Boilers at Gophers Post Game - What we learned

The first ever Homecoming at the Bank ended in a nice win for the Gophs. And unlike the Wisconsin game, we actually capitalized on our opponent’s miscues in full, and that seemed to be what made the difference. Our defense made plays, and the offense cashed in on them. Good stuff. That’s what good football teams do. So does that mean we’re a good football team? Not yet – but we’re getting there.

If you only look at the box score, you’d notice immediately on offense that running the ball was clearly the priority for the Gophers (44 out of 55 plays), and that passing was secondary. If you actually watched the game though, you saw that Adam Weber was passing the ball so badly that it made it almost necessity. Now I’m not a Weber apologist, and I don't bag on him as much as some this year, but some of his throws against Purdue were truly brutal. I’m now starting to realize with him that you never know whether ‘Good Web’ or ‘Bad Web’ is going to show up on any given offensive series. He has put together some brilliant drives this season where he goes 6-6 or 7-7 passing – aka ‘Good Web’. Conversely, he has shown us some of the worst 3 and outs we’ve ever seen. Against Purdue ‘Bad Web’ showed up too early and often for us to go back to him later and let him sling the ball. Hence the 9 passes thrown.

Luckily for us Kevin Whaley, D’uane Bennett, and DeLeon Eskeridge all appeared to have gotten their sleep on Friday night and ran smart and hard. In fact, they ran well enough for us to not have to risk exposing ‘Bad Web’ anymore. What a luxury. Whaley in particular looked like he had something to prove, and showed great burst through the line, and speed to the edge. And give the O-line credit, they run-blocked very well against a decent Purdue front 7 (although the little pass blocking they had to do was still pretty dreadful). 3rd center D.J. Burris seemed to fill in nicely for Trey Davis when he went down too (I say both get a 1 game pass on some rough QB-C exchanges).

Along with the run game, the defense was solid. Yes, they gave up a ton of yardage to Joey Elliot, but he did throw the ball 47 times, and only completed 25 balls. If you can keep a college QB to a 53% completion percentage, that’s a-ok with me. Never mind the fact that Purdue ran 77 plays to our 54. Ralph Bolden was bottled up nicely by the front 7, and held to a 3.2 ypc average. Lee Campbell led the way and did what a senior captain at LB should. Make plays. And Keenan Cooper filled in nicely at LB for the injured Triplett (came out with another shoulder stinger). BPT (the self-named 'Big Play Traye' Simmons) also made an appearance this week in the box score, with a great scoop and score on Campbell's FG block, and a nice pick late in the game to keep Purdue off the scoreboard the rest of the way. I’m also really starting to see the rotation of the front 4 develop into a pretty decent unit. We have 6 or 7 guys rotating through there that can make things happen. The best play of the game for me – bar none - was DE Anthony Jacobs sack of Elliott by shoving a hapless Ralph Bolden into him. That’s the exactly kind of physicality I want to see in our Big 10 team!

And Stoudemire? Once again, my guy failed to bust that kick return TD, but he continues to hand the offense great field position. Who knows – if Jay Thomas hadn’t fielded that first kick, he might well have gone the distance. Thomas, I know you’re a senior, but let Troy have the ball!

So what did we learn this week? A bunch of things. First, we learned that Purdue can’t seem to tie their own shoes without falling down and splitting their face open. And when they do that our defense will gladly take the ball away. Second, we saw first hand the value of running the ball (if the Northwestern game didn’t convince you already), and that we NEED to when ‘Bad Web’ shows up early in the game. Third, we CAN win a ball game without having Eric Decker make 10 catches and 2 TDs. And finally, we learned that some Gopher football fans aren’t quite ready to transition to outdoor football yet, as evidenced by the sell-out status of the game, in spite of the open patches of seats. Screw you, no-shows. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

It’s off to Happy Valley this coming weekend. No better time than now for Coach Brew to get his signature win… Go Gophers!