Brewster's last bid for the Axe? - Gophers at Badgers #120

The game culminating Axe Week is nearly here, and its been a pretty quiet week from Coach Brew and the Gophers. One can only assume he's working dilegently with his staff to find a way to finally beat Wisconsin.  He's come close each time he's coached against the Badgers, but come up short all 4 times.  Its been pointed out several times this week by various sources that Brew has managed to lead at halftime in every one of his games against the Badgers.  That's nice and all, and its clearly and improvement over some of the blowouts we had to endure under Mason against the Red Menance (particularly at Camp Randall).  But winning is what is important, and at this point in the Brewster era, moral victories or leading for 3 quarters count for nothing.  And much like last week, the cliched term 'must-win situation' comes to mind.  If Brewster really is coaching for his life, then this rivalry game is one of the few remaining tests Brewster has an opportunity to really impress the boosters and fanbase that things really are going to get better in 2011.  In nearly 4 years of play, we've had zero trophy game wins, and that might be the most damning piece of evidence against Brewster when compiling a case to remove him.  Throw all the other stuff out the window, his lack of wins against Wisconsin and Iowa has been unacceptable.  When your current signature win is a road win at Illinois or Northwestern, that's a problem.  This current, or next Minnesota Golden Gopher Football Head Coach MUST find a way to beat these two hated rivals on a more regular basis.  And what better time than right now to do it this Saturday.  It may not save Brewster's job, but it might help his resume a bit when he's looking for work come December...

The Badgers are holding their homecoming this week, and are coming off a disappointing loss to Michigan State, from a game several Badger fans I talked to felt they should have won.  They'll be hungry for a win and to get their B-10 season back on track. But with the marquee Ohio State night home game coming up next week, and a road trip to Iowa after that, this has some of the hallmarks of a 'trap game'.  Clearly the Badgers have bigger fish to fry, and this stretch will make or break their season.  Badger head coach Brett Bielema has stated that they are in the mindset of taking one game at a time, but this is just typical coach-speak.  The reality is that the Badgers will likely be looking to tune up their game against a lesser opponent this week, and save their best for the big dogs. 

Minnesota will need to play their best defensive game of the year to have a chance this Saturday.  It starts with stopping running backs John Clay (6.2 ypc), Montee Ball (4.4 ypc), and emerging frosh, James White (8.3 ypc).  No small task, given the O-line they run behind, which is mammoth and experienced. Cosgrove and Lee will likely load the box up with 8 and even 9 most of the game, and the Badgers know this.  This is going to leave our inexperienced secondary even more vulnerable, especially to play action.  And although the Badger receiving corps has underachieved based on expectations (as has QB Scott Tolzien), they will be wide open all game even if we can slow the run game down.  Tolzien will likely feast on playaction passes, unless Cosgrove dials up some perfectly timed blitz calls.  So I feel pretty negative about our defensive chances in slowing the Badger offense.  Like the game versus Northwestern, generating turnovers is the primary (and best) way the Gopher defense can equalize things. 

On offense, only giving the Badgers a dose of their own ball-control medicine will allow the Gophs to keep pace.  One of the 3 RBs needs to have a solid game.  Last week it was Eskeridge.  How about Bennett stepping up this week?  It's going to take solid O-line play for that. But Wisconsin's defense is not fearsome, and we should be able to put 20-25 points on them. And if 'Good Web' shows up for 4 quarters, and MarQueis is really over his plantar facitis, getting in the 30-35 points range is possible.  Lair seems to be improving weekly, and McKnight seems primed to have a breakout game.  So the pieces on offense are there to score enough points. As usual, execution is the key.  Will Brew and Horton dial up some trickeration this week in order to get some drives extended?  It seems likely, but those kind of plays only work so often.

On special teams - I have one great fear. Oreske's long hold and release on on punts.  NIU blocked on on us.  NU nearly did.  And Wisconsin would be foolish not to pin their ears back and come after the punter early and often.  Oreske's GOT to get a little quicker on his catch and release.  He holds that ball back there for what feels like an eternity, and I don't want to see this game go down like it did in 2005.



