Ragin' Dave's Minnesota Preview
MINNESOTA Preview
The Golden Gophers are a team coming off a very successful 2022 campaign where they went 9-4 including a Pinstripe Bowl win vs Syracuse 28-20. Minnesota did not play a very good out of conference schedule last year and got out of the gate with a 3-0 start, defeating the likes of NMSU, Western Illinois and Colorado by a combined score of 149-17, but those teams went a combined 8-28 and 7 of those wins were by NMSU. They then beat Michigan State 38-7 to jump out to a perfect 4-0 start and 1-0 in conference play. But unfortunately, they got into a much tougher part of their conference schedule the next 3 weeks and lost 3 in a row to Purdue, Illinois, and Penn State. At this point in the season, they were 4-3 and more importantly 1-3 in conference play. They got hot again winning 4 of their last 5, including 3 in a row over Rutgers, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Wisconsin, with only a loss to Iowa in between. Then they went on to win their bowl game giving them wins in 5 of their last 6 football games in the 2022 season. Minnesota is led by one of the hottest names in college football a few years ago, PJ Fleck. Fleck was the Head Coach at Western Michigan where he led the Broncos to 3 bowl games in 4 years including a 13-1 season and a Cotton Bowl appearance in 2016. His tenure in Minnesota has been both up and down. Fleck has been in Minnesota for 7 seasons. His best season was in 2019 where he went 11-2 with an Outback Bowl win and a final ranking of #10 in the country. But he has been somewhat disappointing in most years, with two 9-4 seasons, a 7-6 season, a 5-7 season and a 3-4 Covid year. This year they are 2-2 to start the young season. Jim Rossi is the Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach, and the Co Offensive Coordinators are Greg Harbaugh Jr. and Matt Simon. There is no relation between Greg Harbaugh (pronounced Har-bo) and Harbaugh brothers.
It's been a rough start to the 2023 season for the Gophers. They got out to a 13-10 win over Nebraska, where they needed close to a miracle to win that game and then they beat a bad Eastern Michigan team who has very close wins over Howard and UMass this year, but then the Gophers have lost their last two games to UNC and Northwestern. In the NW game they were up 24-7 at the half and 31-10 at the end of the 3rd quarter only to be outscored by NW 21-0 in the 4th quarter to go to overtime and lose that game 37-34. They struggled vs UNC as well the week before losing 31-13 in that ball game. To be honest the only game this season that they have looked even remotely good, was a 38-6 win over EMU. The reality is that they should have lost to Nebraska and be sitting at 1-3 on the season. This team has struggled to score points and struggled in the passing game as well. They are only averaging about 148 yard per game through the air with only 3 TD’s and 3 Int’s in the young season. The rushing game has been better, averaging around 174 yards per game, but they are only averaging 21 ppg this year. The defense has been solid, only giving up 341 yards per game and under 21 points per game.
QB—At QB the Gophers have been locked in on Athan Kaliakmanis (6’4 205). Kaliakmanis filled in last year as the backup when they lost their starter and performed OK, throwing for 946 yards with 3 TD’s and 4 INTs in a handful of starts last year. This year he has struggled out of the gate, only completing 55% of his passes with 3 TD’s and 3 INTs. He is capable with his legs, but that is not what he wants to do. He would much rather drop back and throw the ball around the field. Kaliakmanis is a Redshirt Sophomore with the Gophers, his brother Dino is a WR with the Gophers this season. Behind him is Cole Kramer (6’1 205) Jr, but Kramer has only thrown 1 pass this season and has thrown a total of 9 in his college career. I am surprised they have stuck with Kaliakmanis but he was a very highly recruited young man out of HS, ranked as the #14 ranked QB in the nation his senior year in HS by rivals and among ESPN’s Top 300 that year as well. My assumption is that they are going to try to let him grow into his talents and they see more of an upside with him and anyone else on the roster. He did have his best game of the year vs NW last weekend where he completed 14-19 passes for 153 yards and 2 TD’s and no INTs, but the game before that vs UNC he was 11-29 for 133 yards with O TD’s and 1 INT, in fact he has thrown an INT in every game this season apart from NW.
