We covered a lot of what I would
typically say in our Saturday’s Talkers on Monday or Tuesday piece in the “Catharsis”
blog on Sunday. Nevertheless, there’s been a great deal of chatter about the Gophers
over the last few days. That’s not the slightest bit surprising, since their
performance didn’t exactly engender a lot of goodwill. Frankly, I’m still not
sure what to make up Saturday’s game. There was an awful lot that went wrong,
not a lot that went right and I, like many of you, are kind of stuck in a swirl
of negativity.
I guess two related things stand
out for me. First, as I said in the Sunday piece, I really think TCU’s defense
is pretty good. If we work under that assumption, that TCU’s defense is say, ranked
in the top ten or 15 in the country, then a lot of our anxiety associated with
our offense of performance is mitigated. We’re a good team, certainly better
than a couple of years ago, maybe or maybe not better than last year, but we’re
not yet good enough to compete with a top 10 defense. We saw it last year
against Wisconsin and Michigan State: we just don’t yet have the power up front
to run the ball against elite defenses and our passing game is too unrefined to
crack that nut yet. I thought we’d be improved this season, meaning we’d have a
better chance to move the ball against an elite defense, but that clearly wasn’t
the case on Saturday.
Now, I think it’s totally fair
question to ask whether that’s appropriate in year four of the Kill regime, and
that’s the second thing that stood out to me: the total lack of imagination on
offense. As we come to expect over the last three seasons, about 70% of our
offense is runs up the middle (#RUTM). That’s fine, it’s irritating, highly,
highly irritating, but I get it. Our bread and butter is going to be exerting
our will on opposing defenses, and the most effective way to do that is to piss
pound the other team through the A gaps. But, in instances like Saturday, where
we have absolutely no success doing that over an extended period of play, maybe
let’s try something else. Maybe try and test the edges of the defense. Maybe a
sweep, maybe a bubble screen to Berkeley or Jones, anything. I know the TCU’s
defense was fast, remember were assuming that they’re a top 10 or 15 defense in
the country. Hell, you wouldn’t even need to run a sweep; just fake the damn
thing. Something, anything, to stretch the defense laterally.
So, yeah, that’s what I think.
There is an irrational part of me, a part that I usually try to smother with a
pillow in its sleep, the one I try to drink away on weekends, that has this
awful, awful theory. Maybe we didn’t bust out the whole playbook again. Maybe
we saw TCU on tape, realized that they were far , far superior to what we would
be able to manage, given the circumstances and decided to hold our cards for
another day. Maybe we didn’t test the edges because we don’t want to give too
much away. Maybe we didn’t think the jet sweep to stretch the defense because
we’re holding it back for a game where we have a better chance to win. Maybe we
assumed this was a loss and played it as such.
Yeah, yeah it’s absurd. That
theory doesn’t explain the piss poor performance of the line. That doesn’t
explain the inability of our wide receivers to consistently get separation from
TCU’s defensive backs. That doesn’t account for our quarterback’s inability to recognize
and connect with our receivers when they did manage to get open. The chances
are much greater that we just kind of sucked. It could have been injuries
across the offense of line, it could’ve been nerves associated with this year’s
first road game, it could’ve been just a lack of execution with no real
explanation. Regardless, it’s a moribund time for the program when a hypothesis
that we didn’t even try is preferable to the reality where we probably gave it
our all. That first loss of the year always cuts the deepest, doesn’t it?
* * *
I’ve done a pretty good job of
culling the Twitter herd over the last couple of years. That’s not to say that
you should be offended if I don’t follow you; believe me, it’s a me problem,
not a you problem. I have a difficult enough time managing my own sanity
throughout the course of the Gopher football season without having to contend
with some of the outrageous slings and arrows you all throw the program. I love
you all, very dearly; but the bipolar tendencies of the media, and more often than
not our own fans, are just a bit too much at times.
Most times, as a matter of fact.
Case in point are what I really
hope to be a very tiny, yet extraordinarily vocal contingent who began calling
for the firing of Jerry Kill after the TCU game. Yes it was a frustrating game,
the team, frankly, looked terrible, but it’s absurd to consider firing anyone
after one game, no matter how bad it was. We’re but one season removed from a .500
conference record, the best we’ve done in a decade. We won four consecutive
conference games for the first time in my life, and I’m probably closer to
death than I am birth. The defense is the best it’s been in 15 years and there’s
seemingly talent there to keep it going for at least another couple.
Yes, the offense has been
uninspiring and the offensive line hasn’t developed quite as quickly as we’d
all hoped. But, whoever you are that has totally given up faith in the Kill
regime, you need to disabuse yourself of the notion that the answer is always
hitting the reset button and starting over. A bad game does not necessarily
portend a bad season. Hell, even if this season turns into a never-ending tire
fire, a Fukushima-styled eruption of spent nuclear fuel and glowing maroon ash,
Kill still ain’t getting fired. Maybe, maybe,
if the season goes completely sideways we could see a change in personnel on Kill’s
staff; but that’s much more likely to be a reassignment of personnel than a
firing of one of his existing coaches and replacement by an external hire.
We were an absolute embarrassment
of a program for the better part of five years in the late 00s and early 10s. We
have finally reached some measure of stability and respectability as a program.
Maybe it’s all part of the terrible ruse, where we slowly get better over three
years, enjoy our best season in a decade and then fall off the face of the earth.
It’s possible. Though, again, there’s nothing in Kill’s history to suggest that
will happen. Will he ever win the big game and get us to the Rose Bowl?
Truthfully, there’s nothing in his history to suggest he’ll do that either.
But it’s his fourth season and we’re
coming off of a year where we did quite a few things we hadn’t done in a while.
Maybe take a step back and let things play out a bit. We won’t ever get to
where we all want to go if our first move after a setback, temporary or
permanent, is to grab the torches and pitchforks and call for purity through bloodletting.
If it all goes to shit in two
years, I promise I’ll be the first one offering a mea culpa and metaphorically
opening my own veins as penance. So shut up for now, please.
(Frothy's starting word count: 21,771; Finishing word count: 23,080)
AMEN
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