November 23, 2025 • 47 mins
Justin Gaard is back to talk about the Gophers loss at Northwestern. Ryan Burns of Gopher Illustrated joins and gives his perspective on the loss.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome into the sixty five to one Carpets plus studio.
This is Gopher Football Sunday. I'm justin guard. We are
here until nine o'clock when we hand it over to
Sunday Sermons. If you're new to the program, what we
do on Sundays is try to carve out an hour
for some Gopher discussion before we basically paint the town purple.
And with today's border battle at Lambeau coming up just afternoon,
(00:21):
there's going to be a lot of Vikings discussions. So
this hour is for the Gopher fan, unfortunately or fortunately,
depending on how you view it. Today we are discussing
a thirty eight thirty five loss at Wrigley Field yesterday
to Northwestern. The Gophers are now six and five and
four and four in the Big Ten. Ryan burns from
(00:41):
Gopher Illustrated dot Com is going to make his weekly
appearance coming up next segment. A couple of segments with
Burnssey again today, and this is going to be a
short open because there's a lot I want to get
to with Burnsey. We talk usually about what we like
and what we didn't like. In the first segment of
the show, you can always hit the bratch on Brian
Kfean text line six four six eight six, So you
can also tweet me at Guardsey.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I want to start with something.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I liked, but it's going to immediately dovetail into why
it's even doubly frustrating with how things went down yesterday
as the Gophers end up losing in Northwestern. The like
aspect of it is that Drake Lindsay had a really
good day and the offense as a whole had a
really good day after yet another slow start with I
(01:23):
want to talk to with Burnsey, he had sixty six
percent completion percentage, two hundred and sixty four yards, four touchdowns.
He was thrown it all over the place. He led
a scoring drive before halftime. He had a great throw
off of a turnover and actually got them down the
field in less than thirty seconds. Once Northwestern had retaken
the lead in the final minute. Gave the Gophers a
(01:44):
chance to win the game if they played the clock
a little bit differently, but to at the very least
tie it with the forty yard field goal. As you
probably know, that field goal was missed as time expired
and the Gophers end up losing. It was a great
day for Drake, and it gets wasted because the main
story I'd say seventy five percent of the story yesterday
(02:08):
was the defense and Burnsy And I said on the
pregame show where I phrased it to Burnsy this way.
I felt like yesterday was going to be a test
in terms of is the Gopher defense bad or have
they just run into really good teams on the road
After what Iowa had done to them in Oregon last
week and certainly Ohio State a.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Few weeks ago, this was going to be the litmus test.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Were you going up against great opponents or is your
defense just not very good this year? And unfortunately, if
you're a Gopher fan, and if you're listening to this show,
you probably are, the defense is bad. You score thirty
five points in a Big Ten game, you should win
it nine out of ten times. You score thirty five
points against Northwestern, you should win ten of them. And
(02:52):
the stats bear it out, and the stats are not pretty.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Northwestern's quarterback Preston.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Stone had had a very up and down season up
until this point. His completion percentage was barely over fifty
I think right around fifty five. He hadn't passed for
two hundred passing yards in a Big Ten game, and
yesterday he was anything but the quarterback that we'd seen
all season long. If you've been watching Northwestern football, and
(03:20):
there's no really real reason that you would have been,
he was twenty five to thirty yesterday. That's eighty three
percent used the calculator for that. And he was a
perfect fifteen to fifteen in the second half. Three hundred
and five passing yards, two touchdowns, no picks. The Gophers
had no answer for anything that Northwestern was doing defensively,
and that's that's the story of the game. The offense
(03:42):
played well enough to win. You got contributions from Koy
Perrich on special teams. Obviously, the two missfield goals are
a big thing that we're going to talk about, But
had the defense made one extra stop, you probably win
that game fairly comfortably. Had they made a stop after
you you go up twenty eight to thirteen, after they
beautifully played the middle eighth the last four minutes of
(04:05):
the first half, taken advantage of a turnover in the
first four minutes of the second, you're up twenty eight
to thirteen. You're in great control of things and you
immediately give up another touchdown, offense can't sustain anything. The
next time you give up another touchdown, all of a sudden,
you're in a tie game.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And we know how it finished.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
It was the defense yesterday, and it's a continuation of
a problem that we've talked about a lot on this show,
and unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure how it gets any
better with Wisconsin on the horizon next week.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Northwestern hadn't scored more than twenty two points in a
Big Ten game.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
They got thirty eight yesterday, and we're really able to
control things for much of that game offensively. They had
the ball for twelve and a half minutes in the
first quarter, the Gophers ran three plays. They got the
ball back after the Gophers tied it up at thirty
five with over eight minutes left, and we're able to
run it down to let in a minute left in
(05:00):
the game, converting on thirds and longs, taking advantage of
Gopher penalties, scrambling for it, passing for it. This defense
has just not been good enough for whatever the reason,
and whether it's some injuries that they had yesterday or
some younger players that they had yesterday, whatever the reasons, are. Unfortunately,
they don't matter too much when you lose thirty eight,
(05:23):
thirty five and now are six and five and four
and four in the Big ten. So it was a buzzkill.
One of the things I want to talk to Burnsy
about is we've joked all year said all year, Gopher
fans have done an awesome job of pulling up and
showing up at all these road venues, all the cool
ones that we got to go to. Berkeley had a
good crowd, Columbus had a good crowd, Eugene had a
great crowd.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Iowa City there's always people.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And yesterday at Wrigley the place was ninety percent Gopher fans,
maybe eighty.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It was awesome. It was so cool to be there
and have so many fans there.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It was just a great environment, even though the stadium
was about half full.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And if you've been.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
On all these road trips, the fellowship had to sustain
you because unfortunately the football did not. So we got
a lot to unpack with Burnsy. We're gonna keep it
pretty short in this open here before we hand it
off to Sunday sermons. But HiT's a Bradshawn Brian camfe
in text line six four six eighty six. You can
also tweet me at Guardsey. This is a quick opening
segment because there's a ton I want to get to
(06:19):
with Burnsy before we are done at nine o'clock reviewing
a thirty eight to thirty five go for loss to
Northwestern at Wrigley Field yesterday, with one final regular season
game next Saturday two thirty at Huntington Banks Stadium against
the Wisconsin Badgers coming up, but without further ado, we
will get to Burnsy when we come back. It's go
for football Sunday on the fans.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It's go for football Sunday on the fan. Here in
the sixty five to one carpets plus studios. We are
here until nine o'clock when Dan Barrero takes over for
Sunday sermons. I'm justin guard Don't forget it is Border
Battle Day. I know a lot of people that were
at Wrigley Field yesterday. We're on their way to Lambo
to check out the Vikings and the Packers. Hopefully, if
you're a Minnesota fan, today goes better than yesterday went.