RB—The running game has been much better than the passing game for the Gophers this season. The running game was led by Darius Taylor (5’11 195) true Freshman who has been lights out. Taylor in 4 games has 87 carries for 532 yards and 4 TD’s. The problem for the Gophers is that Taylor left the NW game late in the 4th quarter with an apparent leg injury and did not return for overtime. We do not know the severity of the injury at this point, but I will try to keep you updated as I hear something. If Taylor is not able to go it will be Sean Tyler (5’8 185). Tyler is a Senior transfer from Western Michigan, he does have 30 carries for 136 yards with 0 TD’s. He was expected to be the starter when the season started, but Taylor has been so good, it was hard to get him off the field. Outside of that the only RB on the roster with any significant carries is Bryce Williams (6’0 215) Senior with 11 carries for 30 yards. Depending on the availability of Taylor this could be a different looking offense for the Gophers.
WR/TE—Again the passing game has not been great, and it shows by the numbers. In fact, it really is a two-man crew for Minnesota. The main guy is Corey Crooms (5’11 185) who has 16 receptions on the season for 196 yards and 0 TD’s and Daniel Jackson (6’0 200) with 15 receptions for 163 yards and 2 TD’s. At the WR position there is a huge drop off from there to the next guys who all have less than 5 receptions on the season. But they do have a pretty good, solid TE who is 3rd on the team in receptions in Brevyn Spann-Ford (6’7 270) Senior. Spann Ford is big and physical and has 11 catches for 63 yards with a long of 15. He is a huge security blanket for the QB position at 6’7 270. He is not going to beat you deep or out run you, but he is a matchup nightmare on short yardage. Another guy to watch out for in the WR group is Le’Meke Brockington (6’0 195) who has 5 catches on the season, but he is the next guy up and has the most yards per reception on the team at 14.6, but they really have not beaten many teams over the top this year. The longest pass reception of the year for the Gophers has been 27 yards. They also have not used their RB’s that much as receivers, the top 2 RB’s have combined for 8 catches for 69 yards and again one of those guys might be out vs us this week and he has 6 of the 8 catches.
OL— RS Junior Airentae Ersery (6’6 325) is the leader on the OL at LT. He is projected to be an All B1G performer and that is saying a lot in this conference. The other big-time guy on this OL is RT Quinn Carroll (6’7 325) who transferred here from Notre Dame before last season. These guys are big and strong and good, as expected from a team in the B1G. At LG there will be Tyler Cooper (6’5 315) and at RG will be Lewis Martes (6’7 330) who played in 13 games last year for the Gophers. The center will be Nathan Boe (6’5 300) Senior who started 1 game for the Gophers last year. Minnesota has been a run first team this year, mostly because the passing game has been very poor and secondly because the strength has been this big physical OL and a special freshman at RB. They will continue to try to run the ball, specifically if they feel as though their OL has a huge advantage in size over our DL. This OL group is compiled of 3 RS Seniors and 2 RS Juniors, so size and experience are their backbones. This will be an interesting matchup of a team that prides itself on protecting the QB, only 5 sacks give up in 4 games vs a team that prides itself in getting after the QB (Cajuns have 18 sacks in 4 games).
DL—This is a defense that will run a multi look defense with either 3 or 4 down lineman at any time, including an edge rusher who can lineup both as a DE or OLB depending on down and distance. Nose Tackle will be Kyler Baugh (6’3 300) Senior transfer from Houston Baptist. Baugh has played well this season with 13 tackles, 1 forced fumble and 1 fumble recovery. He will be flanked on either side of him by Deven Eastern (6’6 290) and Jalen Logan-Redding (6’4 275). The last guy in the group that is the hybrid type down lineman might be the best of the group in Danny Stringow (6’5 250) who has 22 tackles on the season with 4 TFL’s and 3 of which are sacks. This entire group is good. Baugh has 13 tackles, 4 TFL’s and 2.5 sacks, Eastern has 8 tackles with .5 a TFL, Logan Redding has 10 tackles including 2 TFL’s and 1 sack and then there is Stringow who can flat out get after it. All four of these guys rank in the top 10 or so in tackles for the Gophers, that is impressive coming from your DL.
