September 10, 2007

My thoughts on Minneosta...Week 2

Minnesota Thoughts...

  • Excellent job by Adam Weber - marked improvement over game 1 (368 total yards, 65% completions and 4 TD passes). Weber seemed much more at ease in the pocket, much more confident in his throws and gave his receivers a chance to catch the ball on a more consistent basis. Also did a great job on most option reads. I "think" that a number of the handoffs to Pinnix up the middle are option reads where Weber can give to Pinnix on the dive or keep it and go off tackle depending on what the DE does.
  • This defense needs help - Coverage is bad, pass rush is bad, tackling is bad. Kinda hard to win games with this formula. We need defensive recruits for next year in a really bad way.
  • Guys who I like on D?
    • Steven Davis - athletic and was making plays in the 1st half
    • Jamal Harris - 2 picks and is decent at covering guys
    • Dominique Barber - has made some plays in coverage and vs. the run in both games
    • Ryan Collado - hasn't done much but I think he'll be OK, he is just a freshman
  • This offense is going to be just fine - I think that our offense will be able to play with anybody in the Big Ten (just about anybody). With so much inexperience at QB and WR they will only get better as the season goes on. But thus far Weber has proved to be more of an asset than a game manager, Wheelwright has been solid and Pinnix has been as good as we hoped. And the O-line has been good as well.
  • Special Teams is almost as bad as the Defense - Punting will be OK and I think the return game will be fine as well. But we don't have a kicker. I know people want Brewster to go with Monroe from now on. But as bad as Giannini has been and they still haven't gone with Monroe, what does that really say about Monroe? The Big Ten season could get ugly is we get outplayed on defense and on special teams every week. This offense isn't good enough to compensate for that.

Additional Thoughts...
  • Congratulations to Weber - Big Ten C0-Offensive Player of the Week!
  • Recruiting this week - I guess Brewster is taking the team to Florida a day early so he and his staff can spend Friday recruiting and going to recruit's games. This is kind of a bonus that we can see several kids and give them in-season attention that Gopher staffs haven't been able to do in the past. Here are some players I'm sure will be given the sales pitch this week...
    • QB - BJ Daniels - 3-star
    • WR - Aldarius Johnson - 4-star, already committed to Miami, but I'm sure we'll talk to him
    • WR - Tommy Streeter - 3-star
    • WR - Harry Adams - 3-star, committed to Auburn
    • OG - Steven Robinson - 3-star
    • LB - Nigel Carr - 4-star, soft verbal to Florida State
    • S - Carnell Hatcher - 4-star

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