I
apologize in advance if this violates some social media policy and all future
practices are closed to the public. Really, I'm sorry.
So, I went to the three Gopher public practices. Despite the injustice of it all, I'm not a media member so am left
to attend the practices open to the great unwashed. I liked it better when
there were two weeks of open practices and you could bring a picnic lunch and
play Frisbee with your dog. But the team wasn't very good then, so I
guess I'll sacrifice some accessibility if it means having a generally
competitive team.
Again, I don't want to be the guy who gets public
practices shut down once and for all, so I'm going to use a lot of
generalities. The last thing we need is some knob like me spouting off about
how Player X missed a block and we're doomed and, BANG, Kill shuts the door to
the public, cancels my season tickets and demands I be strung up from the
scoreboard. I know much of what I'll yammer about here has been covered by real
writers at massive media companies and I shouldn't worry; but public access is
a privilege a lot of coaches don't allow, so I don't want to be the one that
ruins it.
And with those sweet, blessed 100 words of
qualification out of the way, let's crack open my melon for some impressions.
Strengths
- You
know, I was pretty impressed with Mitch Leidner. I came into the practices
expecting some incremental improvement over last year in terms of making
throws and managing the offense, but he pretty handily exceeded where I
thought he'd be. Coming out of high school, he had the reputation for
being a pass-first quarterback (from the extraordinarily limited accounts
I've heard, he really wasn't a strong runner at all in high
school). We didn't get to see that much last year as he was thrown into
the offense as a red-shirt freshmen and forced to learn on the go. He
became a decent runner through concerted effort, though I suppose having
300-pound defensive tackles chasing me around would give me a
little giddy-up too. In the bowl game (of which we shall never
speak again) we saw a little bit of the ol' gunslinger come out and, in my
opinion, he's continued that trajectory over the summer. He's clearly got
a better handle on his progressions and has been hitting the short and
intermediate passes much more consistently than he did last season. His
deep ball is majestic, which bodes well for the play action we're sure to
run by the bucket full this year. He'll make some mistakes but I feel the
best I have about our starting quarterback since, uh, maybe Adam Weber.
- The
freshmen class is robust. Seriously, there are some big, athletic dudes
who would have started for this program four years ago. Fortunately, we're
now in a place where we can afford to sit most of them for their first
year. The ones who were most impressive are those you've likely seen in
the media and other blogs: Melvin Holland at wide receiver looks like a
junior already and seems to have a solid grasp of the offense; Steven
Richardson is a little shorter than I was expecting and many multiples
stronger and more explosive than I could have imagined; Connor Mayes, the
guy who started at center in the Army All-American game, has thoroughly
impressed; Jerry Gibson and Gaelin Elmore are freakishly athletic, big
and, for now, adding to our stable of TEs/H-backs. I'm a rube with
absolutely no inside information into the program, but I'd expect at least
three of those five to get some playing time this year (Mayes probably
won't, and that's no knock on him; it's usually best to give offensive
linemen at least a year in a strength and condition program and, frankly,
we have decent depth at the line right now). Kill held his own against
some fairly decent major conference teams when he was at Northern Illinois
with recruits he could get to Northern Illinois. My position has always
been to see how many guys he could get to Minnesota that he couldn't have
gotten to Northern. All other things being equal, that would be a way to
gauge the incremental talent (and, inferring a little, incremental
results) one could expect from Kill at Minnesota. While we saw several in
previous classes, there a probably a dozen such guys in this class. That
bodes well.
- Defensively,
we're in good shape. Prior to last year, I aged six months for every
Gophers defensive series since 1999. And while we may not have a Tyrone
Carter in our starting eleven, we have the front-to-back talent to keep us
from stroking out when we punt the ball away. The secondary is fast and,
amazingly, deep. There is solid depth at all four positions in the
defensive backfield, which should allow Claeys to get creative
in aligning personnel to suit an opponent's relative strengths and
weaknesses. Campbell, Wilson and Lynn, the provisional starters at
linebacker, are all at or around 240lbs, which, Jo'bu willing, means we
will continue to improve against power running teams. And I've been
impressed with the ability of the line to eat up blocks. The first-team
line and linebackers put on a master class of defending the run against
the first-team offense, stopping them cold on three Roderick Williams runs
from the one-yard line on Wednesday. Particularly impressive there was
Campbell, who flew into contact to break up a play
"Opportunities"
- After
the first two practices, I was pretty worried about our offensive line.
They didn't seem terribly consistent and, whatever the reason, just
weren't clicking. That fear was mitigated by today's practice where, by
and large, they did a good job run blocking and
were serviceable in pass protection. I list this as an
"opportunity" because the season really depends on them. They
demonstrated the ability to generate a push to run the ball last year,
even in the absence of a passing game. They'll need to do that again.
Additionally, given our quarterback situation (more on that in a minute)
keeping Leidner upright and healthy is critical. There are a lot of starts
on this line and, seemingly, some decent talent behind them. Success this
year hinges on finding the group of guys who gel and perform more like today's
practice and less like Monday and Tuesday's.
- If
there were a GIF to express my feelings on our quarterback depth, it would
be a rat chewing its way through my eye. It's just...man. At this point,
it looks like QB2 is a battle between Chris Streveler and Connor Rhoda.
Streveler is big, fast and athletic, Rhoda is your typical college pocket
passer, meaning he's mobile enough, but you won't mistake him for Marqueis
Gray. They both have the potential to be decent quarterbacks, I think; but
they're just red-shirt freshmen. We're in this unfortunate cycle at the
moment, where our starting and back up quarterbacks have been sophomores
and freshmen, respectively. That makes it difficult to maintain any
consistency should the starter go down. I'd give Streveler the inside
track to be the back up and expect he'll get some run to spell Leidner for
a series or two a game; but, given his limitations in passing the ball at
this point, it would not surprise me to see a heavy dose of read option
when he is under center.
- Depth.
This isn't really an "opportunity" as much as it is a reality.
We do not have the luxury of the Alabamas and Ohio States of the college
football world, where there are two four-star reserves waiting to go in
the game should the starter get hurt. From what I saw from our starting
players on offense and defense over three days, the Gophers should be able
to keep it competitive in all of their games this year. In the event of
injury, though, particularly at quarterback, defensive line and
linebacker, we're pulling up the true and red-shirt freshmen as
substitutes. Look no further than the 2013 Northwestern Wildcats to see
how that turns out. We need to be fortunate with injuries this year to be
successful. And while the same is true for every team, our margin is
thinner than most.
My questions going in to Saturday's scrimmage
I'm sure it will be vanilla. I'm sure we won't see Cobb or Maxx
for more than a series or two. But we should be able to figure out a few things
based on this Saturday's scrimmage:
- Does
Streveler maintain his apparent advantage in the competition to back-up
Leidner or does Rhoda close the gap?
- Ryan
Santoso, my 6'6" 240lb kicker spirit animal, seemed to be our day-one
starter going into fall camp. Is he consistent enough at the scrimmage to
secure that spot or does he leave the door open for Alex Harte?
- Which
freshmen will make the case to have their red-shirt pulled?
- Will
we see a defensive lineman emerge to compliment Theiren Cockran's pass
rush?
I'm
looking forward to Saturday, as it will be the last look we see of the team
until kickoff on August 28th. If you see Coach Kill stringing me up to the
scoreboard during pre-game warm ups, you can be pretty sure that I've ruined
public practices for everyone.
Ending Word Count: 3,771
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