LB—I mentioned Striggow who will play kind of a hybrid OLB/Edge Rusher for them, the other 3 LB’s are led by Maverick Baranowski (6’3 230) at the strongside LB. He has been a huge surprise for them this year, leading the team with 28 tackles on the season including 3 TFL’s and 1 sack. He is only a RS Freshman. Devon Williams (6’1 230) is the other LB at the Mike, Williams has 16 tackles on the season. They are also getting solid production from Ryan Selig (6’3 235) Senior transfer from Western Michigan who has 15 tackles on the season.
DB/S— Tre’Von Jones (6’0 175) and Just Walley (5’11 185) will lead the team at the CB position. Both Walley and Jones are solid tacklers ranking 5th and 6th in tackles on the season. Tre’Von Jones is a graduate transfer from Elon who played at the same high school as Robert Williams, will be interesting to see if they lineup against each other. But the real surprise for this team has been the guy playing the 3rd corner/Nickelback who we know quite well from last season, Jack Henderson (6’3 210) who played collegiately last season at SLU who we played against. Henderson has been good in coverage as well as against the run. He is 3rd on the team in tackles with 23 on the season, 2 TFL’s, 1 sack and 1 INT. The safety position is manned by Tyler Nubin (6’2 210) and Darius Green (6’1 190). Green is the leader back there; he is 2nd on the team in tackles from his safety spot with 2 TFL. Nubin leads the team that has 6 INTs with 2 of them. New information: The Gophers will get a boost at Safety from Craig MacDonald (6’0 200) transfer who has played at both Iowa State and Auburn previously. Originally, he was ruled ineligible by the NCAA, but this week he has become eligible. This young man started sparingly at both Iowa State and Auburn while he was there and was on the two deep at both during his tenure, so there is a lot of football at a high level in his past. One of the big weaknesses for this team has been the DB’s, this should be a shot in the arm for them, he has been practicing with the team all season even though he was ineligible according to sources.
Offensively this is a run first team, but depending on the situation with Taylor we shall see, they are going to run it either way, but Taylor makes a huge difference as he is explosive. On defense, this is a team that plays very good defense only allowing 114 yards per game on the ground but has struggled vs the pass a little giving up almost 250 yards per game through the air. Offensively they have been pretty good on 3rd down conversions at 40%, but also 4-5 on 4th down conversions. They have also been good in the Redzone converting 12-13 times with 7 of those being for TD’s. Defensively they will get after the QB with 11 sacks on the season while only allowing 5 this year.
Special Teams—Their kicking specialist are both veterans and both make up what could be two of the biggest special team’s player combos in the country, Mark Crawford (6’5 220) is their strong legged punter, he has 17 punts this year with an average of 42.94 yards and a long of 56, 3 touchbacks, 7 fair catches, 5 inside the 20 and 3 of 50 or more. He is a good punter and can be a weapon for them. Dragan Kesich (6’4 230) 9-10 on the season with a long of 50 yards. His only miss on the season was over 50 yards. He is perfect from 50 and below. He also does the kickoff duties for the Gophers where 17 of his 19 kickoffs have been touchbacks, so we will have very little chance to return kicks vs Minnesota. WR Quentin Ridding (5’7 150) handles the kickoff duties for the Gophers. He has 5 returns for 77 yards with an average of 15.40 and a long of 19, so he has not been a real threat there as far as punt returns go, they have split time between 3 different guys, but no one has more than 2 returns, Corey Crooms leads the group with 2 for 13 yards, while Quentin Redding has 1 for 10 and Eli Mau has 1 for 17.
Prediction
Cajuns 24
Gophers 31
I am a realist here, I think the Cajuns can win this game, especially if they play defense like they did vs UAB and Buffalo for 3 quarters and don’t turn the ball over. But so far that has been the problem for this team. If we can hold on to the ball (win the turnover battle) and play 4 quarters of defense, I think we will win. If not, I think the Gophers will win. The point spread is 9.5 points at this point, I think the game will be between 5-10 points when it is over with either the Cajuns winning or Gophers winning by no more than 10 points.
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Re: Ragin' Dave's Minnesota Preview
Originally Posted by CajunVic
