Minnesota: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good
1. Offensive playcalling. This was, by far, the best set of playcalls we've seen in the Borges era. The simple passing game from the RR days returned, and it worked. The zone-read continued to work. All the i-form stuff worked. And Borges added some killer new wrinkles, such as a deadly hb counter play from the spread that destroyed Minnesota all day.
1a. The dual QB sets!!! Fans were pleading for this in the RR days. We finally got it, and it was...shockingly effective. Not something we'll run a lot of, but I think we'll definitely see more of it.
2. Denard. He was fantastic, accurate in his passes, sure in his running and finally looked like the polished Heisman candidate he is.
3. The tailbacks. Toussaint was the star, but Shaw, Smith and even Rawls had good games back there. Throw in some excellent blocking and smart playcalls, and it looks like we might finally have the hydra our primarily spread-option offense needs to fire on all cylinders.
4. The O-line. Tremendous, dominant performance.
5. The D-line. They really kicked it up a notch today, and looked as good as any D-line in the country (though obviously this is against inferior competition).
6. Countess. Might not end up with the highest UFR score, but is he not the most promising DB we've had in years? Probably since Leon Hall, at least in my estimation. This guy's gonna be a true shutdown corner.
7. Gibbons. 3 FGs...when was the last time that happened? Sure they were mostly easy kicks, but this could be a turnaround day for him, and our kicking game in general.
8. The coaching and preparation in general. I really can't think of a single complaint here...this was the most complete game I've watched since we beat Notre Dame 38-0 in 2007.
The Bad
1. Hagerup's one punt. Not that it mattered, but I'm stretching here for things to complain about.
The Ugly
1. Minnesota.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:12 PM ^
the ugly.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:34 PM ^
"I resent that!"
- Kidding, obviously. Much love to Coach Kill, who is a great guy and I think will eventually get Minnesota back to real football once they finally climb out of the pit to China that Brewster dug. Not the world's most handsome man, though.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:13 PM ^
I have not seen a worse team since Delaware State.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:13 PM ^
Kick coverage wasn't very good. Saved by some stupid penalties.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:15 PM ^
real negative I saw all day.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:14 PM ^
Good analysis.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:14 PM ^
The ugly was kick coverage even with the flags.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:14 PM ^
The ugly- were no longer perfect in the red zone. Arrrggggg fire Borges!!!! %s
October 1st, 2011 at 3:15 PM ^
That was telling. Very telling.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:37 PM ^
Brian goanna be pissed. Keep foot on throat!! MANBAWWW
October 1st, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^
It was very telling, that Hoke is a class act. Nicely done, I thought.
Otherwise, special teams continue to lack improvement but everything else verged on stellar.
October 1st, 2011 at 4:00 PM ^
I thought Gallon was perfectly fine on punts, especially giving the swirling wind. Yeah, one punts not good, but yeah. 3-3 on field goals, admitedly short.. So, overall, I don't think you can complain about special teams. You do have a point on kickoff coverage. Forgot about kickoff returns, but it was so long ago.
October 1st, 2011 at 5:38 PM ^
Gallon did fine, and field goals today blew my tiny little mind. Coverage on kickoffs returns still left a lot to be desired, though.
It's a very small concern on a very good day.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:16 PM ^
was kick coverage for sure. hagerup's kick was in to the wind so not horrible. good game blue.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:28 PM ^
and minnesota was gopher hugging all of our kickoff team
October 1st, 2011 at 3:18 PM ^
Sure the kicks were easy but he would miss those easy kicks last year. Encouraging to say the least. But with our offense and how its rolling I don't see FG's being too much of an issue.
Great all around game.....GO BLUE!
October 1st, 2011 at 3:19 PM ^
The good = shutout. SHUTOUT SHUTOUT SHUTOUT! Man that's a great thing to see. SHUTOUT!
October 1st, 2011 at 3:19 PM ^
Is USC that BAD? or... Are we that GOOD?
October 1st, 2011 at 3:25 PM ^
But I think USC is not very good. By the oft-disprove transitive property, USC lost to ASU which lost to Illinois who's in a dogfight with Northwestern who lost to Army. Erego, USC < Army.
