The quest to keep possession of the Little Brown Jug is on this weekend, as Michigan heads to Minnesota to take on the Golden Gophers. Minnesota is 3-2 on the season with victories over Nebraska and two non-con foes, all at home, while their losses have all been road games. They got thoroughly beaten in Chapel Hill by UNC and then blew a massive lead en route to an OT loss in Evanston against Northwestern. Today we'll be looking at the offense of Minnesota. 

The Film: Of those games mentioned in the intro, three are power five opponents. Of those three, I'm not honestly sure who has the best defense, as I'm not impressed by any. I may still lean Nebraska, but I wanted to watch a game with Darius Taylor healthy, the star RB for Minnesota, even if he is presently injured (with status in doubt for Saturday). So I charted the Northwestern game but looked at tape from UNC and Nebraska to help with the task. 

Personnel: Click for big. 

Minnesota's QB is Athan Kaliakmanis, the first time since 2017 that they've not had Tanner Morgan as the primary starter. Kaliakmanis, the "Greek Gunslinger", showed some flashes amid inconsistent play late last year but hasn't been able to take a step forward in his play. The dual threat ability is notable, but does not redeem the profile. Kaliakmanis' wild arm leads to inaccuracy in the passing game and an overall dormant aerial attack for the Gophers team. My view of Kaliakmanis as holding back the offense is why he has received the cyan designation. 

The lifeblood of this offense is RB Darius Taylor, which is why it is a major concern for Minnesota if he is unable to go against Michigan. He suffered an injury late in the Northwestern game and was inactive against Louisiana-Lafayette. No indication has been given at this time if he will play on Saturday. Taylor, a true freshman from Walled Lake, was a player Mike Hart briefly expressed interest in late in the 2023 recruiting cycle and Taylor's performance to date has made Hart look smart for doing so. He's brought stability and strong play to a Minnesota RB room that was missing that, as WMU transfer RB Sean Tyler did not transition to the team terribly well, while neither Bryce Williams nor Zach Evans have set themselves apart. 

The Gophers brought back star TE Brevyn Spann-Ford, who has had a rather peculiar season. After being a stand-out player for Minnesota last season, his PFF grades have been horrendous. I didn't think he was that bad against Northwestern, but thought he struggled blocking and his receiving numbers for this season have indicated a checkdown target and not much more. We decided not to cyan him because his 2022 level of play is quite good, but it is definitely clear that he has not been as strong this season. When Minnesota goes with two TEs they bring on Nick Kallerup or Jameson Geers. Neither of these players are good. 

At WR, Daniel Jackson has stood out the most as a favored red zone target of Kaliakmanis, with four touchdown catches to his name already. You may recall his highlight reel grab late in the Nebraska game. WMU transfer Corey Crooms is their slot WR, while Le'Meke Brockington lines up outside with geriatric receiver Chris Autman-Bell injured. Neither of these other two starters are noteworthy to me. Charlotte transfer Elijah Spencer finds himself further down the transfer but does appear on our diagram. 

I have generally not been enthused by the Minnesota offensive line this season, especially in comparison to past iterations of itself, but they haven't yet been bulldozed by an opponent so cyans are only affixed to a couple names. The tackles are Aierontae Ersery on the left and ND transfer Quinn Carroll on the right, both your 6'6/6'7" Minnesota tackle but I didn't come away terribly enthused with either in my viewing. Nathan Boe holds down the center job and is alright, while the guards rotate some, the starters being Tyler Cooper and Martes Lewis. Lewis is the weakest member of the starting unit in my estimation and rotates out for Greg Johnson. They also use Karter Shaw as a 6th OL, but he has been subpar in your author's view. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: an offense that doesn't look threatening]

Spread, pro-style, or hybrid: Minnesota is a spread offense, primarily playing out of the shotgun. Formation snap count evidence: 

Minnesota is a run-heavy team and they do not want to have to pass much. Getting an early lead and then going run, run, run is the formula. On a down-basis the pattern is even clearer, tilt run on first down, RUN on second down, and tilt pass on third down: 

Northwestern was stylistically the sort of game Minnesota wants to play. The Nebraska game, where Kaliakmanis attempted 44 passes, is emphatically not what the Gophers want to do. 

