Who are you and what did you do with Coach Brewster?

After some morning reading here are some of thoughts and links following the Gophers first day of practice.

Did Tim transfer with Clint? - there are multiple reports of a "calmer" and "more relaxed" Coach Brewster. While this is hard for me to believe, it must be flabbergasting for others to comprehend. But it is true and I have the quotes below to prove it. Not only is the head coach more comfortable in his surroundings but rather than hyping everyone up with talk of what may or may not happen after Jan. 1st, 2009 he's preaching one play at a time.

There are more quotes below but Kent Youngblood summed it up best...

"In one year, Tim Brewster has gone from talking Pasadena to preaching one play at a time, from pie in the sky to feet on the ground."

Adam Weber - "There is a calmness about him."
Willie VanDeSteeg - "He's taken a little step back"

Personally, I like the willingness to admit winning more than the Sun Bowl is a goal worth striving for, but exuding some form of calm and in control demeanor is exactly what a young team needs to see from their head coach.

New Guys I'm Excited to Watch

• Cedrick McKinley is getting more and more ink that he is a physical specimen who will help out that defensive line immediately.
• Simoni Lawrence is currently listed at a starting LB and he should really add some speed and coverage skills to the mid level.
• All defensive backs - pass defense was so bad last year that I'm really excited to see how Tramaine Brock, Traye Simmons and Keanon Cooper help us out in the backfield.
• David Pittman did not make the initial 2-deep but I'm excited to see how he is utilized as a play maker in this offense.
  

Working Hard Enough? - The Gopher Athletic Communication Dept is putting out a daily blog of summer practice. Andy Seely (Associate Dir of Ath Comm) is the primary typer of information and it looks like John Romo (Dir of Internet Services) will also contribute. But the most interesting piece of info they provided us with from Day 1 was this...

Each player weighs in at the beginning and end of practice to keep track of hydration and other health measures. Nobody dropped double-digit pounds, but it was close. Two Gophers lost nine pounds, while a handful of others were in the seven- and eight-pound range.

One afternoon's practice led to the loss of 7-9 pounds?!? Of course that is water weight and most of it will be put back on after some hydration and a healthy meal, but I found it rather interesting.

How the athletic training staff takes care of the athlete's bodies is incredibly high tech and is vitally important to the success of the team, I truly believe that. They and the strength training staff are two of the most unheralded but critical elements of preparing the athlete to perform at the highest possible level.

Missing Some of that 2008 Class - When all was said and done Brewster delivered nearly all of his massive recruiting class. But a couple of the key guys are not going to be Gophers this fall.

• Sam Maresh was our best defensive recruit and is not playing due to open heart surgery. Clearly not Brewster's fault, but I was looking forward to seeing him play in 2008.
• Spencer Reeves is one of the Skyline 4, which currently is only the Skyline 3. The LB has not yet qualified and the staff is anticipating he'll be at the U in January.
• Vincent Hill was expected to at the very least add depth to the WR position and possibly moved to DB to help out that thin area of need. Who knows how effective he would have been but he was a 4-star recruit and his inability to gain entrance is disappointing.
• Tim McGee was going to be a defensive line addition and also did not qualify. This one doesn't concern me as we knew at least a couple kids were not going to make it and JUCO transfers are always a bigger risk, but I'm listing him as one that got away.
  

Official Gopher 2-Deep (FINALLY)

Practice has begun today and at Brewster's 1 pm news conference the official depth chart was revealed. What is remarkable is that only seven players on the first or second string are seniors. I'll help you out with the math. 7/44 = 15.9% of the relevant roster are seniors meaning 84.1% will be returning next year. I know we thought we were young last year and this year would see some improvement but we are a VERY inexperienced team. 10 are true or redshirted freshmen with more not listed who many think will contribute in 2008 (Tate and Jacobs come to mind)

First of all click HERE for a very quick clip of Brewster's press conference.

Let us remember that there has not been a practice yet so this will surely change over the next 3-4 weeks. There are plenty of young players and newcomers who will likely have a chance to move up the list.

First year players in maroon.

