of DE Eric Kieschnick, SS Tyler Moss, and ILB Reggie Gordon surely would rain terror on opposing teams run game. Right???? Surprisingly yes.

 

The big 4 on defense limited teams to 1262 rushing yards all year, making them Footballs 7th best run stopping team.

 

The Defense blew leads. A lot of them. The Gophers combined for the 17th most points given up in all of College with a point differential of -169.

But the defense also finished 5th in all of College Football for total Tackles for Loss at 107.

 

Eric Kieschnick finished the regular season with 42 tackles, 24 of them being for a loss and 8.5 sacks.

 

Ali Sandoval being a Junior was the shining bottle cap in a landfill that all the seagulls go for because it is the best looking thing there. He racked up 65.5 tackles with 22 tackles being for a loss and topped it off with 2.5 sacks. (I hope he doesn't declare early)

 

Tyler Moss showed off his hands and got 2 INTs and 6 tackles for a loss. Overall his season was lackluster considering he never deflected a pass all season long.

 

The Defense hinged solely upon the trio of Sandoval, Kieschnick, and Moss who in total racked up 166.5 tackles of Minnesota's 534 total tackles shows that these 3 alone 31% of the teams total tackles.

 

If you take only into account TFL's the Duo of Kieschnick and Sandoval accounted for 46 total making them better than the teams of Florida, East Carolina, Vanderbilt, Navy, Purdue, Georgia State, and South Carolina's whole squads.

 

THE BAD

Clock Management was a huge factor in the blown games. Games that finished within one possession (those being Week 4 Nebraska, Week 6 Purdue, Week 10 Rutgers, Week 13 Iowa, Week 14 Wisconsin) 3 of the games Minnesota had a tie or a lead going into the half, the other one Minnesota trailed by 3 points.

 

NOW LET's ANALYZE WHAT A SECOND HALF COLLAPSE LOOKS LIKE

 

Remember those redshirts from earlier? Yeah, the lack of offensive talent showed up for these games.

Starting with the Nebraska Game in Week 4. This game saw Minnesota leading 13-0 at half time thanks to the unrelenting defense that stuffed Nebraska's running attack.

Punting was fucking atrocious in this game, 22 punts combined for 1166 yards. Minnesota accounted for 574 yards alone off of some bizarre coaching decisions.

The Gophers ended their drives as follows

Minnesota Drives

1. 2 incompletions and lost yards on a run, punt on MINN 39
   
2. Completion to TE and a run for a 1st.
   
   1. 
      
   2. Another completion to the TE for another 1st.
      
   3. 2 failed runs and an incomplete. Punt on the fucking NEBRASKA 29
      

[*]Get the ball at Nebraska 38.

1. Get it down to the 12
   

   [*]3 incompletions. Punt

   [*]Touchdown Gophers on a 34 yard run 10-0 MINN

   [*] Interception flipped into a MN Field goal 13-0 MINN

   [*]Ends in a punt

   [*]HALF TIME

   [*]punt after gaining 10 yards

   [*]After Nebraska Scores we drive down to the Nebraska 18, get a holding called against us and then punt from the Nebraska 28. 13-7 MINN

   [*]Get an interception on the Nebraska 38. Drive down to the Nebraska 32. Ends in a punt by Minnesota (3 fucking times now we have punted in FG range)

   [*]Punt

   [*]Drive down to the NEB 32, 3 straight incompletions bring up 4th down.....and we punt again from the 32 yard line.

   [*]Punt from Nebraska 45

   [*]NEB Field goal makes it 13-10 (somehow I am still winning)

   [*]MINN Interception somehow pushing them to NEB 38 from my own 28.

   [*]Touchdown Nebraska 13-17

   [*]MINN Punt

   [*]2 Minutes left MN has the ball its 4th and 11. We run a WR SWEEP AND FUCKING TURN IT OVER ON DOWNS ON THE NEBRASKA 20.

   [*]GAME OVER Minnesota loses despite making it into Nebraska Territory on a majority of our drives

   Memes aside I think my kicker was betting against this game as his chicken foot ass didn't even try to kick a field goal that was beyond the 20 yard line.

    

   Week 6 Purdue

   This game actually was exciting as it involved OT and a QB benching by Minnesota.

   Up to this point our QB Adrian Johnson completed less than half of his passes and had as many touchdowns as fingers on one hand. It was time for a change.

   ENTER

   Wilmer Reed. Who has worse accuracy but is slightly more mobile than his starter. managed to actually put the ball in the endzone TWICE, but at the same time threw 4 INTs.

   This game also involved a WR getting more rushing yards than both runningbacks combined.

   These are the painful events of the sixth Minnesota loss this year.

    

   1. Interception and Unsportsmanlike Conduct on the same play
      

      [*]Our run game pushes us down to the PUR 15 and we end the drive in a field goal 3-3

      [*]Long ball does the job and no incompletions are thrown. Touchdown Minnesota 10-3

      [*]Minnesota Punt

      1. Touchdown PUR 10-10
         

      [*]Couple of Failed rushing attempts. Punt.

      [*]Punt after an unsportsmanlike Conduct on Minnesota

      [*]Minnesota has the ball with 15 seconds left in the half, they just got a completion to push them to the PUR 38 and they run a screen play for 0 yards. Time expires Halftime

      [*]Make it to the Purdue 39 and punt.

      [*]Interception, MINN ball

      1. Ends in a missed Field Goal from 26 yards out. (really starting to regret redshirting that 4 star kicker now)
         

      [*]Touchdown Minnesota 17-10

      [*]Next Minnesota Drive ticked off 2:30 seconds went 50 yards to the PUR 29 and got intercepted.