(07:01):
I would take thirty five points from the Vikings offense.
That's what the Gophers got yesterday, But unfortunately, as we
talked about in the first segment, the defense gives up
thirty five. They lose thirty eight to thirty five at
Wrigley at Northwestern. A guy who was there and I
know has some thoughts and feelings about what went wrong.
Is Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot Com making his
weekly appearance on the show here right around eight to fifteen.
(07:23):
He's on the Connecticut Water Systems hotline. How are we doing?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Burnsy?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Have you had enough time to fully process what we
watched at Wrigley Field yesterday?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I don't know if anybody can have enough time truly
to process the ups and downs and ebbs and flows
of what seemingly every Gopher game is whenever they take
the field at this point. But this is one of
these days. Guards you where we're here because we said
we would. Yeah, And there's a lot to dive into,
specifically on the defensive side of the football.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And this is kind of like the coltrip where we're
finding a way to get the show done. I'm not
doing it on you know, the jet bridge like we
did in Berkeley. But people can figure out if all
of a sudden, I magically appear in the Bahamas a
little bit later today.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
How I got there, why I'm there, and what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And I know everybody feels bad for me, so feel
free to keep texting all your hatred to six four
six eighty six. I will not be seeing it. I
will not be seeing it. And that's all I can
say about that. We got to talk about the defense,
right because they got essentially one stop right in the
(08:29):
second quarter that allowed them to then score before halftime
and then come in and even though the offense was
three and out the first possession of the third, you
had the muff punt. They go to Javon Tracy right
away after that. That's the only stop. And I'm using
quotation marks that I can remember Burnsy late in the
second quarter, unless I'm missing one, I know there was
(08:52):
another kneel down maybe or a play where they technically
didn't score. But the Gophers extended the lead to twenty
eight to thirteen, and and I'm pretty sure Northwestern scored
the rest of the way. So what do we need
to talk about with the defense?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I just think yesterday's performance continued on the theme of
the Gopher defense here for essentially the last month hasn't
been shown up. And it started in that Michigan State
game where it felt like they were putting lipstick on
a pig in some aspects where they only allowed twenty points,
but they allowed four hundred and sixty seven total yards.
(09:25):
It didn't come back to bite them in that game. Well,
then last week out in Eugene, you get five hundred
and ten put on you and the starting defense doesn't
force a punt the entire game, six touchdowns and then
the takeaway. And then in Chicago yesterday, five hundred and
twenty five yards allowed to Northwestern, who hadn't scored more
(09:46):
than twenty two points in a Big ten game. They
put up thirty eight. And I would tell you without
really any resistance at any point, and that just continues.
This trend of is what is the identity of this
go for defense? And I'll pose that question to you.
Where they don't get takeaways, They have one defensive takeaway
(10:07):
in their last five games, They have forced one punt
as a starting defense, and have allowed ten touchdowns in
the last two games. They don't get pressure. So let
me before I continue to steal all the thunder that
there may be out there for, I'll give the four
to you.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
The identity of the defenses is just not very good.
That's their identity.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They don't do anything at a good level consistently enough.
And they had the big sack totals, right, They had
the big sack numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
A couple of different times.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It almost felt like they would come in bunches where
they would find something that they could exploit and then
just do it, do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Whether it was.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Rutgers, right, Nebraska, what do they have nine sacks?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Michigan State?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
They had a bunch in the first half, but then
like if that wasn't working, teams figured out how to
shut that faucet off apparently, right, that's how they were
being a productive defense. Earlier in the season, you could
say they were a good pressure team. They're figuring out
a way to get pressure too many times. And we
saw it again yesterday. They tried sending pressure and it
(11:10):
didn't matter. And even the whatever after they went up
twenty eight to thirteen, they tried to send a pressure.
I think Carter Menz was like a step away from
a sack, which would have been nice, and instead it's
a forty yard game in Northwestern's rolling again. So they don't.
They don't have an identity. It doesn't seem like I
don't I know that they didn't rush very well. Then
(11:32):
they've tried to play coverage well when John Nester's hurt.
They don't have great cover guys, right, he's been their
best cover guy. He's not available yesterday, and so they're
playing kind of a mishmash of people of Zaekwon Bryan
who's been banged up in Bengo McMillan, who's fifty years old,
and then a bunch of young guys who are pass
interfering for no reason on balls that aren't even close
(11:55):
to being caught. So that's my long winted answer is
they just don't. They don't have an identity defensively that
you can consistently hang your hat on every single week.
And PJ, I'm sure he talked about it with you,
he talked about it with me. Said, we're eleven games
into this thing and we still don't we still don't
have things we can consistently do all the time, right,
(12:17):
And that's all phases. But defensively, you just you never
know what you're going to be able to count on.
And that's why every quarterback, including a guy who, as
you mentioned, was not very good at times coming into
this year and had a bunch of turnover worthy plays.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
One of your favorite.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Stats, that's how he goes fifteen to fifteen in the
second half for a million yards and a million touchdowns.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Did that answer your question?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah? Other than that, the play seems like it was
pretty good, Missus Lincoln, Yeah goodness, Yeah. Yeah. Preston Stone,
you mentioned his name, the Northwestern quarterback. He had been
completing fifty five percent of his throws in Big Ten play,
hadn't surpassed two hundred yards in any of those, So
what does he do against this Golden Gopher defense? He
throws for three hundred and five, doesn't miss a pass
(13:06):
in the second half, completes eighty three percent of his
passes for two touchdowns in no interceptions. So that means
that the five quarterbacks that this PJ fleck led team
on the road this season faced completed seventy seven percent
of their passes for an average of about two hundred
and eighty yards per game, eleven passing, touchdowns, no interceptions.
(13:30):
Every Gopher quarterback, whether it was potentially a Heisman finalist,
which I guess Dante More could potentially be, or we'll
see what Julian say. It ends up being to Preston
Stone and Mark Gronowski, who are not exactly had been
lighting it up against non Minnesota. Minnesota defenses just continue
(13:53):
to turn into what is ever the reincarnation of your
favorite Big ten quarterback and it's just I mean, that's
where the discussion goes is because you and I now
again halfway into this segment, can't even figure out what
the identity is. It comes back to what does Fleck
decide to do with the defense they don't do anything well?