OFFENSE			DEFENSE
QB	Adam Weber		DE	Willie VanDeSteeg
	Tony Mortenson			Derrick Onwuachi
RB	Duane Bennett		DT	Eric Small
	Jay Thomas			Jewhan Edwards
WR	Eric Decker		DT	Garrett Brown
	Xavier Brandon			Barrett Moen
WR	Ralph Spry		DE	Cedrick McKinley
	Broderick Smith			Lee Campbell
WR	Brandon Green		LB	Simoni Lawrence
	Ben Kuznia			Kevin Manion
TE	Jack Simmons		LB	Deon Hightower
	Nick Tow-Arnett			Rex Sharpe
RT	Chris Bunders (rFR)		LB	Steve Davis
	Ryan Ruckdashel			Nate Triplett
RG	Ryan Wynn (rFR)		CB	Marcus Sherels
	Jason Meinke			Ryan Collado
C	Jeff Tow-Arnett		FS	Tramaine Brock
	Trey Davis (rFR)			Tim Dandridge
LG	DJ Burris		SS	Kyle Theret
	Ned Tevale			Keanon Cooper
LT	Dominic Alford		CB	Traye Simmons
	Ryan Orton (rFR)			Troy Stoudermire

SURPRISES...

No David Pittman - but my assumption he is #3 at WR, CB, QB, C, LS, LT and DT (maybe I should have listed with / instead of ,)

Redshirted Freshmen missing - Anthony Jacobs and Andre Tate are not on the 2-deep and personally I was hopeful to see their names, time will tell if they contribute much this season.

Offensive Line - most notable was Ned Tevale backing up LG when many thought he'd be starting at RG. Looks like the entire right side of the line is up for grabs but currently has two freshmen starting while the left side and center are locked down.

Defensive Backfield - the big shocker is Marcus Sherels starting at CB over returning starter Ryan Collado. Sherels was hyped coming out of spring ball but I'll still be shocked to see him starting in week 1. Maybe he was made for corner and it just took some time for him to find a home. Of the top eight players in the defensive backfield 3 are new starters and 3 backups are new to the program. Looks like a wholesale effort to get that pass defense turned around.

Defensive Starters - FOUR starters who were not a part of the program in 2007 (five if you count Sherels who moved from WR to CB) and five back ups who are new to Gopher football. The battles will be fun to watch from a distance and be sure to have your roster handy for week 1 vs. Northern Illinois.

That, Gopher faithful, is your 2008 Golden Gopher initial depth chart.

BTB Roundtable - Rivalry Edition

Some of you may or may not know that there is a fairly large group of Big Ten Bloggers who collaborate on ideas and compliment each other on how awesome we all are. I have offered to host 2008's first roundtable and I have deemed it a Rivalry themed roundtable. If you are unfamiliar with how this works I post my answers, other bloggers post their answers on their blogs then I'll do a recap post near the end of this week highlighting the highlights. Here goes...


1. ESPN's Adam Rittenberg recently ranked the top 5 rivalries in the Big Ten and there were some controversial results (Illinois v Ohio State as #3?). Clearly Ohio State vs. Michigan is the #1 rivalry in the Big Ten, but give me your next three. Your school does not have to be included in this list, but regardless of who you choose defend your picks.

1. Minnesota vs. Wisconsin - longest played rivalry in all of NCAA football. People with short memories will tell me that Wisconsin dominates this series and is meaningless, but Minnesota leads the all time series winning 59, losing 50 and tying 8 in the 117 total games played. It is true that in recent years this has not been very competitive but this is a passionate rivalry and both team's fan bases care very much about winning Paul Bunyan's Axe. It should also be noted that this is a key game for recruiting purposes as both teams fight for each other's players on a regular basis.
   
   
2. Michigan vs. Michigan St. - In state rivalry that has some passion. This one, like the one above, has lacked competitiveness in recent years with Michigan going 15-5 in the last 20 meetings and leads 34-19-2. But also like the one above it is crucial for recruiting wars and is a game fans care about deeply.
   
