How bad were the Minnesota Golden Gophers in 2007? Try to understand this; it's a territory of bad that few teams in the Big Ten have ever seen. North Dakota State, Miami of Ohio, Bowling Green, and Florida Atlantic all found the win column against Minnesota in 2007.
Thanks to an improved team all around, we can only expect things will get better in 2008.
Offensively, Adam Weber will be taking snaps again this fall. He has the potential to be something special...by Minnesota standards. He broke school records in 2007 for completions, yards, and touchdown passes.
Unfortunately, these numbers are a bit skewed, seeing how frequently the Gophers found themselves trailing a year ago. It should also be noted that he was guilty of throwing 19 interceptions last fall, a number he must cut down on.
There are a couple deep threats for Weber that may keep Minnesota in a few games they have no business being in. Eric Decker is amongst the elite wideouts in the conference while Tray Herndon brings a years experience. Count on Chicago product Brandon Green to be a valuable target as well in his freshman campaign.
The running game looks to be a question once again this fall, something that spells disaster for anyone not named Texas Tech. Duane Bennett will be taking most of the handoffs, but after him the depth chart takes a massive hit.
Today's Must Reads
The offensive line is also a question mark entering 2008. They lose two key cogs from an anemic line a year ago; maybe it will be a gift in disguise. The biggest issue for Minnesota offensively lies in not turning the ball over; they had the worst turnover margin in football last season.
When a defense allows over 40 points in regulation to teams like Florida Atlantic and Indiana, changes need to be made, and that is exactly what Minnesota did this off-season.
Former Duke head coach Ted Roof is the new Gophers defensive coordinator, while there could be as many as eight new starters on the defensive side of the ball.
This year, we will likely see Minnesota get back to the fundamentals of defense. Control the line of scrimmage, get pressure on the quarterback. While these things seemed tougher than brain surgery for the Gophers in 2007, we can bet they will improve in 2008.
Junior College transfers will run all through this defense. Many are very high on Tremaine Brock at safety and Rex Sharpe in the linebacking corps.
Lee Campbell, Eric Small, and Wille VanDeSteeg bring experience up front, but then again it is very poor experience. These three of the likely starting four up front will be counted on immensely to do those fundamental tasks on defense.
The Prognosis
Minnesota was a terrible football team in 2007, and they will be bad again in 2008. Tripling your wins total from a year before is a great thing; but tripling it and still only winning three games means you are a very long way from success.
With a patsy pre-conference schedule against the likes of Northern Illinois, Bowling Green, Montana State, and Florida Atlantic again, the Gophers should be able to win at least three here. The only conference date I see them potentially winning is when they host Indiana in week six. Could the Gophers potentially be 5-1 at one point this year? Sure. Don't bet on it though.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers will finish at4-8 and start the ice fishing season a bit early in Minneapolis.
comments (2) write a comment »
write a new comment
about 1 month ago
Wow, a really well-researched article. Tray Herndon left the team over two months ago. "Anemic" offensive line? A stupid and ill-founded comment. There was absolutely no problem with this offense last year. The only reason their turnover margin was so horrible was their putrid defense, which generated few sacks and even fewer turnovers. Agreed that Weber needs to turn the ball over less, but, again, it's easy to have a horrible turnover margin when your D creates hardly any.
17 days ago
It is also difficult to put a Freshman QB like Adam Weber into a passing system that relies SOLELY on TIMING. If the timing is off, the pass is incomplete and in most cases, intercepted. That would be a very big reason for the turnover issues, along with the defensive problems that Daniel spoke on.
What I'm curious about is that Nick [Shepkowski] said that the only conference game he sees Minnesota having a chance to win is vs. Indiana. Last season, the Gophers lost close games to Northwestern, Iowa AND Wisconsin. I am not going to say that the Gophers' will even compete with Wisconsin this year, but it sure says something about the progression of that team over the course of last season, being that the game vs. the Badgers' was the last regular season game for both teams. Minnesota had a higher rated recruiting class by every major sporting news source than Northwestern and Iowa. Coupling that with two very close losses last season to both teams, and an outstanding JC class, Minnesota should beat Northwestern and Iowa in 2008.
If you go through Minnesota's schedule for 2008, you see 4 non-conference games that on paper, they should beat. As for the conference schedule, the Gophers are matched up against Northwestern, Indiana and Iowa. Those are 3 games that Minnesota should contend in, and should win 2/3, if not a sweep of their fellow Big Ten bottom dwellers. That gives the Minnesota Golden Gophers a possible season record of 6-6. No one is willing to talk of that, though, as there is an apparent anti-Minnesota code shared among sports news outlets. I'd like someone to prove me wrong on these thoughts...Give the Gopher Nation a reason as to why a 6-6 record is out of the question.
write a new comment