(14:15):
And how much of it is on Danny Collins, how
much of it is on a lot of recruiting misses
from their twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three high
school recruiting classes that should be red shirt sophomores to
red shirt seniors, how much of it is on the
portal wifs that they have had. You mentioned John Nester,
he's been a hit for them, But you brought in
(14:35):
three defensive linemen from the portal that we're supposed to
give you snaps two of them haven't really given you
anything all season. And then Rushawn Lawrence played sub ten
snaps yesterday. You're without Devin Williams yesterday, who's your leading tackler,
And yeah, that sucks, but you brought in an Oklahoma
State linebacker from the portal who started for them last year.
(14:57):
Yet you elected to start a freshman in his play
and give him a career high and snaps. And he
was part of the issues in the run fit and
they were picking on him quite a bit. And Roberson
didn't even really play. And then you get to the
corner spot where you mentioned, and Nester isn't able to
go in this one. You bring in another corner from
the transfer portal. He doesn't even play in this game.
(15:17):
And you've got already a freshman out there. You've got
Zekwon Bryan who's banged up. You mentioned what I wish
was my nickname, and Bingo McMillan, I don't how come again?
You You often tell me we don't get to pick
our nicknames, But I would love if Bingo at any
point would have stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Bingo burns. We could make that happen.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, we don't get to pick our nicknames. But like
that's where it's not just one thing for this defense.
It's really not or even how Anthony Smith, Minnesota's best player,
has Northwestern men dead to rights at least three times
in the backfield, then he can't get them down on
the ground instead of second and twenty three and seemingly
(15:58):
every time would be a yard completion or a ten
yard scrambled the other way. If your best players aren't
playing well, and they weren't yesterday, I mean, everything is
just going to continue to roll downhill for Danny Collins,
and I feel for him as a first year coordinator,
But at the end of the day, the results are
the results in the amount of busted coverages, busted alignments,
(16:20):
and guys just not making plays. I mean, that just
is not bode well for you at all.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Well, you kind of went through the percentages a little bit,
but what to what do you attribute all of this to?
Is it just recruiting misses, whether it's high school or portal?
Is it guys just aren't playing well?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
They're obviously dealing with some injuries, and a team like
Minnesota is never going to be super deep in the
new era, right There's just not going to be a
lot of guys lining up. I mean how do we
assign the burnsy the bingo burns y pie chart of playing.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I love that. I always love to use it, and
especially as we're now coming up on Thanksgiving time, and
I know that you're a big peek and pie type
of man. I respect that. I respect that about you.
I'm more of an apple pie connoisseur myself. I can
dally in a few different types of Again, I'm a
bigger gentleman. I enjoyed pie. But sure, I think the
(17:15):
way I look at it is the amount of just
guys out of position. There are guys that aren't necessarily
prepared for the moment. It isn't necessarily just Collins. It's
the entire defensive staff. But ultimately heat rises and it's
his staff. Now. He may not have always been the
one who got to pick nine ten months ago who
(17:37):
was going to be on his staff when Corey had
them and bolted for Miami. But this is historically Usually
I should say a PJ. Fleck gets better as the
season has gone and this defense has gotten worse as
the season has gone on. So why is that? That
is a question that Fleck has to answer. Where he
(17:59):
talked about he talks about with me every single week,
and it's one of my favorite things to ask him
is if you try to ask PJ. Fleck a question,
you know this as well as I do. He's going
to bring it back to three things. Is it coaching,
is it scheme, or is it personnel? And I think
from what I watched yesterday at Wrigley Field, I mean,
(18:19):
they turned Wrigley Field into Coors Field with the amount
of points that were being put up on the board,
and how easily that it was, how easy it was
to do essentially anything against the Gopher defense. And guys
have their eyes in the wrong spots, they're not lining
up correctly, the call can't even get in correctly where
ten guys know the call, one guy doesn't, and then
(18:40):
it's a forty yard game. I think there's got to
be that Sunday meeting. So today's meeting with them with
the defensive staff. I mean, it's probably going to be
one of the longest days of Dating Collins's life as
they try to figure out, all right, if you are
going to be remaining remaining on here, what is going
(19:02):
to change when a Wisconsin team comes to town who's
playing with a ton of confidence. It just beat Illinois
by three scores their senior day. I mean, they're not
much of a competent passing offense. But I've said that
about how many teams now in the last two months,
and the gofers make them look like the next reincarnation
of your guy Adam Weber out here. So it's it's
(19:24):
a tough conversation. And I don't know what Fleck does,
but this defense, I mean, it is just at a
point where if you can't even get guys lining up correctly,
I mean, that just brings me back to that twenty
eighteen season, that twenty seventeen season, and that's a very
tough spot to be.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Adam Weber, by the way, in attendance yesterday, was on
a six am flight out of Minneapolis to come watch
in one of his former towns, Chicago. He spent some
time there before moving back, so a lot of former players,
a lot of fans were there at Wrigley.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
That's the other thing I was thinking about.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
We've talked about it every week, Burnsey, and I'm jumping
around here a little bit because why not We've got
one more show of these like.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
This next week after the Wisconsin game. So let's get weird.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
We've talked every after every road game about how great
the crowd was, and how how much Gopher fans are traveling,
and how much fun they're having, how much fun Tod be?
How much did we talk about Oregon last week? This
show are on par and a spare. And if you
were one of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of
(20:28):
Gopher fans, I hope you enjoyed your friends on the
road this year, because I know you could. You could
have enjoyed some aspects of yesterday's game, and we'll talk
about those. Because Drake Lindsay was great. How about a
contested catch or two from a wide receiver. I'm sure
you were almost falling down in that freezing cold Wriggleyfield
press box. But if you were one of the thousands
(20:49):
of fans that either went to Berkeley or went to Columbus,
or went to Eugene or braved it down in Kinnick,
who am I forgetting besides Wriglely, I think I got
most of them. I hope you enjoyed the fellowship because
the football, the football was not not much fun, was it?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
No?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And they end the season on the road being outscored
by I believe overall one hundred and ten points. I
mean it is just something to where we got to
go to a lot of different cool places. You get
to as you said, you start in Berkeley, you got
to see the San Francisco area, you got to see Eugene.
I mean, at least it was we didn't get to
(21:30):
have to go see Bloomington, Indiana, or West Lafayette or
who could forget the nightmare of travel that is the
happy valley that we get to go see next year.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah. I feel for these fans because you and I
get to go to each one of these games, and
again we get to do it as our work, and
we're very blessed and fortunate for that. But for those
people who just went out to try and have fun
at one of these games, especially a game like yesterday,
where I think you and I would agree if you
were to have told us that Minnesota scores thirty five points,
(22:00):
it had been like they run away with that game easily.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, And the stats bear it.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Out where if you look at just in the Fleck
tenure alone, just in the Fleck tenure prior to yesterday
or prior to yeah, yesterday's game, when Minnesota had scored
thirty five points or more in the Fleck tenure, they
were twenty one and one, and they were thirteen and
one in Big Ten play. That same one was the
twenty twenty Maryland game where Who could Forget he missed
(22:27):
extra point in overtime saw them. It was forty five
to forty four.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
But even if you say, yeah, the COVID year, and
even if.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
You want to take out the COVID year and you
don't think it's a great accurate representation, the unfortunate thing
is that would be that loss yesterday would be the
first loss in fifteen years that the Gophers have had
when scoring thirty five or more points. That was back
when Who Could Forget Tim Brewster lost to South Dakota.