   
3. Purdue vs. Indiana - the battle for the Old Oaken Bucket is usually a meaningless game on the national and even conference level. But it is hard to ignore a series that has seen 110 games played. Dominated by Purdue this series beats out a few other considered rivalries but not by much. The in-state angle and the longevity of the rivalry make this the 4th best rivalry in the Big Ten.

Rivalries considered but didn't make my cut were Ohio State vs. Penn State (dominated by Ohio State AND has few games played), Wisconsin vs. Iowa (both teams might consider this game their 2nd rivalry) and Iowa vs. Minnesota.

2. Obviously winning every game is important and beating really good teams sends a stronger message than beating Minnesota. Assume every team is .500 this year and the outcome of your next two games means nothing outside of pride and a year's worth of bragging rights. Give me the two schools you would want to beat (in order) and why. What makes beating School's A and B significant?

Wisconsin - I put this ahead of Iowa because the largest population base in Minnesota cares more about this game than the Iowa game. Much of the disdain for Badger fans is carried over from NFL loyalties where Vikings and Packer fans also don't care for each other. Wisconsin in recent years has raided some quality football players from Minnesota so this game carries more recruiting weight than probably any other game on our schedule.

Iowa - the other significant rivalry game on our schedule. If you live south of the Twin Cities this is the game that matters to you. Gopher fans are tired of Hawkeye fans filling our stadium and stealing our goalposts. Fortunately for Gopher fans this is the one rivalry trophy that has resided in Minnesota more often than not.

3. Take the two teams from above that you claim are your biggest rivals and give me a new mascot for them.

Wisconsin Favres - there are probably as many green #4's in the stands at a Badger game as there are Ron Dayne jerseys.

Iowa Drunkards - is there anything else to do in Iowa?

4. There are some new rules in college football this year. My favorite is the Big Ten experimental rule which states that after every win this year you get to pluck one player off their roster and bring them back to your campus. Looking at your schedule give me two players you would pluck (assuming a win), why you would take them and what would you do with them?

James Laurinaitis - besides the fact that he is one of the best linebackers in the country and besides the fact that we are very weak at linebacker, Laurinaitis is from Minnesota and represents why we need to keep in state players in state. The current defense would look much different with an All-American LB in the middle (although who's wouldn't) and keeping kids in state like Willie Mobley, Michael Floyd and Bryce McNeal would be easier if there was a history of the best choosing Minnesota over Ohio State, Notre Dame or Michigan.

PJ Hill - I know that we need defense worse than Pres. Bush needs approval ratings, but we also do not have a running game to truly keep defenses honest. Give us someone who can carry the ball, get first downs and keep the clock moving and that will actually help out our beleaguered defense.

5. Brian at MGO was kind enough to post a diary entry which gives us and new coach Rich Rodriguez a list of Michigan traditions that maybe we were not all aware of. This has inspired two final questions...

5A - are there any Michigan traditions that he missed? (here is your chance for some Michigan cheap shots)

Dominating the Little Brown Jug series comes to mind, but I choose to ignore that one. I believe a new tradition was started in 2007 falling in one of the best upsets in recent memory.


5B - Are there any traditions of your school's rival that we should all be aware of?

Wisconsin's tradition of the student section leaving at halftime is a personal favorite of mine. Are they bored with the game or is it already in hand? No, 2 quarters away from the bar is too much to handle, they can watch the second half at the bar right?


That is all I've got for now, check back in a few days for the recap.

Gopher Football 2008 begins today

Can we please format our internal hard drives and forget 2007? Today we begin to see improvement and look forward to a new regular season.

This should be a pretty active week on the blog with previews, roundtables, 2-deeps and hopefully some special surprises. Stay tuned...

Clem Haskins article on ESPN

This is very good, I'm not finishes so I'll put my comments in at a later time (why does work have to get in the way of blogging?).

Clem Haskins at Home in Kentucky

I know this most recent Final Four was the first Clem has attended in almost a decade. Other than that he has remained off the radar completely.

Time for YOU to get involved

The commenting here at Gopher Nation is pretty light so the following request may fall on deaf ears but I want to know what you want for preseason football info.