Base set: Minnesota typically plays in 11 personnel, nothing too surprising there. They flex the TE out a decent bit but this is still their base set: 

12 personnel does appear from time to time and when it does, the TEs are generally to the same side while the WRs are on opposite sides of the formation: 

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL: I charted only a few plays against Northwestern in which Minnesota pulled a lineman, so they fit more into the Basketball on Grass category. When they did pull, it was typically a backside guard or TE. That said, the predominant number of plays did not pull a lineman, with inside zone as their bread and butter against Northwestern (a bit of outside zone in there as well). 

Hurry it up or grind it out: Minnesota won't be huddling up but they didn't move at a particularly quick pace against Northwestern. I didn't see any deliberate tempo snaps in the Northwestern game and they were only moving quickly in situations where the score indicated it. Otherwise the Gophers were pretty ordinary and maybe even tilting towards the slower side. 

Quarterback Dilithium Rating (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Athan Kaliakmanis is a run-happy QB and like Nebraska, I'd argue that it is the running ability of Kaliakmanis that is more dangerous than passing. Unlike Nebraska, Minnesota doesn't devise too many designed runs for Kaliakmanis. When they do, it's generally read options: 

In the tape I have seen, Kaliakmanis is quite adept at doing the reads and knowing when to pull. What makes Kaliakmanis such a runner you have to watch out for in comparison to Haarberg is his love of scrambling. Minnesota likes to get him moving on passing plays, rollouts and the likes, and Kaliakmanis is plenty happy to take that and run with it. Sometimes the play doesn't end too well for him: 

But he loves to do it. Most of his scrambles look more conventional and it seems from the tape that Kaliakmanis is more comfortable running the football than throwing it. Unless his first read is open, on third down he's more interested in tucking the ball and running with it: 

All this said, since Kaliakmanis is not a burner and since Minnesota doesn't dial up that many designed runs for him, I will only rate him a 6 on the scale (Haarberg was an 8 last week). But in comparison to the passing game of the Gophers, it's still more threatening. 

Dangerman: Injured or not, it's RB Darius Taylor. I'm not sure if he's playing, as no injury indication has been given, but this is the correct decision because if Taylor doesn't play, there is no Dangerman on Minnesota's offense. Taylor accounts for 54.7% of Minnesota's rushing yards this season and yet he's only had >1 carry in 3 of their 5 games this season. After an anemic rushing game against Nebraska that saw Taylor used once, he emerged to be the lead back against EMU, which was the start of three strong showings pre-injury. For the season, Taylor has as many rushing TDs as all other Gopher RBs combined and his YPC clip of 6.1 is best on the team, 0.4 ahead of Zach Evans (who has 72 fewer carries) and 1.5 better than Sean Tyler, WMU transfer and projected started pre-season. 

Minnesota didn't get a ton of push between the tackles against Northwestern, which forced Taylor to bounce and he looked solid doing it: 

On this next one he had to break a tackle in the backfield before rumbling for a big gain: 

Speaking of breaking tackles, Minnesota was dead to rights on this 4th & 1 until Taylor broke the tackle of Bryce Gallagher:

Taylor had some moments of iffy vision but he was generally good on his cuts and when combined with his broken tackle ability, he was able to create a reasonably effective running game for his team on a day when his OL was giving him limited assistance. For the season, in the three games Taylor has been a starter in he's carried the ball 33, 22, and 31 times. To call him a bellcow is an understatement and if he cannot play against Michigan, it'll be a RB-by-committee situation and Minnesota will certainly be worse off. In other words, as Jamie summed it up last week: 

Darius Taylor is out today for Minnesota. Where do they get offense from?

— jamie mac (@justcoverblog) September 30, 2023

Taylor is the Minnesota offense and if he's not playing on Saturday, welp for the Gophers. 