(22:55):
Was that the game forty one to thirty eight. So
it's seemingly anything that can go wrong does go wrong
for the Gophers on the road. They cannot figure out
a way to play complimentary football for sixty minutes. They
start the game incredibly slow. Again, then they put their
foot on the gas pedal, then they don't put their
foot on the gas pedal. Then they come all the
way back and then they just can't get it done
(23:17):
at the end.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Final question for this segment, and we'll talk about the
offense and special teams, because I'm sure you have thoughts
and feelings about that as well. In our second segment
with Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot com, what did
you make of the move of Danny Collins down to
the sideline for the first time. He has been a
press box coach for every second as a coordinator, right
(23:39):
when he was a position coach. He was down on
the field with me and I didn't even we didn't
even notice him.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I don't know if you did.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
We didn't even notice him until the second quarter. And
part of it was because that was the only time
that the defense finally wasn't on the field. They were
on the field for the entire first quarter, and it
was you know, I'm behind the bench most of the
time and I can't really see through what's going on there.
And then all of a sudden, I said, what's Danny
Collins doing down here? So what did you make of
that move?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
What have you learned about that move in the interim
since the game?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Well, I'm so glad you asked, because as in astudent
media jackal than I am. That was one of my
questions to the head coach afterwards, was why why was
he down there? I noticed it from the first from
the first play, because I just was looking down on
the field and I was like, that's the defensive corner.
That's interesting. Yeah, And the explanation I got from Fleck
was some of it was baseball stadium related where the
(24:28):
sitelines may not have been as good. But then he
also got long witted and talked about how and in
his words quote especially some of the guys that were
going to be playing today, we felt like him being
down on the field would probably be a little bit better,
especially on the back end end quote. So I think
more of it was just about trying to coach up
(24:48):
the guys on the sidelines that we're going to be
playing in this game. Obviously, results would tell you that
that almost made it potentially worse from the way that
that game went. But if you are moving guys from
the press box to the sideline, you already know if
things aren't going well, and the head coach is trying
to spark some type of change, and for that change
(25:12):
to not necessarily be a positive thing, is not a
great sign.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
All right, let's pause here.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
When we come back, we'll talk a little bit about
the offense, which, once it got going, was pretty good yesterday.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And Drake Lindsay was very good. Javon Tracy was very good.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Lemecky Brockington helped out, Darius Taylor had some moments. Thirty
five points in a Big Ten game should be enough.
We'll talk about how they got there and it. Burnsy
kind of hinted at it as well. The slow start
yet again, another season long issue that they have not
been able to crack. All of that, and maybe a
quick look around the Big Ten as well. When we
wrap up the show with another segment with Ryan Burns
(25:46):
from Gopher Illustrated dot Com. That's coming up next right
here on the fan final segment of Go for Football Sunday. Here,
it's Guardsy and Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot Com
joining on the Connecticut Water Systems Hotline. Sunday Sermons with
Dan Burri Barow immediately follows us at nine o'clock, and
then we've got Vikings coverage the rest of the day.
It is a border battle. It is Vikings and Packers
(26:07):
from Lambeau. That kickoff is at noon, so before we
turn it over and you know, paint the town purple,
as we say, a couple of more minutes to talk
about the Gophers lost yesterday at Wrigley Field thirty eight
to thirty five. Let's start with the slow start again,
Burnsey offensively, where they're down double digits again and they've
only run three plays right, Northwestern scores a touchdown, Gophers
(26:30):
go three and out, Northwestern tax on a field goal,
and here we are again. You know PJ talks about
starting fast. Everyone knows he talks about starting fast. Every
coach wants to start fast. I know it was emphasized
again this week to start fast. Why have they not
been able to start fast in really any game not
named Northwestern State with a pick six on the first play,
(26:53):
and that was not a real game, so that one
doesn't count. Why have they frequently found themselves down doubled
digits before most people have even had their second beer.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
I wish I knew the answer to that question. It's
a great question, one I continually asked the offensive coordinator,
defensive coordinator, and the head coach every week. And if
you want to look at specifically just the first offensive
drive yesterday. Well, you get him to a third one
and then your receiver, yeah, false start. I mean, you
cannot have a receiver false starting at any level right
(27:27):
late in season in the Big Ten. And then Northwestern
gets home on a three man rush on third and
six where Drake takes the snap, he gets three seconds
and then he's got somebody in his lap and he
gets sat So, I mean, I think it's just mental errors.
It's just missed execution. If I were to have just
told you a receiver false started and then you have
(27:47):
five guys to block three and they get home within
three point five seconds, seemingly is to me about the
story of the season for the offense, which if they
can just protect Drake Lindsay and keep Darius Taylor upright
in that same respect, they've been able to find success
more times than not. And it's unfortunate in a day where, again,
Drake Lindsay, I would argue you had one of his
(28:10):
best games, especially in Big Ten play, where you look
at his statistics, he completes sixty six percent of his
passes for two hundred and sixty plus yards four touchdowns.
I mean, he was making the throws. You know, my
favorite stat that I always reference on this show every
week is contested catches.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
That's why it's Bingo Burnsey because there's a Ryan Burns
Bingo that we have to play every week. So I
think the Bingo nickname that we talked about last segment
is going to stick. But contested catches, I Javon Tracy
made a couple of them, and I thought of you
every single time, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Well, look some of us have to play the hits.
You know. That's how we continue to get to go
on tour year after year on the show is I
know what the hits are and I got to stick
to the hits.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, crowd wants it.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah. But Javon Tracy had his best game three touchdowns,
and I think all of them were essentially contested catches.