As it stands I have no greater access to information than you do, but in all likelihood I spend considerably more time researching and compiling data to form my often brilliant opinions. So what would you like to read here?

Do you want to see another traditional analysis of Offense and Defense (maybe by position), schedule breakdown, opponent previews, depth chart guessing, etc?

Or is there something else, you'd rather see here to get yourself primed for Gopher Football 2008?

If you have an opinion or suggestion, please utilize the comment section or e-mail me your thoughts.

An optimistic Gopher preview (not from me)

If you are like me you have probably seen at least a dozen Big Ten preview and just about every one of them has the Gophers finishing 11th in the Big 10.

Big Ten Bloggers - 11th
NYT-Quad Blog - 11th (101st in NCAA)
Lindy's Sports - 10th
Athlon - 11th
Phil Steele - 10th
SureFireScouting.com - 10th
USA Today - 11th
The Sporting News - 11th
Game Plan - 11th
ESPN / Blue Ribbon - 11th

(HERE is a good link with the Big Ten Grid for all rankings above.)

Of course, who can blame them. Minnesota's defense was on the verge of setting some dubious records, a -15 turnover +/-, our worst non-conference record in recent memory and the fact that we actually finished 3 games out of 10th place in the Big Ten.

Gopher fans would like to believe that last year was the perfect storm of things going wrong and 2008 will be very different.

Well, the brilliant football minds over at Saturday Sound Off think the Gophers could conceivably go 7-5 this year.

THE OUTLOOK: I LOVE Minnesota this year. Are they this year's Kansas? Not in a sense that they'll go 11-1 and win a BCS bowl game in the process, but in terms of +/- wins from 2007 to 2008, they might have the largest overall improvement. Weber is a sophomore, the running game will take on more of a priority and they'll be fine there, the WRs are more than solid, the offensive line is decent, the defensive line isn't that great but should get marginally better, the LBs are solid, and incoming JUCO talent in the secondary will send the pass defense's production skyrocketing.

I know it sounds like you are reading a post on a Gopher message board that tends to ooze with optimism. Of course I tend to agree with the handsome, witty, clever and handsome folks at Saturday Sound Off.

Previews are a fuzzy formula of looking at

last year + (looking at the schedule + opponents last year)
+ looking at returning talent + incoming talent.

Looking back at 2007 there is no reason to believe that we should have any hope for this year. This is about where everyone stops with the Gophers. Most publications and blogs do more than their share of previews and Minnesota is an easy one to gloss over.

But if you ask me the schedule + Weber's added experience + a defensive talent upgrade makes us ripe for a win turnaround. I'm going to e-mail the SSO staff to find out exactly why the "LOVE Minnesota this year" but it is refreshing to see someone else who thinks they just might be more than a 1-11 team this year.

The only thing that bothers me is that people will be happy with a 7-5 season and a trip to the Poinsettia Bowl. How quickly we lower expectations and backslide to the Mason Mindset. 7-5 would be a massive improvement and is really the upper limit for this team, but I still yearn for the days of more. I'll be happy to take a big step forward this year but I really hope it would lead to more steps forward.

Nobody is talking about Adam Weber

Top 5 storylines surround the Golden Gophers heading into the 2008 football season.

1 - they were bad last year
2 - the defense was REALLY bad last year
3 - Tim Brewster uses the word tremendous a lot
4 - Tim Brewster had a tremendous recruiting class last year
5 - Eric Decker played baseball

I wonder why there is so little talk or coverage of Adam Weber's tremendous freshman season. Weber wasn't exactly on a Heisman list nor was he even under consideration for All Big Ten, but when you really look at things, he did have a very good season as a freshman starting in the Big Ten.

Just looking at the numbers alone Weber had a good year. Weber finished top 4 in the conference for Passing Yds and TDs. And don't give me the "product of a system" argument because more teams in the Big Ten run a spread or spread variation than teams that run a more traditional offense. So even if he is a product of a system it is a similar system employed by most of his peers.