But in all seriousness, they're in for a rough year.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:19 PM ^
The Good: Vincent Smith on his touchdown after the game: "I saw Drew open and I just gave it a throw!".
Tremendous.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:20 PM ^
Vincent Smith TD pass!!!!
October 1st, 2011 at 3:26 PM ^
I couldn't beleive when this TD took place. Smith can do everything... great running game and now he can pass? What a good guy!
October 1st, 2011 at 3:20 PM ^
Lloyd Brady's mittens.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:21 PM ^
It was awful, we got bailed out on some penalties...but only half of those penalties stopped potential tackles. That's 3 big returns that were called back because someone got flagged for something away from the play.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:25 PM ^
I am amazed. I haven't seen a game with 2 big ten teams killing a team by this much in a long time! Michigan really was prepared and had an awesome day on offense. Hopefully they can continue this Northwestern with their offensive team. A 5-0 start to the season is great, it would be even better if we can go 6-0 next week.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:26 PM ^
There is no such as the perfect game. The coaches will always find something that the players did wrong or could have done better. Kickoff coverage was bad, the penalties were bad, and we did not even hit 60 on the scoreboard.....theres a lot of work to do!
October 1st, 2011 at 3:31 PM ^
If this game did nothing, but to build Gibbon's confidence then this game did its purpose.
October 1st, 2011 at 5:08 PM ^
Adding on to that, the defense's confidence has to be sky high as well.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:40 PM ^
is that this week's UFR is going to break Brian's calculator's + button trying to add up all those +1,2,3's.
In all seriousness, the only things I saw that need much work:
Kick Coverage - Had a couple of good ones, and a couple where a guy was in place and just totally whiffed. I think it was Furman that I saw, on the previous kick, he'd gotten a great tackle behind the 20. On the following, he launched himself at the returner like a missile... and whiffed entirely.
Punting - Caveat that Hagerup was way rusty and 1 out of 2 was very good.
Personnel substitutions - Delay of Game substituting guys and then we have to take a TO to get it right anyway.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^
Will Campbell destroying both the Guard he was over and the poor, unsuspecting true freshman QB...That was a hit!
The Ugly, the QBs X-rays after that play
October 1st, 2011 at 3:51 PM ^
I scared the shit out of my infant son by my reaction to that play while he was sleeping in my arms.
October 1st, 2011 at 4:46 PM ^
Hopefully he was wearing his diaper...
Oh, were you just exaggerating?
October 1st, 2011 at 3:49 PM ^
More good, Furman looked zero fakes fast on the kick return TD that was called back and good on ST in general.
The only bad and horrendously ugly: Seven nation army was played an asinine TEN times including six in the first quarter. Wouldn't half that be unnecessarily repetitive?
October 1st, 2011 at 3:59 PM ^
The Great: The Michigan Marching Band. Another awesome performance and a great tribute to a fallen Michigan Man!
October 1st, 2011 at 4:06 PM ^
The Good: BWC doing his best Nick Fairley impersonation.
October 1st, 2011 at 5:06 PM ^
Great to see Gardner in getting some valuable game reps and I personally was impressed with Rawls' runs, albeit against inferior competition.
October 1st, 2011 at 5:15 PM ^
not allowing a third down conversion. Minnesota was 0-11 on third down conversions. Last year left me with the expecation that opponents would convert on 3rd down at about an 80% clip. That was the stat of the game for me.
October 1st, 2011 at 5:58 PM ^
a number of stats (how about missed tackles, or takeaways, or points given up, or...) for the difference this year versus last.
For me, I was impressed that they barely crossed midfield once, and never got close to field goal range. There were also some pretty good defensive hits.
October 1st, 2011 at 5:50 PM ^
October 1st, 2011 at 6:42 PM ^
Team sounded really good - was driving, so could only base it on the announcers - but the kicking game is the only sore spot. Of course, when you are kicking off so many times, there are bound to be breakdowns. That said, they need to shore up the returns a bit. Of course, complaining about return yards during a 58-0 win is definitely a minor problem.