You saw Malachi Coleman make his most impactful play in
a Gopher uniform where he catches that long bomb from
Drake Lindsay. I would have loved to have seen him
attack the football on the first one like he did
the second one. But that was also a theme yesterday
(29:17):
kind of with Greg Harbow in this passing offense, was
it felt like they called that game as aggressively as
we've seen agree, especially in recent weeks. I think Fleck
knew that his defense wasn't much good. And so even
from the first touchdown drive where they go for an
un fourth and goal, Darius gets the pitch out they
run to the pylon. Drake Lindsay has a twelve plus
(29:40):
a dots on the day, again a dot average depth
of target. So on thirty throws, his average throw down
the field was over twelve yards.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
That's the opposite of the Michigan State game, right, I mean,
wasn't the Michigan State game like five?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, that's what it felt like.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So anyway, I mean again, they knew that they had
to be aggressive, and that was part of the issue
yesterday was they scored thirty five points. They only ran
forty eight to forty nine plays because they were never
on the field, and that was the whole thing is
So you get the final touchdown drive where you tie
it up at thirty five apiece. And I wrote about
this afterwards on go f Illustrated dot com. It felt
(30:19):
like the Penn State game from last year all over again,
where you give the ball back to the opponent, there's
eight minutes and twenty seconds left on the clock and
Fleck has all three timeouts. Yep, what happens. You don't
give the ball back to your offense until there's forty
five seconds left on the clock and you have no
timeouts left. You gave them every opportunity to get off
(30:44):
the field, get a stop. There's a second and twenty
one on that final drive for a Northwestern where guess
what your best player, your star player, Anthony Smith lines
up off sides.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Huge penalty, huge penalty because that was the only income. Yeah,
go ahead, this.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Is only a completion. It would have been third and
twenty one instead of second and sixteen. Gets to third
and ten. I mean, I'm sitting up in the press box.
You're thinking it down on the field. Third and ten.
Just get off the field and they can't execute on
zone coverage. I mean, if you were to have told
me again the defense has goes back onto the field,
eight minutes, twenty seconds left, all three timeouts, I'm thinking
(31:24):
to myself, Yeah, of course the offense is going to
get an actual shot, right. They didn't get an actual
shot even with Koy Parritch giving the ball dang near midfield.
I mean we also saw at the end of the
game there that I mean, Fleck alects not to clock
it and he allows to take a shot at the
end zone which was past interference that wasn't called r
(31:46):
I don't know why they ended up not throwing the
flag there or even they challenge it, which was an
interesting thing that put time back on the clock from
one to three seconds. But again, thirty five points in
the Big Ten game. Yeah, they got some advantageous field
position for once, thanks to Koy Parritch and the special team.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
So right, that's supposed to be part of the equation.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It's supposed to be and I've heard it for now
for nine years. It's supposed to be complimentary football here
at the University of Minnesota. And then the offense would
compliment the special teams field position that they gave them.
But when the team needed the defense most on that
final drive, they just were like what they've been the
last three weeks. They can't find a way to get
(32:32):
off the field or god forbid they get a turnover,
because now that's I mean, we continue to search for
anything positive with the defense, but just no takeaways yet
again again, Matt Kingsbury has one go right through his hands,
and not only does it not go into his hands,
it goes into the Northwestern receiver's hands. Or Koy Parritch
(32:54):
runs fifty yards down the field, knocks out the football.
It immediately goes out of bounds. Sometimes that's the way
the ball bounces. But I'm also a big believer, and
you just make your own luck, and this defense needs
to start to compliment this team.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Well, you mentioned them getting the ball back with eight
plus minutes left and the Gophers not being able to
get him back, and there were so many opportunities, So
just make one play. Just you're looking for one play
to just get your offense to ball back on the
flip side as we're waiting for the never ending trip
back from Chicago, which is I think added a little
(33:29):
bit to my salt on the entire weekend in general.
I'm watching Iowa be down seventeen to ten score to
tie it up at seventeen with less than two minutes left,
and somehow get the ball back in that one minute
and x amount of seconds time to make their one
play that they need to make a crazy catch by
(33:52):
a guy who probably wasn't going to be recruited by
August Stana in the two Falls era area, but somehow
is a star in the Big ten because that's just
what Iowa does.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And they kick a field goal with time, Like I'm
not watching the game.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I'm talking with people who are like on the plane,
and I said, how did I already lose? Is overtime already?
How did I will win as overtime? I already know
they got the ball back in regulation? I said, got
the ball back in regulation? They scored with like one
fifty left and they only had two timeouts, Like, how
did that happen?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Well?
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And incomplete and a couple of timeouts and you get
the ball back. But that's why that eight minute bit,
And I was thinking it the whole time because of
how they had controlled Northwestern, had controlled the clock. I
don't really have a question for this part of it, Burnssey.
It was just that was such a microcosm of like
how Iowa wins games and how the Gophers of lost
games this year. Was like, they got the ball back
(34:42):
somehow with less than two minutes left after being down
ten in the fourth quarter, and that's just what happens.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It's just the craziest thing.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Well, look, we're here to be a therapeutic davenport of
love for you, for me, for the listeners, for all
those people who watched that game yesterday, and a frustrated
I'm frustrated I covered the team. You're frustrated you cover
the team, and to see Iowa continue to have the
voodoo magic of Kinnick. Where in what world other than
Kinnick magic are you going to find a way to
(35:13):
win that game? Now? It also helps to have a
kicker who can make field goals from forty plus yards,
which I think is about to from the look on
your face, Lee is going to lead us into another discussion.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Well, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I mean that you've been saying this for a long time, right,
I mean really all off season you were saying, is
this really the plan? Is this really what they're going
to do? Because you know the numbers, You looked at
the numbers, and because most games had not come down
to this, it hasn't really reared its head, right. He's
(35:47):
made some kicks in other games this year, obviously, but
not like the super crazy pressure ones. And this first
miss yesterday was like why it isn't even a description
of it, unfortunately, And I know the second one was
a little bit closer. But that's it's unfortunate that you
were as prophetic as you were when it came to that,
(36:10):
because there's you can simplify it to right there, there's
your ballgame, right those two miskicks.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
I think that's an astute observation. And you once told me,
because one of your favorite bands is Smash Moude, that
I may not be the sharpest tool on the shed.
But it's I could not believe all offseason that they
just elected to look at the at the transfer kicker
market and say, you know what we're gonna do. We're
(36:37):
just gonna go get a guy who worked with our
special teams coordinator. And I know the stats would tell
you he's three of nine in his career from forty plus,
but you know what, guards he We know better, we
can fix him. And guess what. Now, eleven games into
the season, with two games left, he is now two
of seven from forty plus yards. You mentioned his first
(37:00):
kick into the third baseline wide, write I don't think
does it justice? And then unfortunately for him from forty
with all of the pressure in the world on him,
it starts left, stays left in Minnesota. Does it get
a chance in overtime, and to not have a viable
kicker from forty plus after you struggled again last year
(37:22):
with Dragon Kessige in twenty twenty three Big Ten Kicker
of the Year twenty twenty four. Nobody misses more kicks
in the Big Ten than Dragon Kassich, which is unfortunate.
