After coming in off the ledge......

[Loyal Coug]

.......I am trying to come to grips with what happened tonight. First question is how in the hell did we go 7-2 in the Pac-12? Are they that bad? Second - how could we not run (throw all over a middling team with a decimated secondary?

I feel bad for jumping on Luke - but what the hell happened out there? Why didn't we just run every play?

3 pant pooping offensive games in a row. Geezus. Where was Marks tonight anyway? And all year those #3-8 recievers did just fine. Were they really not open all night?

I do love Luke, but he is fragile. We could have run the QB draw or forced the d all night long, but he can't take a hit. No way can he ever be a pro QB - he would not last a game. Running around in the backfield taking sacks because he can't or won't turn upfield and run the ball. While their QB bulls his way for yards time and again. And not for the first time this season.

I guess 8-5 beats the 2-10 years, but this is very disheartening. I feel bad for the THOUSANDS of Coug fans who spent a lot of money to go down there and see this catastrophe.

 

[YakiCoug]

.......I am trying to come to grips with what happened tonight. First question is how in the hell did we go 7-2 in the Pac-12? Are they that bad? Second - how could we not run (throw all over a middling team with a decimated secondary?

I feel bad for jumping on Luke - but what the hell happened out there? Why didn't we just run every play?

3 pant pooping offensive games in a row. Geezus. Where was Marks tonight anyway? And all year those #3-8 recievers did just fine. Were they really not open all night?

I do love Luke, but he is fragile. We could have run the QB draw or forced the d all night long, but he can't take a hit. No way can he ever be a pro QB - he would not last a game. Running around in the backfield taking sacks because he can't or won't turn upfield and run the ball. While their QB bulls his way for yards time and again. And not for the first time this season.

I guess 8-5 beats the 2-10 years, but this is very disheartening. I feel bad for the THOUSANDS of Coug fans who spent a lot of money to go down there and see this catastrophe.

As I've posted elsewhere, Falk is milquetoast and will not take us to the next level. I'm not sure Hilinski is the answer, but at least he can run. Falk clearly has reached a plateau. He lacks elite arm strength, and is too slow afoot and in mind, and he'd enter 2017 without Marks and Cracraft. Beyond that, every time this coaching staff is given a bunch of time to prepare for a game it flops. Just look at the beginnings of the last two seasons and the bowl games (granted we managed to hang on v. Miami a year ago). Yes, going 9-4 and 8-5 beats the heck out of 2008-2012, but we should have higher expectations now.

 

[BiggsCoug]

.......I am trying to come to grips with what happened tonight. First question is how in the hell did we go 7-2 in the Pac-12? Are they that bad? Second - how could we not run (throw all over a middling team with a decimated secondary?

I feel bad for jumping on Luke - but what the hell happened out there? Why didn't we just run every play?

3 pant pooping offensive games in a row. Geezus. Where was Marks tonight anyway? And all year those #3-8 recievers did just fine. Were they really not open all night?

I do love Luke, but he is fragile. We could have run the QB draw or forced the d all night long, but he can't take a hit. No way can he ever be a pro QB - he would not last a game. Running around in the backfield taking sacks because he can't or won't turn upfield and run the ball. While their QB bulls his way for yards time and again. And not for the first time this season.

I guess 8-5 beats the 2-10 years, but this is very disheartening. I feel bad for the THOUSANDS of Coug fans who spent a lot of money to go down there and see this catastrophe.

Running QB draw implies that it's been installed. It's not.

He's nowhere near ready for the NFL. Jesus H. Christ if the defense lines up stacked and you genuinely have no idea what to do, you're not ready for BCS football let alone the NFL.

 

[EdmondsCoug]

I am disappointed. I am not sure Luke will be the answer in 2017. We are a mixed bag this year. Can we improve with our current players? Leach needs to improve. Grinch is solid for the most part. We need to adapt to how top teams compete and play. We are not a tough team at this time. Hopefully we become a smarter and tougher team.

 

[CougPatrol]

We probably should stop calling Minnesota a middling team. They lost the following 4 games in a conference that is MUCH stronger than the P12 this season:

29-26 in OT at Penn State
14-7 vs. Iowa
24-17 at Nebraska
31-17 at Wisconsin

Their resume is a lot bet than ours.

 

[everybody knows my name]

Thank you, CougPatrol. That's the nicest thing I've read about my Gophers here.

 

[Coug95man2]

We probably should stop calling Minnesota a middling team. They lost the following 4 games in a conference that is MUCH stronger than the P12 this season:

29-26 in OT at Penn State
14-7 vs. Iowa
24-17 at Nebraska
31-17 at Wisconsin

Their resume is a lot bet than ours.

Gotta agree. Seems like some were saying Falk was reading too many of his own press clippings? Hm. Maybe we as fans were doing the same, just because they were missing a couple of their starting CB's. Doesn't mean their 2nd stringers weren't able to hold their own.

Not making excuses, just sayin'.