See, its not all coloring books at UW
-photo courtesy UW Library system

But can the Gophers go into Camp Randall and the polyester red haze and somehow beat the Badgers?  There's a chance, and more than just of the 'any given Sunday/Saturday' variety. This team has nothing to lose right now.  Losing to South Dakota probably sucked most of the confidence right out of the team. The loss to NIU took whatever was left of that confidence, put it in a headlock, and suffocated the life out of it.  And then when the Big Ten opener looked like a chance to build confidence anew, the final 2 minutes of that game put us right back to where we started.  Now there's absolutely nothing left to lose.  Pride is likely all this team has left, and while a majority of  Gophers fans are running on empty, I think the players still have plenty.  And even with Wisconsin heavily favored and laying 22 points for this game, pride might be enough. But probably not. All that said, I, while I believe the offense will have a respectable showing and keep the game from becoming a blowout, I simply don't have confidence that the defense has much hope in stopping the Wisconsin run game.

Prediction:  Wisconsin 31, Minnesota 23 

Badger Player of the Game: John Clay - 18 carries, 120 yards, 2 TDs
Gopher Player of the Game: Da'Jon McKnight  7 catches 90 yards, 2 TD

Final note:  Coach Brew - you may be a dead man walking, but don't let that stop you from improving your resume here.  Get that AXE!  Goooooooooo GOPHERS!

Badgers at Gophers Post Game - What we learned

The dreary weather across the upper Midwest didn’t help things, but after the loss to Wisconsin on Saturday, things just seemed a little gloomier than they should have. The Axe will stay in Madison for at least another year, and that is depressing no matter what the weather.

Maybe it was the fact that we had a lead at the half, and later opportunities to take the game back. Either way, we didn’t capitalize when we needed to, and Wisconsin made some second half adjustments that killed us (namely continuously handing the ball to John Clay). The reality of it was, this game played out like so many other of our recent losses to Wisconsin. We play tough early, only to have it slip away. Disappointing to say the least, and it felt like the program took a step backwards.

Offensively we looked like Fisch had things figured out for a spell, exploiting Wisconsin’s weakness on defense (the middle), with some nice screens and inside runs. Decker was clearly the superior to anyone in that Wisconsin d-backfield, and was able to get open. I was a bit perturbed seeing Hayo Carpenter tracked down from behind by a d-lineman while out in space (#93 Louis Nzegwu?). The second half was a different story, as we really didn’t have the ball much, and Wisconsin established their classic ball control runing game that they are known for. And late in the game when Wisconsin amped up its pass rush, our O-line withered, giving Weber little to no time to set up in the pocket. I’m still unsure if part of the problem wasn’t also that there were no underneath pass routes for Weber to dump off to, or if he simply was so locked on to Decker that he missed these opportunities. A second watch of the game will clear this up for me (if I'm willing to put myself through that).

On defense things seemed to be holding together in the 1st half. Tolzien wasn’t picking apart our secondary as feared. However, by the second half, John Clay had gotten lathered up and we couldn’t slow him. Even when we got to him at the line of scrimmage, he seemed to fall forward for a 4-5 yard gains. The injury to Triplett late in the game didn’t help matters either, and although he came back into the game later, he seemed a step slow. Cosgrove got aggressive with the blitz packages in 3rd and long situations, but Wisconsin seemed to know these were coming and handled them well.

So what did we learn from this week? Aside from the fact that Wisconsin still sucks (and always will), we found out that we struggle with large, powerful halfbacks. We found out that our O-line seems to really struggle against all-out, ears-pinned back, pass rushing (particularly the right side – looking at you Jeff Wills). And we learned that things just continue to never go our way against Wisconsin (i.e. the partially blocked punt in 4th quarter that ended up pinning us inside the 5). Last we learned that the coaching staff clearly isn't ready to unleash Marqueis Gray, even though the rest of Gopher Nation is... I can only assume they have their reasons at this point.

Homecoming and Purdue this coming Saturday, so let’s hope we can bounce back from this loss, and get one back in the ‘W’ column, before heading to PSU and OSU.