The areas that were not as pretty were of course completion percentage an interceptions. This is where we break down the numbers to compare Weber to previous quarterbacks who started as freshmen in the Big Ten. Obviously 19 interceptions and completing only 57.5% of your passes are areas that need improvement but when you compare numbers to the following you realize it was pretty good "for a freshman."

	PCT	Yds	TDs	INT	Rsh Yds
Juice Williams (Ill)	39.5	1489	9	9	576
Kellen Lewis (Ind)	54.9	2221	14	7	441
Chad Henne (Mich)	60.2	2743	25	12	0
Jeff Smoker (MSU)	52.3	1365	6	7
Brett Basanez (NW)	58.5	2204	7	7
Zach Mills (PSU)	55.2	1669	9	12
Adam Weber	57.5	2895	24	19	617

The interceptions stand out as bad no matter who you are comparing it to. That has to improve. But everything else looks very good.

• 1st in yards
• 2nd in TD
• 3rd in completion %
• 1st in rushing yards
  

All in all what a solid year for a freshman starting all 12 games for a Big Ten program. Juice Williams is a phenominal athlete who gets a lot of press but when you break it down Weber had a much better freshman season (more yards, more TDs, higher completion % and even more yards rushing).

What does this mean as he heads into his second season as QB1? That is hard to judge. I'd love to assume his good numbers will go up and his bad numbers will go down. I looked at Brett Basanez (ran Dunbar's spread), Juice and Kellen Lewis to see how they fared from their freshman to their sophomore seasons. Lewis and Williams saw all good numbers increase dramatically and INTs also increased slightly. Basanez's numbers actually decreased as he threw only 4 TDs to 12 INTs as a sophomore. I don't know what the reasoning was behind this dramatic drop in production but let's hope Dunbar does not let this mistake repeat.

What I wasn't looking for but was pleasantly surprised was the increase in their team's wins from freshman to sophomore seasons.

	Win +/-
Juice Williams	+7
Kellen Lewis	+2
Chad Henne	-2
Jeff Smoker	+2
Brett Basanez	+3

Last year was painfully bad for Golden Gopher fans. For this season to be considered a success we need more than a +2 turnaround. But I fully anticipate Weber will modestly increase completion % by 3-4 points, INTs will reduce by -4 while TDs and passing yards will remain about same (maybe down a little bit as defense improves and running game is more consistent). If this were to happen +3 in the win column is a very real possibility with hope of +4 or +5.

After a record breaking season as a freshman, Adam Weber is poised to put his name to the left of several more school records and potentially Big Ten records. It is simplistic math to take his freshman numbers x 4 and assume he'll throw for over 11,500 yards and 96 TDs. Both would be top 2 in Big Ten history, but history shows us that injuries and defenses often have a lot to say about how Weber's career shakes out. I don't care about Big Ten records at this point, what I care about is winning games. And I think Weber gives us a very good chance to do just that. Whether anybody else is talking about it or not.

Brewster at Big Ten Media Day

Here is the video of Brewster's Big Ten Media Day press conference...



In typical Brewster fashion he used the word tremendous within the first two sentences! In fact reading the transcript I was able to find usage of said word nine times. I'm a big fan of Brewster and his optimism but when I meet him, I am going to give him a thesaurus.

Main Entry:	tremendous
Part of Speech:	adjective
Synonyms:	amazing, astounding, colossal, deafening, enormous, extraordinary, fabulous, fantastic, giant, gigantic, great, huge, immense, large, mammoth, marvelous, mighty, momentous, monstrous, overwhelming, powerful, stupendous, terrific, titanic, vast, whopping, wonderful

After his initial optimism and coach-speak about last season's competitive yet unsuccessful squad, Brewster pretty quickly got down to business...

"last year we were pretty solid on offense, did some pretty good things, scored some points and ran the ball fairly well. What we didn't do was stop anybody. We were a very poor defensive football team. From the head coach to the defensive staff to our team."

"And as you look through the years at the University of Minnesota, Minnesota has had good offensive football teams for a long time where we would come up short on the defensive side."