 

[brettcraycraft51]

We probably should stop calling Minnesota a middling team. They lost the following 4 games in a conference that is MUCH stronger than the P12 this season:

29-26 in OT at Penn State
14-7 vs. Iowa
24-17 at Nebraska
31-17 at Wisconsin

Their resume is a lot bet than ours.

agree re: the strength of the big 10, but what does the fact that they had a load of players (including 3 starters in the defensive backfield) suspended factor into the analysis? maybe not middling when at full strength, but they were massively depleted.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Although I shouldn't be, I'm surprised at the negativity. Since the start of 2015, WSU has gone 17-9. In the nine losses, WSU has been within one touchdown in the fourth quarter in all but two of them. When it comes down to it, if the Cougs had made one or two more plays in seven games, we might be 24-2 in our last two seasons. If that is our plateau......we need to evaluate if that is something that we should be mad about. I know that there are issues that need to be resolved for us to be a better team, and graduation always opens up the chances for new problems, but if 8-4 is the cross I have to bear for another season or two while Leach continues to try and build our program, I guess I can live with that.

 

[CougPatrol]

It was a bad loss, but not as shocking and program changing as some are making it seem. Utah barely got by a 6-7 Indiana team tonight. The Big-10 is strong this year.

 

[PINGDUDE4]

agree re: the strength of the big 10, but what does the fact that they had a load of players (including 3 starters in the defensive backfield) suspended factor into the analysis? maybe not middling when at full strength, but they were massively depleted.

Massively depleted ? Hyperbole much ?

That is the great story line to try to save the fat boy Minnesota coach's job. but all the Minnesota starting secondary that played in Holiday Bowl had also started in other games this season. Clearly the suspensions impacted their depth, but they were far from "massively depleted" from the suspensions.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

It was a bad loss, but not as shocking and program changing as some are making it seem. Utah barely got by a 6-7 Indiana team tonight. The Big-10 is strong this year.

Hard to read too much from lower bowl games anyway.

 

[702coug]

Bullsht. Utah was overrated all season and Indiana had no Qb. Turnovers about killed the Utes. That was almost as ugly a game as the holiday joke. Almost.

 

[SCglory]

We probably should stop calling Minnesota a middling team. They lost the following 4 games in a conference that is MUCH stronger than the P12 this season:

29-26 in OT at Penn State
14-7 vs. Iowa
24-17 at Nebraska
31-17 at Wisconsin

Their resume is a lot bet than ours.

Forgot a couple things, didn't you? In those games:
** they had 10 more players that were suspended for the Bowl game
** they had their two stars that were hurt in the Bowl game

Your point had more of a chance if the team that lost those games even remotely resembled the team the cougs lost to in the HB

 

[CougPatrol]

SC, I'm not disagreeing with you. It was a dreadful performance offensively. The worst we've seen under Leach. They had 10 players suspended, but the guys who played on defense would start for WSU. They lost 2 stars in the bowl game, we lost 1.

This question should probably be asked in a separate thread, but how do you explain Minnesota and Indiana...INDIANA...physically handling WSU and Utah, two of the top-4 teams in our conference? For me it's easy. The Big12 is vastly superior to the P12 this season.

 

[BiggsCoug]

SC, I'm not disagreeing with you. It was a dreadful performance offensively. The worst we've seen under Leach. They had 10 players suspended, but the guys who played on defense would start for WSU. They lost 2 stars in the bowl game, we lost 1.

This question should probably be asked in a separate thread, but how do you explain Minnesota and Indiana...INDIANA...physically handling WSU and Utah, two of the top-4 teams in our conference? For me it's easy. The Big12 is vastly superior to the P12 this season.

You are a physical football team because you are coached to be a physical football team. Utah and WSU aren't coaching their kids to be physical. They're able to get away with lighter practices because they're not gonna see teams every week that will smack them in the teeth. Indiana and Minnesota aren't so lucky.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

SC, I'm not disagreeing with you. It was a dreadful performance offensively. The worst we've seen under Leach. They had 10 players suspended, but the guys who played on defense would start for WSU. They lost 2 stars in the bowl game, we lost 1.

This question should probably be asked in a separate thread, but how do you explain Minnesota and Indiana...INDIANA...physically handling WSU and Utah, two of the top-4 teams in our conference? For me it's easy. The Big12 is vastly superior to the P12 this season.

Top 4 teams?

UW, SC, and CU, which leaves room for 1 team, and at this point it might be Furd. I know you're probably going off of conference rankings, but if we are just ranking teams on who is the best right now or how they were playing at the end of the season, I'm putting Furd at that 4 spot - I don't think we beat them at the end of the year. I don't think we beat the Beavers at the end of the year either, but they were too hot and cold to give them too much credit.

 

[CougPatrol]

Top 4 teams?

UW, SC, and CU, which leaves room for 1 team, and at this point it might be Furd. I know you're probably going off of conference rankings, but if we are just ranking teams on who is the best right now or how they were playing at the end of the season, I'm putting Furd at that 4 spot - I don't think we beat them at the end of the year. I don't think we beat the Beavers at the end of the year either, but they were too hot and cold to give them too much credit.

Stanford might beat us now, but I wouldn't fear them, especially now that McCafferey bailed on them. Oregon State? Look, I know the Beavs won the hearts and minds of some fans this year with their improved play, but they were a 4-8 team. They had us down 24-6 at halftime in Corvallis and we blew the doors off of them in the 2nd half.

You can put Stanford at the #4 spot if you want, but they didn't earn it. UW, USC, Colorado, WSU and Utah were the 5 best teams in our conference all season. Minnesota and Indiana ranked well behind Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska.

Minnesota and Indiana physically dominated WSU and Utah in the bowl games, and they were #7 & #8 seeds in their conference. That was my point.