HenneChart: We've covered the legs of Athan Kaliakmanis, how do we feel about his right arm? The chart from this game looks pretty good: 

But I have pretty big concerns. First off, the lack of passing in this game from Minnesota is, in my view, related to Kaliakmanis' shortcomings. There were only ~20 passing plays in this game that there was tape for me to chart and even fewer passing events. That is very standard for Minnesota and when you watch Kaliakmanis play, you can see why. This isn't new for the team, with late stage Tanner Morgan being just as limited, but it hamstrings their offense. 

The biggest issue is Kaliakmanis' accuracy. Most of what he threw in this game was very short stuff, likely due to his wavering ability to put the ball where he wants it on anything beyond that. This is a classic Kaliakmanis clip: 

He throws short of the sticks on 3rd down and the throw isn't a good one, too low, making sure this play ends up short of a first down. If it's a better throw, Jackson is able to turn upfield for a first down. In that vein, from what I've seen of Kaliakmanis across three games is evidence that he is the king of the marginal throw, giving his receivers a chance but it's a lower percentage chance, or it limits their ability to get YAC. This next one is a highlight reel catch for Crooms, but only because Kaliakmanis has way overthrown his open target: 

Kaliakmanis is not completely rancid, as his arm occasionally uncorks a dime: 

But his accuracy issues frequently make it harder than it needs to be and I wasn't impressed by his ability to read the defense. Why does he throw to a guy double covered who is only three yards downfield on 3rd & 5?: 

There were no INTs against Northwestern but Kaliakmanis has thrown one in every other game he's played this season. His one against Nebraska was atrocious: 

For the season, Kaliakmanis is completing just 58.7% of his passes for 6.2 Y/A, 5 TD to 4 INT. Against P5 competition, those numbers are 53.3% for 5.2 Y/A(!!). This passing game barely has a pulse and it's hard not to feel like Kaliakmanis is one of the main culprits here. 

Overview 

How should we feel about the Minnesota offense overall? I don't have a definitive answer based on the teams they have played but what I saw from the tape is rather ominous for their ability to move the ball against Michigan. Minnesota's offensive line, typically a strong unit of hulking meat boys, has not gotten their usual push even against weaker competition. As a run-heavy team, that OL is essential to the team's success and surveying their B1G contests, I don't think they can be feeling too great about the performances on record to date. 

Against Nebraska, the Minnesota run offense was thoroughly stuck in the mud. They hadn't yet found Taylor at RB and the combination of Tyler and the other backs had no way to grind out yardage against a Husker DL that was winning matchups consistently with the Gopher OL. Minnesota rushed 25 times for 55 yards in that game (2.2 YPC). If you take out Kaliakmanis, it's no different: 19 carries for 50 yards (2.6 YPC). The rushing game was anemic as Nebraska won the reps.

Against Northwestern, it was largely a similar story on a down-to-down basis, but a few explosive runs allowed Minnesota to get to 5.8 YPC. Looking under the hood, we see the breakdown of that. Taylor had runs of 25, 41, and 43 yards in this game. Remove those three from the sample and suddenly you get 135 yards on 39 carries or 3.5 YPC. That was mostly the story of the game. Of those three explosive runs specifically, one was the Taylor run on the 4th & 1 I showed you where he was contacted in the backfield. Another one was here: 

There's an unblocked defender up the middle and it takes good weaving by Taylor to get past that before he can exploit the blocking created by the line. The final big gain I won't show you but it was partially good blocking from the IOL and partially an RPS win by the coaching staff. Outside of these three runs, Northwestern was able to keep Minnesota's rush offense reasonably in check and with it, the rest of the offense too. In terms of drives, it looked like this:

• Long TD drive created by passing
• Two long TD drives from explosive runs #1 and #2
• One long FG drive from explosive run #3
• 9 yd TD drive via turnover 
• First-down-and-out 4x 
• Three-and-out 2x 
• Two first downs and out 1x 

One of the four first-down-and-outs was the OT drive ending in a FG. Despite all the points they scored (34), it was not an impressive showing from the Minnesota offense. They scored points if they got short fields or ripped off a big run but they weren't able to grind Northwestern consistently down-to-down. And if you take Taylor's ability to make big plays happen by dodging tacklers/breaking tackles, there is little going on for this offense. Too many rushing plays looked like this: 