While I enjoy Brewster's optimism, the thing I most appreciate is that he isn't afraid to speak some of the truth. He wasn't afraid to say "Rose Bowl" when he first started and he isn't afraid to tell everyone that "yeah, we stunk on defense last year." While this fact is clear and anyone who paid attention knows this, most in the coaching world would pussy foot around this issue and say things like "we need to improve defensively" or "it is a total team effort" but Brewster wasn't afraid to call out his staff, the players and take some responsibility for not bing able to "stop ANYBODY."

Brewster also talked a little about our new defensive coordinator, Ted Roof (Roof received a double "tremendous")...

"Again, as I said, the key in our improvement without question is our development as a defense. I'm really excited about Ted Roof, our new defensive coordinator, comes to us with tremendous experience, not only as a defensive coordinator but a head coach. Tremendous calmness about him, understands, has been in the heat of battle, and his imprint on our defense was strong this spring. I thought that he came in and really got after those kids and let them know exactly the style of play that we want to play, and again, it just goes back to our commitment to playing great defense."

We really don't know a lot about Roof or what kind of style or personality he'll bring to the defense. But I like hearing that he got after kids a little bit. I'm sure as the season draws near we will hear more about how Roof wants to play an aggressive defense that flys around the field and swarms to the ball, but show me a defensive coordinator who doesn't want that and I'll give him directions to the unemployment center. The best thing that Roof can bring to this defense is his ability to teach. We have young guys who are going to have to contribute and they need to learn their responsibilities quickly.

Now on to the Q & A

Q. I know you. You mentioned about the emphasis on defense and trying to improve it and all that. How are you changing the defense in terms of style or scheme from last year?

COACH BREWSTER: You know what, I don't think it's at all about style. I don't think it's at all about scheme. I think it's about players, players having an attitude to swarm and attack. We talk about alignment, assignment and tackle, those basic premises which lead to playing good defense.

I know this is kind of a cop out answer, but for the Gophers this is completely true. If you have the tape, watch last year's Iowa game. The Hawkeye RBs would take a false step towards the Gopher sideline then cut back the other way in a designed counter play. Holes were massively huge because our linebackers would sprint three steps in the wrong direction before they realized the play was coming right at them. That is just bad defense of watching the ball and not reading the play. It doesn't matter how fast you are or whether or not you can tackle, if you take yourself out of the play you are a non-factor.

Then go and watch any other game on the schedule to see how awful we were at tackling. I thought Kyle Theret and Dom Barber were a solid tacklers but that was about it.

Q. Hearing from you and having just heard before from Mark Dantonio and Bill Lynch, a number of young coaches who are taking over programs who aren't traditionally the Ohio State do you feel like you and these younger coaches can continue to balance the power in the Big Ten?

COACH BREWSTER: You're a young guy, right? You don't realize that the University of Minnesota has won six national championships and 18 Big Ten Championships. University of Minnesota is truly one of the top schools in the Big Ten. Now it's been a long time since we've won a championship, but without question we believe that we can make an impact in the Big Ten, and that's why we're here.

I believe that HE believes he can make an impact on the Big Ten. Whether or not he can actually accomplish this is another question, but I still like the attitude and tremendous optimism.

Big Ten Alumni (non-athletics)

I really don't have an original thought in my head so I am stealing this from Brent's Big Blog's Blog over at the BTN. Brent came up with a handful of notable alumni from Big Ten Schools who are not athletes. I did minimal research and came up with a few different ones, but stole most of them from BBBB.

So lets play a little matching game.

A	Ilinois		1. Lucy Liu
B	Indiana		2. Charlton Heston
C	Iowa		3. Orville Redenbacher
D	Michigan		4. Dwight Yoalkam - country music
E	Michigan State		5. Yanni - pianst/composer
F	Minnesota		6. Mark Cuban
G	Northwestern		7. Hugh Hefner
H	Ohio State		8. Dick Cheney
I	Penn State		9. James Hoffa - son of Jimmy
J	Purdue		10. Tom Browkaw
K	Wisconsin		11. Toby Flenderman - fictional character on The Office, didn't actually attend school

Answers to be posted in the comments. Pretty exciting game, huh?