And to now not have any ability to make a
forty yard field goal with any faith. You're two of seven.
I mean it it is I talked. I mean you
said it like I talked about it all off season.
(37:43):
I'm asking people over at the GOP Football Complex and
am I crazy here that you just have this blind
faith that you can have this reclamation project and fix him?
And they told me you're going to see and I
think I may have I guess better foresight than they
do on something like that. And look, if it's up
to me at this point, you've got two games left,
(38:06):
why not give the kid from Alexandria Football Cross Minnesota's
own Daniel Jackson his shot from forty plus. Denaberg has
proved himself from thirty nine and in great but two
of seven for forty plus after being three of nine before.
How much more data do we need to see that
that's just not going to be an option. We were
(38:27):
waiting for the game it was going to cost Minnesota.
Well here you go.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
It's interesting and this is going to be an offseason
discussion topic for sure. And we talked a little bit
about it on Pair and to spare this past week.
But for whatever the reason, and they might say it's money,
they might say it's financial stuff and they still got
to figure out yep, you know, revenue sharing and nil
and all of that. We talked a lot about that
on Pair and a spare this week. But I think
(38:54):
we're we're living with a lot of portal decisions right now. Right,
you mentioned the kicker, you mentioned secondary members, We've talked
about offensive line. There almost needs to be I know
it's not a perfect science, but portal recruiting should almost
be more perfect than high school recruiting. Right, You would
think the percentages should help you a little bit. And
(39:16):
whether it's taking guys that have injury history, like they've
done that on both lines, right, that's been an issue.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
It's almost like.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
They really need I don't want to overreact to one year,
but that's a big part of this season's story, right,
the issues that we've talked about all season long. A
lot of them have to do with decisions for whatever
reason they were made in the portal coming back to
bite them.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Is that a fair representation?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I think so. I mean, I think you can certainly
point to their portal hits of like Benjamin Saint Juis,
Chris Williamson, Jack Gibbons.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
For sure, and Max Brosmer.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Yeah. Absolutely, but you also can look at the season
and say, well, the right side of the offensive line
is just a complete liability to where finally we saw
them put in Tracy Minnesota's own Tony Nelson for the
final ten snaps of the game and replace the transfer
who had been there at right guard. I mean, I
talked about it in the first segment. You bring in
three transfer defensive linemen and they played I think it
(40:20):
combined seven snaps yesterday, and two of them haven't played
a single big ten snap all year. Like portal recruiting
is hard, it is because you have a lot of
data in terms of I guess college film, or maybe
not as much college film, but you're trying to figure
out why they're leaving their program. Was it work ethic,
(40:40):
was it just some type of issue with a coach
was it trying to go from the group of five
to the big ten. There's a lot of different reasons,
and every single recruitment is different. I'll be the first
one to tell you every single tea every single year,
and I've done this now for fifteen years. The priorities
for a kid are different from kid to kid. But
(41:02):
that's where I look at this team and I'm like, yeah,
the portal misses. I mean they're very apparent of you
know why flex trying to tell the media after the game.
You know, they're very young and experience in different spots. Well,
part of that is because you whiffed in high school
recruiting in twenty one to twenty three. So the guys
who should be third, fourth and fifth year guys in
the program either are no longer here or they're just
(41:24):
not your best option at that point, which means you
whift And then the guys who were brought in to
raise the floor from the portal, I mean, there's just
not enough hits. And that's where that's got to be
the thing that I think Fleck in this staff look
in the mirror about, is all right, what do we
change with our portal recruiting process, with our high school
(41:47):
recruiting process. Even though I think, particularly this high school
class that they have committed, I feel pretty strongly about
that this is one of Fleck's better classes. Yeah, that's great,
but they are likely not going to help you until
twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, and this team needs
an inflection or an influx of talent here in the
(42:07):
short term. So whether that's looking at whatever Marcus Hendrickson
and his staff are trying to do in terms of
portal evaluation, I think after a loss like we saw yesterday,
there needs to be a lot of self a lot
of looking in the mirror and saying what can I
do better? I know that Fleck and his you know,
his staff also point to that. You know, they don't
(42:29):
get probably a ton of support at times from administration.
And I'll be the first to tell you the University
of Minnesota is sixteenth in the Big Ten and athletics
spending out of eighteen teams. Now, they're only fourteenth in revenue.
But when you look across college football, even here in
the last week, Wisconsin has come out and their boosters
have said we're gonna, you know, with keeping Luke Fickel.
(42:52):
We're going to be throwing X y Z million into
the whatever they are spending on players. You've got Mike
Loxley at Maryland getting a vote of confidence in their
administration saying, guess what our boosters and us, we're really
going to support football. Yep, you know there's got to
be some type because at the end of the day,
with football, especially in the Big Ten, I mean, if
(43:13):
you just can't even be in the same swimming pool
as some of these teams, it's tough to go out
to the deep end if you can't take the water
wings off. So whether that is just trying to find
a way to get more money for the football program,
there's a lot of different avenues to explore and that
makes it a very complex topic. I'll be the first
(43:34):
to tell you that. But with a Wisconsin team coming
in with a lot of energy and a lot of confidence,
I mean, yeah, being able to keep the ax in
Dickey Town, especially if your defense just continues to be
a no show, it's going to be a dogfight on
Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Water wings, you just remind me I have to pack
them for the Bahamas.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
So thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
With women's basketball in the Bahamas the next couple of days. Lastly,
you just mentioned it, Wisconsin would love nothing more than
to come in here and take the ax back right
after the season that they've had and the stress that
that program has been under and that head coach has
been under. And we've talked about it all year on
Parentis Spear. I've marveled at AFAR and how quickly outside
(44:14):
forces in Wisconsin can basically just tear down their program
from within, even though that just makes no sense what
I'm saying, I actually feel pretty good for Luke Fickle
and the guys that have hung with it, because I
haven't liked a lot of the stuff that I've seen
from AFAR over there, just in terms of overall supporting
of a coach. Don't have time to get into all that.
But what do we need to know about this Badger
(44:35):
club that must be feeling pretty good when their old coach,
Brett Bulmo was just in Camp Randall and left with
a seventeen point l and as a ranked team.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah, we're talking about a Badger offense that finally put
up twenty four to twenty seven points. They they put
up over three hundred total yards for the first time
since Week two. Since Week two, they had dan near
gone two and a half months without putting up that
many total yards in a game. In the Wisconsin offense
is on i think fourth or fifth quarterback. They're playing
(45:06):
a true freshman there. They're very banged up everywhere there's
for this current iteration of Wisconsin. They are defensive. Their
defense is their strength, and you look at what they've
been able to do defensively, I think here in the
last month, month and a half they are much improved Defensively.