The OL was difficult to grade for me and we ended up going with just one cyan for a starter because the players involved were all about as good as each other in my view. All had a few moments of good blocking, a few disaster class plays, and a whole lot of plays with little push involved. The PFF grades agree with me, with all but one starter in a pretty narrow band between 60 and 70 grade. If you break them down by game, the similarity stays the same but the grades drop well into the 50s in P5 play. Largely lines up with my view. I thought Martes Lewis was the weakest (hence the cyan), but no one here was Turner Corcoran from Nebraska in terms of turnstile. Instead the line was uniformly mid against a (likely) lower tier B1G DL. And against Nebraska, they were often worse than mid.  Unfortunately, if Taylor is unable to play they will need to be better than mid and even if he does, it probably won't matter all that much. 

Pass protection was a pretty similar story. Kaliakmanis wasn't under siege by Northwestern, but you'd have like to see a sturdier day from the OL. Some of Kaliakmanis' tendencies in terms of running the ball are unsurprisingly inspired by having to play behind this offensive line, which has had its wobbles. Northwestern didn't get home often but they did enough to drive the line back and compress the pocket that it encouraged Kaliakmanis to scramble. Nebraska had better success as a pass-rush unit. You may recall a Nush Hutmacher sack I shared last week. Here it is again: 

Martes Lewis and the center Nathan Boe don't even bother to block Hutmacher there. 

Pass protection is just one piece of a mightily struggling Minnesota passing offense. We've noted Kaliakmanis' issues as an accurate passer and reading a defense, but I also don't think these receivers are anything special (third week in a row I've said that). I will admit, Daniel Jackson does seem pretty good. 'member this catch? 

Jackson was the recipient of two passes I showed you in the HenneChart section, the TD as well as the marginal throw that hamstrung the opportunity to pick up the first down. Jackson has 20 catches to lead the team, as well as a team-leading 33 targets. He is responsible for 80% of the team's passing touchdowns this season, four on the season. Jackson seems pretty good.  

Corey Crooms is the slot they brought in from WMU, who I think is okay. The circus catch on the badly overthrown Kaliakmanis pass was by Crooms, while he also gets plenty of short stuff. Their other outside WR spot didn't make much of an imprint on me, while TE Brevyn Spann-Ford has been getting ALL short stuff this year. Spann-Ford has 12 catches for 66 yards (5.5 yards per reception!!), with most of them being completely inconsequential passes like this: 

Let's wrap it up by one quick mention of RPOs because this is Minnesota after all. I didn't see as much of it as I once did with this team but they did get a TD on what looked like a vintage Tanner Morgan-esque play: 

It's still on the menu because it always will be with Fleck but there are so many other issues on this offense that I don't think it's worth getting terrified about. 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

Another week and another opposing offense that puts very little fear into me. Minnesota wants to run the football a lot but based on performances against Northwestern and Nebraska, it doesn't appear they have the horses at OL to do that this season with the efficiency they're used to and they certainly don't to do it against Michigan. A team that was <3 YPC against Nebraska and <4 YPC over 35+ plays save for a couple big ones against Northwestern is not really scaring me when Michigan's defense has given up zilch this season on the ground. Not to mention the fact that it's not even clear if the best thing about Minnesota's running game (Darius Taylor) is going to play. Kaliakmanis can scramble and pull the ball on options, sure, but he is not Denard Robinson.

In the passing game, the receivers are not dangerous enough, the pass protection is not good enough, and Kaliakmanis is not accurate enough to score the sort of points needed to beat Michigan, without significant turnover help (it's much more likely that due to Kaliakmanis, the turnovers are going the other direction). Minnesota has been a rather low scoring team for years and this appears to be far from the best iteration of Minnesota on offense. It just does not seem like the cards are indicating a path to victory for the Gophers on offense. If their OL was getting beaten by Nebraska, I'm not sure what hope there is against a Michigan DL that is about to get Mason Graham back.