Thoughts From The Couch...

[falconfan1999]

The officials were poor last night period. For my seats, I saw numerous uncalled penalties going both ways, many late whistles and an almost indifferent attitude by the officials to the game going on around them. On the kick that Minnesota fumbled into their endzone, from my vantage point, the kick returner looked very close to stepping on the back of the endzone. The closest official didn't even bother to look, he just called a touchback!

Our turnovers killed for sure. Bullock is getting hosed by Brandon. Geter is too small to be effective very often and can't hold onto the ball. Sheehan did miss some recievers tonight. I will agree that he didn't look very comfortable. With all of our short, quick passes, I kept expecting us to go up top, but we rarely threw it long. Jimmy Scheidler had one ball thrown to him.

What was that formation where we had two linemen line up outside with the receivers? Our guys looked just as confused as Minnesota!

[Metz]

I watched the game on TV and i was wondering from those at the game...Do the recievers run deep routes alot because on tv you cannot see. To me it seems like every passing play is short slants, crosses, and screens...Or is Tyler just hiting the dump reciever each play?

I asked someone this at the game last night actually. I guess it could be that I was spoiled through my undergrad days from watching Cole, Sanders, Chuck, Redd, etc., but I only saw one deep pass last night...and it was an interception.

I always see BG running the short routes and slants everywhere. I know we have a few receivers who can be play makers, I would love to see the pass more. However, I don't know if TS is comfortable throwing those balls. Like it's been stated in other threads, he didn't look comfortable last night and that's not a QB I want to see throwing deep.

[zeket10]

I watched the game on TV and i was wondering from those at the game...Do the recievers run deep routes alot because on tv you cannot see. To me it seems like every passing play is short slants, crosses, and screens...Or is Tyler just hiting the dump reciever each play?

I asked someone this at the game last night actually. I guess it could be that I was spoiled through my undergrad days from watching Cole, Sanders, Chuck, Redd, etc., but I only saw one deep pass last night...and it was an interception.

I always see BG running the short routes and slants everywhere. I know we have a few receivers who can be play makers, I would love to see the pass more. However, I don't know if TS is comfortable throwing those balls. Like it's been stated in other threads, he didn't look comfortable last night and that's not a QB I want to see throwing deep.

I've been thinking that since last season, but how will you ever become confident if you dont throw deep. I think the lack of the deep ball is 50/50 coaches and Tylers confidence. The coaches don't have confidence in the WR's or Tyler, and thats gonna hold this offense back all year.

[Falconfreak90]

Agree with all the posts. 5 turnovers to zero for MN...ball game. Period. Especially setting MN up inside our own 30 THREE times. I thought I was watching the GMAC Bowl again. MN's offense was fun to watch, I have to admit. That is a better team than I gave them credit and I'm interested to see how they fare this year.

Our D will be fine....they were put in a lot of bad situatons last night and did the best they could. I think Bullock is, without a doubt, the best RB we have. Geter put the ball on the turf 3 tmes last night...although on the one "fumble", he was clearly down. I watched some of the game on tape and tha was horrendous.

But, MN did what they had to do to get the win. I thought if BG went 2-2 out of conference, it would be a good start. We're 1-1 now. Wyoming lost by 20 to Air Force at home yesterday.

When we get to the MAC schedule, we'll have a good chance to win the title.

[Falconboy]

I watched the game on TV and i was wondering from those at the game...Do the recievers run deep routes alot because on tv you cannot see. To me it seems like every passing play is short slants, crosses, and screens...Or is Tyler just hiting the dump reciever each play?

I asked someone this at the game last night actually. I guess it could be that I was spoiled through my undergrad days from watching Cole, Sanders, Chuck, Redd, etc., but I only saw one deep pass last night...and it was an interception.

I always see BG running the short routes and slants everywhere. I know we have a few receivers who can be play makers, I would love to see the pass more. However, I don't know if TS is comfortable throwing those balls. Like it's been stated in other threads, he didn't look comfortable last night and that's not a QB I want to see throwing deep.

I've been thinking that since last season, but how will you ever become confident if you dont throw deep. I think the lack of the deep ball is 50/50 coaches and Tylers confidence. The coaches don't have confidence in the WR's or Tyler, and thats gonna hold this offense back all year.

Hence why I brought up in another thread about putting Beam in more to see what he can do. I also feel our offense is not realizing it's full potential with no ability to go deep and be successful. I have this feeling that we'll never see too many 300+ yd passing days from Tyler anymore now that all future opposing d-cordinator's know what we're running basically.

[Spart43]

On another note i was wondering why off. cordinator went away from AT in the second half...he ran so hard on his catches trucked people for extra yards. He played very physical and he didn't commit any turnovers. I dont understand maybe they were just waiting to get closer to the goaline to use him.

Along the same lines. Even if this wasn't Corey, If it was Barnes or Wright or any other receiver. I would say the same thing. Why do you take your leading receiver out of the game at halftime? Corey had 7 catches for 60 yards in the first half, leading all receivers in the game on both sides. Then if my count is right Corey only played 6 plays in the 2nd half (3 of those coming with only 3-4 minutes left in the game) and never had a ball thrown his way. Its one thing if the defense makes adjustments to stop someone who is getting consistently open and catching everything thrown to him, but when your own coaching takes them out of the game????????

No, he was not injured and they were not saving him for the next game. Go ahead and bash me for saying something like this about my son's playing time but it doesn't make any sense.