      [*]Punt

      [*]3 and out. Punt

      [*]43 Yard field goal Good 20-13 MINN

      [*]PUNT

      [*]Interception

      1. PURD drove down to the MINN 32 tied up and went for it on 4th down with 1 minute left.
         

      [*]Turnover on downs on our own 39 yard line

      [*]End of Regulation

      [*]We win the toss go 3 and out Missed a 40 yard field goal. and they run 5 plays to win in OT.

      This game was probably the best of the one possession losses, as our team did have some big plays, but ultimately it came down to poor passing decisions.

      In retrospect I wish I had given Reed another chance as his numbers and ability to at least complete drives surpassed Johnson's ability.

       

      WEEK 10

      I hate this game so much. At this point I am 0-8 hoping to at least win something. This is probably my best game that I played and still lost.

      I am not going to break it down drive by drive like I did with the others. I am just going to highlight stats

      QB

      Johnson actually did pretty well going 12 of 20 for 107 yards. No TDs no INTs. He did not help me nor did he hurt me so I do not know how I feel about this.

       

      Run the Damn Ball Already

      If Passing isn't working then running should work. It did. Our combined 41 attempts gained 234 yards offense with 179 of those coming from Austin Heath alone.

       

      the Key takeaways

      We still cant score when crossing midfield, the points that we did score came off of a RUTG int and a run play after. and 2 field goals.

      There was one notable drive in the 2nd Quarter that ended with a field goal but it removed 7 minutes from the clock making it one of our longest drives on the year.

       

      What was bad were the fumbles

      One stripped sack in the 2nd quarter gave possession to RUTG with 3 minutes left on our own 20 yard line. It did not take much for them to punch it in making it 10-7 before halftime.

      Our next fumble came at an equally bad time, to start the second half we make it to the RUTG 30 yard line and turn it over with a fumble. On the next play by Rutgers they fumble...only to recover it themselves.

       

      The Outcome

      And only punting occurs for the rest of the 3rd.

      Halfway through the 4th we get a field goal and make it a 13-7 lead with 7 minutes left to play.

      Rutgers punts giving us possession with 5 minutes left. We should have been smarter here. We Run the ball to hold our lead, but let no time tick off the clock.

      We achieve 2 first downs and run two plays to make it 4th and 1 from midfield. Smart money says go for it with the 2 minutes left. We decide to Punt and touchback.

      A Defensive Pass Interference pushes them down to their 42, 2 big plays that combined for 51 yards make it easy for them to score with 8 seconds left. Gophers lose on the PAT.

       

      IOWA

      Fuck this game...the final was 7-6.

      Our QB threw no TDs and 2 ints and Austin Heath also rushed for 140 yards like he normally does. So its more of the same.

      I do want to highlight our punts though this game to illustrate the bullshit of my Kickers leg.

       

      Punt from IOWA 34

      Punt from IOWA 43

      Punt from MINN 42

      Punt from MINN 38 (its getting better)

      Punt from IOWA 45

      Punt from IOWA 47

      Punt from IOWA 45

       

      Oh I forgot to mention that my team ran two passing plays with less than 10 seconds left in the game.

      The game ended with what I presume is meant to stop clock but they ran the play with 1 second left from the Iowa 20. The Play PRIOR THEY WERE AT THE IOWA 11 and GOT SACKED for a loss of 9.

       

      THEY COULD HAVE KICKED A FIELD GOAL AT THE FUCKING IOWA 11 TO WIN THE GAME. YOU ARE DOWN BY ONE AND YOU FUCKING DONT EVEN TRY TO KICK A FIELD GOAL?!

       

      HORRAY ANOTHER HEARTBREAK (WISCONSIN)

      This game was the cherry on top for the year, the final game to make it a perfect season (bowls excluded). We had no chance this game, beyond Austin Heaths 166 yard performance and limiting WISC to 13 rushing yards total those are the only bright spots in an otherwise bleak performance. Adrian Johnson's 0 TD and 1 INT performance is more of the same as well. I just hoped something would have been different this time around.

       

      Let us go over the key plays

      Our Punting did not fuck us over like last games. Larry Anzalone's 4 lone punts (I know I am shocked also that I only punted 4 times) all pinned WISC inside the 20.

      Gavin Farrow's 40 yard miss came pretty early on in the game near halfway into the game and we still had the lead 3-2. What did suck however was the WISC defense for us.

      Their performance is what made them win this game and put the nail in the coffin for the Gophers.

       

      2 crucial plays were the tipping point one came in the 1st quarter when during a kickoff Holding was called on the return team, this pushed us into our own 11 yard line. We run a passing play. Get Sacked. Wisconsin is on the board. 3-2.

       

      The other play came near the end when the Gophers had a pitiful drive which ticked 3 minutes off the clock for only a gain of about 20 yards.

      Gophers line up to punt from the MINN 37. Wisconsin rushes the snap and gets a good jump. The CB Arthur Leathersich gets a palm on the ball and stops the punt dead in its tracks.

      Wisconsin takes this opportunity to make the game look like a blowout and decide it would be really cute to score once more prior to the clock expiring.

      Essentially one last fuck you to a winless squad who wanted nothing more than to give the young fans hope for next year.

       

      So what is good about next year?

      IT CANT BE WORSE THAN THIS.

   
   
2. PUR kicks field goal 3-0
   

Field Goal 3-0 MINN

[Bundy]

2 Minutes left MN has the ball its 4th and 11. We run a WR SWEEP AND FUCKING TURN IT OVER ON DOWNS ON THE NEBRASKA 20.

 

This had me weak

[BabaYaga]

What did you set as your max FG length lol

[Minnow]

Like 45. Where the issue came in was with skipping field goal as an option if you had anything set for go for it on 4th and short