They are very physical, and that's where I mean Greg
(45:28):
Harbow's unit is going to have to do the heavy
lifting because even with Wisconsin's offensive struggles and it looks
like it's going to be a chillier type of game
next weekend here in Minneapolis, we'll see highs in the
twenties and thirties potentially. So who wants to be there?
This is a Minnesota team that just lost in spectacular
(45:49):
fashion at Wrigley Field. They got blown out off the
bye week against Oregon. What do you have left in
the tank? Because this is a Wisconsin team again, They're
not going to be in a bowl game. They don't
have anything other than they want to get the ax
back for their Super Bowl. You better come ready to play,
You better come play with a lot of physicality, and
(46:11):
there's got to be at least some light at the
end of the tunnel that the defense against. Like I said,
Wisconsin put up three hundred and one total yards against Illinois,
three hundred and one for the first time since Week two.
If they're ever a team to quote unquote get right against,
it is this Wisconsin offense. But what faith do you
(46:32):
have that the Gopher defense is capable. That's going to
be the question we talk about all week.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
We will do that on Tuesday on Parren Sperr. I
know you've got go for Gridiron coming up a little
bit later. Thank you, Burnsy, have a great Thanksgiving too.
I'm sure this audience wishes you well on that. And
we will talk to you next Sunday morning at eight fifteen.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
We'll save you a slice of peek and pie.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
That is Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot com and
that is Gopher Football Sunday.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
We're done for today.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
It'll be podcasted later Dan Barrero and Sunday Sermons has
come up up next right here on the fan
Welcome into the sixty five to one Carpets plus studio.
This is Gopher Football Sunday. I'm justin guard. We are
here until nine o'clock when we hand it over to
Sunday Sermons. If you're new to the program, what we
do on Sundays is try to carve out an hour
for some Gopher discussion before we basically paint the town purple.
And with today's border battle at Lambeau coming up just afternoon,
(00:21):
there's going to be a lot of Vikings discussions. So
this hour is for the Gopher fan, unfortunately or fortunately,
depending on how you view it. Today we are discussing
a thirty eight thirty five loss at Wrigley Field yesterday
to Northwestern. The Gophers are now six and five and
four and four in the Big Ten. Ryan burns from
(00:41):
Gopher Illustrated dot Com is going to make his weekly
appearance coming up next segment. A couple of segments with
Burnssey again today, and this is going to be a
short open because there's a lot I want to get
to with Burnsey. We talk usually about what we like
and what we didn't like. In the first segment of
the show, you can always hit the bratch on Brian
Kfean text line six four six eight six, So you
can also tweet me at Guardsey.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I want to start with something.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I liked, but it's going to immediately dovetail into why
it's even doubly frustrating with how things went down yesterday
as the Gophers end up losing in Northwestern. The like
aspect of it is that Drake Lindsay had a really
good day and the offense as a whole had a
really good day after yet another slow start with I
(01:23):
want to talk to with Burnsey, he had sixty six
percent completion percentage, two hundred and sixty four yards, four touchdowns.
He was thrown it all over the place. He led
a scoring drive before halftime. He had a great throw
off of a turnover and actually got them down the
field in less than thirty seconds. Once Northwestern had retaken
the lead in the final minute. Gave the Gophers a
(01:44):
chance to win the game if they played the clock
a little bit differently, but to at the very least
tie it with the forty yard field goal. As you
probably know, that field goal was missed as time expired
and the Gophers end up losing. It was a great
day for Drake, and it gets wasted because the main
story I'd say seventy five percent of the story yesterday
(02:08):
was the defense and Burnsy And I said on the
pregame show where I phrased it to Burnsy this way.
I felt like yesterday was going to be a test
in terms of is the Gopher defense bad or have
they just run into really good teams on the road
After what Iowa had done to them in Oregon last
week and certainly Ohio State a.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Few weeks ago, this was going to be the litmus test.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Were you going up against great opponents or is your
defense just not very good this year? And unfortunately, if
you're a Gopher fan, and if you're listening to this show,
you probably are, the defense is bad. You score thirty
five points in a Big Ten game, you should win
it nine out of ten times. You score thirty five
points against Northwestern, you should win ten of them. And
(02:52):
the stats bear it out, and the stats are not pretty.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Northwestern's quarterback Preston.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Stone had had a very up and down season up
until this point. His completion percentage was barely over fifty
I think right around fifty five. He hadn't passed for
two hundred passing yards in a Big Ten game, and
yesterday he was anything but the quarterback that we'd seen
all season long. If you've been watching Northwestern football, and
(03:20):
there's no really real reason that you would have been,
he was twenty five to thirty yesterday. That's eighty three
percent used the calculator for that. And he was a
perfect fifteen to fifteen in the second half. Three hundred
and five passing yards, two touchdowns, no picks. The Gophers
had no answer for anything that Northwestern was doing defensively,
and that's that's the story of the game. The offense
(03:42):
played well enough to win. You got contributions from Koy
Perrich on special teams. Obviously, the two missfield goals are
a big thing that we're going to talk about, But
had the defense made one extra stop, you probably win
that game fairly comfortably. Had they made a stop after
you you go up twenty eight to thirteen, after they
beautifully played the middle eighth the last four minutes of
(04:05):
the first half, taken advantage of a turnover in the
first four minutes of the second, you're up twenty eight
to thirteen. You're in great control of things and you
immediately give up another touchdown, offense can't sustain anything. The
next time you give up another touchdown, all of a sudden,
you're in a tie game.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And we know how it finished.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
It was the defense yesterday, and it's a continuation of
a problem that we've talked about a lot on this show,
and unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure how it gets any
better with Wisconsin on the horizon next week.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Northwestern hadn't scored more than twenty two points in a
Big Ten game.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
They got thirty eight yesterday, and we're really able to
control things for much of that game offensively. They had
the ball for twelve and a half minutes in the
first quarter, the Gophers ran three plays. They got the
ball back after the Gophers tied it up at thirty
five with over eight minutes left, and we're able to
run it down to let in a minute left in
(05:00):
the game, converting on thirds and longs, taking advantage of
Gopher penalties, scrambling for it, passing for it. This defense
has just not been good enough for whatever the reason,
and whether it's some injuries that they had yesterday or
some younger players that they had yesterday, whatever the reasons, are. Unfortunately,
they don't matter too much when you lose thirty eight,
(05:23):
thirty five and now are six and five and four
and four in the Big ten. So it was a buzzkill.
