Episode 26: Gophers Football: from Michigan to Maryland
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THE MINNF,OOTA DAILY The Minnesota Daily • October 30, 2020 • https://mndaily.com/263440/podcasts/episode-26-gophers-football from-michigan-to-maryland/ Episode 26: Gophers football: From Michigan to Maryland In this week's episode of the "Weekly Rundown," our staff discusses the Gophers first game of the season against Maryland, the team's defensive struggles and what to expect this weekend aga inst Maryland. Nolan O'Hara and Brendan O'Brien INTRO MUSIC PLAYS NOLAN O'HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another TH episode of the "Weekly Rundown" presented by the Minnesota Daily. I'm your host, Nolan O'Hara. We're back and finally we have some sports to talk about as Big Ten • football returned here, the Gophers had their first game on Saturday, a game they lost 49-24 to Michigan. So, I'm here again with Brendan, our football beat reporter and we're going to break down both the Gophers loss to Michigan and its upcoming game against Maryland. So Brendan, how's it going? BRENDAN O'BRIEN: Doing pretty well, Nolan. Well rested, 0 ready to talk some football today and watch some tomorrow. O'HARA: Love to hear it. Love to hear it. Yeah, so obviously, as we can see by the score, or by watching it, the game didn't go exactly how P.J. Fleck and the rest of the team had planned. The first quarter was wild to say the least, it could have gone either way, it looked like it was going to go either way that neither team could stop each other. But Michigan's defense picked it up after that. They were able to slow down the Gophers offense, especially with some offensive line struggles. And then offensively, even better. Joe Milton looks fantastic. You know, looking through Twitter, seeing all the Michigan fans comments, they're like, 'Why did we not see him last year? Why did we keep trying to make Shea Patterson the thing?' And I think that's a valid argument there. Definitely looks like a step up there. And they were able to score at will, but from the box at TCF, what did you make of the game? Is Michigan as good as they looked on Saturday? Or was it some bad Gophers? O'BRIEN: I kind of think it might be a combination of both. I think both of these things could be true that Michigan is a good football team, and that the Gophers did not play their best brand of football, especially on defense. I will say Joe Milton did look good. And I know this isn't a Michigan football podcast, but the reason Michigan won wasn't because of Joe Milton. The reason Michigan won was because they could run out well, like you had mentioned and they could score at will. Really, what it also came down to for Minnesota and this sounds really simple, and if any team obviously did this, then obviously you could say, 'Well, yeah, every team would win football games.' But the way Minnesota is built and the way P.J. Fleck kind of talked about it last year, is that they want to play well-balanced football on in all three phases. On defense, they need to get stops. On offense, they need to score points and keep their defense out of bad situations. And just make sure that they're also doing well and the simple things like field position, turnovers, and really in those simple battles, they lost those obviously on Saturday. The fake punt put them in their defense in a really bad situation. They basically handed Michigan seven points after faking it just because Michigan again was able just to run the ball down their throats. The offense just wasn't able to score points on certain drives, obviously, the big sack-fumble return for a touchdown. Put the defense in another hole, trying to get more stops to let the offense catch up. And they just had you know a few of those costly turnovers the sack-fumble for a touchdown and an interception by Morgan. O'HARA: Yeah, there was definitely quite a few plays in that game, the 18-yard punt the fake punt some of those kickoffs that did not go the Gophers way which it is worth noting that they were missing quite a few starters, two on the offensive line in Curtis Dunlap Jr. and Daniel Faalele and then their kicker and punter. We'll get back to that a little bit later in the podcast. But you started off saying that it was a little bit of bad Gophers, a little bit of good Michigan, and it seems like the polls kind of felt that way to Michigan jumped up five spots in the AP Poll to number 13, they were 18 last week. And Minnesota completely fell out at the top-25 from 21. Now, they're receiving about 40 votes. So now that we're a game into the season, you know, we talked about the polls before doesn't really matter, the Big Ten hadn't played a game. Should the Gophers be outside of the top-25 after finishing No. 10 last year, and now just losing a game against a Michigan team that looked really good right off the bat. O'BRIEN: I think so just because of how they lost that game. If they lost in close fashion, you look at kind of where the rankings are right now Penn State is at 18th and they're 0-1. They're one of the only teams in the rankings that is still in the rankings after losing only one game. But the reason they're still in the rankings is because one Penn State's kind of a brand name, a lot of voters will still assume that they're going to be a competent team. And then two, they lost in a very close matchup against Indiana who's only ranked one spot ahead of Penn State. So, that game basically could have probably been coin flip. But Minnesota on the other hand, like now going back to them and comparing Penn State and Indiana's game to Minnesota and Michigan's game, it wasn't as close as that game. So, it makes sense that even though they did lose to a Michigan team that looks like, you know, are they going to be a contender for, you know, looking at the National picture, the college football playoff? Well, probably not if they can't beat an Ohio State team. But they still could be a really good football team this season. But to answer your question, yeah, Michigan's a really good team. And yet, you should get credit for losing and playing a good team. But at the same time, you can't necessarily give up 49 points and still expect to be in the rankings. O'HARA: Right. That was not the best defensive performance. One of the things that surprised me in the polls was seeing Indiana. Did you expect that to see them jump up to 17? O'BRIEN: Yes, only because of how much I think a lot of the polls are kind of based off of hype too, right. And if you watch any of the pregame shows, whether it's on ESPN or FOX, a lot of people kind of were thinking highly of Indiana, they played well last year, were competitive in some games, but and a lot of people actually kind of picked Indiana to be a favorite for an upset in that Penn State game, so it's actually isn't terribly surprising that they're in the rankings, but we'll see how they do going forward. They're still going to have to play that Michigan team. They're going to have to play Ohio State too. So, we'll see how that goes. O'HARA: Yeah, it'll be interesting. I was I was a little bit surprised to see that one. And that was, that was quite the game coming right down to it at the end. But yeah, I wanted to kind of dive back into the Curtis Dunlap and Daniel Faalele and the special teams unit, there was some news and we got some more news today that we weren't expecting before we did this podcast but after the game, P.J. announced that Michael Lantz and Mark Crawford, t he kicker and punter, were out because of COVID reasons. And then now we found out with Dunlap and Faalele that they are out indefinitely, Dunlap with an Achilles tear and Faalele not really sure, maybe an opt-out? I'm still not really sure what's going on there. But do we have any more details? And what do we kind of have on a timetable for Lance and Crawford with this COVID protocols? O'BRIEN: Sure. So just to kind of first just talk a little bit more about Dunlap and Faalele, it sounds like it's probably an opt-out. But again, Coach Fleck really hasn't definitively said whether or not it is and he's also kind of just said that he's not going to comment on whether players have opted out or not. As far as Dunlap, he has that Achilles tear. Obviously, that's a serious injury for athletes, and he's going to going to be out for the rest of the season.