[footballguy51]

On another note i was wondering why off. cordinator went away from AT in the second half...he ran so hard on his catches trucked people for extra yards. He played very physical and he didn't commit any turnovers. I dont understand maybe they were just waiting to get closer to the goaline to use him.

Along the same lines. Even if this wasn't Corey, If it was Barnes or Wright or any other receiver. I would say the same thing. Why do you take your leading receiver out of the game at halftime? Corey had 7 catches for 60 yards in the first half, leading all receivers in the game on both sides. Then if my count is right Corey only played 6 plays in the 2nd half (3 of those coming with only 3-4 minutes left in the game) and never had a ball thrown his way. Its one thing if the defense makes adjustments to stop someone who is getting consistently open and catching everything thrown to him, but when your own coaching takes them out of the game????????

No, he was not injured and they were not saving him for the next game. Go ahead and bash me for saying something like this about my son's playing time but it doesn't make any sense.

No bashing from me. I didn't understand how the vast majority of our playmakers were out of the game. Corey didn't make any bad plays in the first half from what I saw, and to instead leave people like Geter in the game makes no sense. Bonehead plays are okay, but good play is looked down upon I guess.

[Falconboy]

On another note i was wondering why off. cordinator went away from AT in the second half...he ran so hard on his catches trucked people for extra yards. He played very physical and he didn't commit any turnovers. I dont understand maybe they were just waiting to get closer to the goaline to use him.

Along the same lines. Even if this wasn't Corey, If it was Barnes or Wright or any other receiver. I would say the same thing. Why do you take your leading receiver out of the game at halftime? Corey had 7 catches for 60 yards in the first half, leading all receivers in the game on both sides. Then if my count is right Corey only played 6 plays in the 2nd half (3 of those coming with only 3-4 minutes left in the game) and never had a ball thrown his way. Its one thing if the defense makes adjustments to stop someone who is getting consistently open and catching everything thrown to him, but when your own coaching takes them out of the game????????

No, he was not injured and they were not saving him for the next game. Go ahead and bash me for saying something like this about my son's
playing time but it doesn't make any sense.

I didn't notice Corey being taken out but if he was why on earth would you? He seemed to be our most consistent receiver all night. I don't what the deal was there. All I can say is a lot of what GB does during games absolutely befuddles me.

[It's the Journey...]

The whole second half looked like piss poor offensive play calling to me. It seemed like the turnover to start the third quarter scared the staff out of their pants and they tried to win the game by going conservative. We have seen our defense make giant strides over the past few years, and our special teams are leaps above previous seasons. However, our offensive play calling has remained consistently inconsistent! We went from brilliance at Pitt to predictable against Minnesota. That lack of trust in the players (not having our best people on the field) seems to go hand and hand with the wheels falling off like it did on Saturday.

[Pete Segaard]

I can't recall a penalty on us, there had to have been one or two, but clean game by both teams. I like that discipline.

Zero penalties on the Falcons tonight. And only two on the Gophers. One of which was an intentional delay of game. Which means there was one and only one penalty related to actual game action. To me, that is basically impossible. No holdings, facemasks, illegal use of hands, pass int, etc??? I'm not just saying on Minny, us either. The referees have to be sleeping out there to not make a single penalty call all night. IMO.

I'll tell you what, having watched this game on TV, Minnesota brought some absolute junk football into the Doyt. It was subtle, and I'm sure that no on in the stadium noticed it, but if you go back and look through the tape of the game, there were all kinds of fists thrown at our player's heads after they were on the ground, questionably late hits, and flying arms that were never called. There was also a pretty obvious horse-collar (on Turner, I think) that went without penalty.

I'm not saying that any of this had any bearing on the outcome of the game, but it sure was illustrative of the level of class that the Gophers brought tonight. I've heard of "Minnesota nice" before, but this garbage was just stupid.

Good win tonight, Gophers, but I'd write a note to your coach when you get a chance and tell him to tone that s**t down. None of that is ever fun to see in the college game.

I would agree wit this asessment. After the Falcons were obviously tackled the dogpile would continue to grow on top of them. It did not make a difference on the outcome of the play, but it must have really worn the guys down.

[San Diego Falcon]

Re: Partridge not playing in the 2nd half and not giving AT the ball when it was working the entire 1st half - it's been our offensive M.O. for the past 5+ years to find whatever works well and then inexplicably stop doing it (reminded me of when we stopped giving the ball to Pope in the 2nd half of the Toledo game a few years ago and gave that game away).

It sometimes seems that there's a playcalling attitude of "okay, that worked, so now let's come up with something else to entertain ourselves" instead of making the basic, obvious calls that give you the best chance to win.

[bgbill]

Nice picture of Hightower's hand wrapped around Corey's facemask in the Star-Tribune photo gallery:
http://www.startribune.com/galleries/27 ... LanchO7DiU

[Rollo83]

On Minny's first TD, any reason we had a DE (Briggs) trying to cover a back out of the backfield?

[Jacobs4Heisman]

On Minny's first TD, any reason we had a DE (Briggs) trying to cover a back out of the backfield?

Yeah - that one hurt. It was a zone blitz, but we forgot the "zone" part of it. If there's such a thing as a manzoneblitz that we've come up with, we need to disremember it quickly.

[Metz]

On Minny's first TD, any reason we had a DE (Briggs) trying to cover a back out of the backfield?

Because he should be involved in every play. He seemed to be giving 110% on every play (like always) and I want him on both sides of the ball. I'd love to see him in at RB laying out some Walter Payton-like stiff arms!