One of the things I want to talk to Burnsy
about is we've joked all year said all year, Gopher
fans have done an awesome job of pulling up and
showing up at all these road venues, all the cool
ones that we got to go to. Berkeley had a
good crowd, Columbus had a good crowd, Eugene had a
great crowd.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Iowa City there's always people.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And yesterday at Wrigley the place was ninety percent Gopher fans,
maybe eighty.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It was awesome. It was so cool to be there
and have so many fans there.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It was just a great environment, even though the stadium
was about half full.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And if you've been.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
On all these road trips, the fellowship had to sustain
you because unfortunately the football did not. So we got
a lot to unpack with Burnsy. We're gonna keep it
pretty short in this open here before we hand it
off to Sunday sermons. But HiT's a Bradshawn Brian camfe
in text line six four six eighty six. You can
also tweet me at Guardsey. This is a quick opening
segment because there's a ton I want to get to
(06:19):
with Burnsy before we are done at nine o'clock reviewing
a thirty eight to thirty five go for loss to
Northwestern at Wrigley Field yesterday, with one final regular season
game next Saturday two thirty at Huntington Banks Stadium against
the Wisconsin Badgers coming up, but without further ado, we
will get to Burnsy when we come back. It's go
for football Sunday on the fans.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It's go for football Sunday on the fan. Here in
the sixty five to one carpets plus studios. We are
here until nine o'clock when Dan Barrero takes over for
Sunday sermons. I'm justin guard Don't forget it is Border
Battle Day. I know a lot of people that were
at Wrigley Field yesterday. We're on their way to Lambo
to check out the Vikings and the Packers. Hopefully, if
you're a Minnesota fan, today goes better than yesterday went.
(07:01):
I would take thirty five points from the Vikings offense.
That's what the Gophers got yesterday, But unfortunately, as we
talked about in the first segment, the defense gives up
thirty five. They lose thirty eight to thirty five at
Wrigley at Northwestern. A guy who was there and I
know has some thoughts and feelings about what went wrong.
Is Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot Com making his
weekly appearance on the show here right around eight to fifteen.
(07:23):
He's on the Connecticut Water Systems hotline. How are we doing?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Burnsy?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Have you had enough time to fully process what we
watched at Wrigley Field yesterday?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I don't know if anybody can have enough time truly
to process the ups and downs and ebbs and flows
of what seemingly every Gopher game is whenever they take
the field at this point. But this is one of
these days. Guards you where we're here because we said
we would. Yeah, And there's a lot to dive into,
specifically on the defensive side of the football.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And this is kind of like the coltrip where we're
finding a way to get the show done. I'm not
doing it on you know, the jet bridge like we
did in Berkeley. But people can figure out if all
of a sudden, I magically appear in the Bahamas a
little bit later today.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
How I got there, why I'm there, and what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And I know everybody feels bad for me, so feel
free to keep texting all your hatred to six four
six eighty six. I will not be seeing it. I
will not be seeing it. And that's all I can
say about that. We got to talk about the defense,
right because they got essentially one stop right in the
(08:29):
second quarter that allowed them to then score before halftime
and then come in and even though the offense was
three and out the first possession of the third, you
had the muff punt. They go to Javon Tracy right
away after that. That's the only stop. And I'm using
quotation marks that I can remember Burnsy late in the
second quarter, unless I'm missing one, I know there was
(08:52):
another kneel down maybe or a play where they technically
didn't score. But the Gophers extended the lead to twenty
eight to thirteen, and and I'm pretty sure Northwestern scored
the rest of the way. So what do we need
to talk about with the defense?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I just think yesterday's performance continued on the theme of
the Gopher defense here for essentially the last month hasn't
been shown up. And it started in that Michigan State
game where it felt like they were putting lipstick on
a pig in some aspects where they only allowed twenty points,
but they allowed four hundred and sixty seven total yards.
(09:25):
It didn't come back to bite them in that game. Well,
then last week out in Eugene, you get five hundred
and ten put on you and the starting defense doesn't
force a punt the entire game, six touchdowns and then
the takeaway. And then in Chicago yesterday, five hundred and
twenty five yards allowed to Northwestern, who hadn't scored more
(09:46):
than twenty two points in a Big ten game. They
put up thirty eight. And I would tell you without
really any resistance at any point, and that just continues.
This trend of is what is the identity of this
go for defense? And I'll pose that question to you.
Where they don't get takeaways, They have one defensive takeaway
(10:07):
in their last five games, They have forced one punt
as a starting defense, and have allowed ten touchdowns in
the last two games. They don't get pressure. So let
me before I continue to steal all the thunder that
there may be out there for, I'll give the four
to you.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
The identity of the defenses is just not very good.
That's their identity.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They don't do anything at a good level consistently enough.
And they had the big sack totals, right, They had
the big sack numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
A couple of different times.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It almost felt like they would come in bunches where
they would find something that they could exploit and then
just do it, do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Whether it was.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Rutgers, right, Nebraska, what do they have nine sacks?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Michigan State?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
They had a bunch in the first half, but then
like if that wasn't working, teams figured out how to
shut that faucet off apparently, right, that's how they were
being a productive defense. Earlier in the season, you could
say they were a good pressure team. They're figuring out
a way to get pressure too many times. And we
saw it again yesterday. They tried sending pressure and it
(11:10):
didn't matter. And even the whatever after they went up
twenty eight to thirteen, they tried to send a pressure.
I think Carter Menz was like a step away from
a sack, which would have been nice, and instead it's
a forty yard game in Northwestern's rolling again. So they don't.
They don't have an identity. It doesn't seem like I
don't I know that they didn't rush very well. Then
(11:32):
they've tried to play coverage well when John Nester's hurt.
They don't have great cover guys, right, he's been their
best cover guy. He's not available yesterday, and so they're
playing kind of a mishmash of people of Zaekwon Bryan
who's been banged up in Bengo McMillan, who's fifty years old,
and then a bunch of young guys who are pass
interfering for no reason on balls that aren't even close
(11:55):
to being caught. So that's my long winted answer is
they just don't. They don't have an identity defensively that
you can consistently hang your hat on every single week.
And PJ, I'm sure he talked about it with you,
he talked about it with me. Said, we're eleven games
into this thing and we still don't we still don't
have things we can consistently do all the time, right,
(12:17):
And that's all phases. But defensively, you just you never
know what you're going to be able to count on.
And that's why every quarterback, including a guy who, as
you mentioned, was not very good at times coming into
this year and had a bunch of turnover worthy plays.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
One of your favorite.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Stats, that's how he goes fifteen to fifteen in the
second half for a million yards and a million touchdowns.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Did that answer your question?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah? Other than that, the play seems like it was
pretty good, Missus Lincoln, Yeah goodness, Yeah. Yeah. Preston Stone,
you mentioned his name, the Northwestern quarterback. He had been
completing fifty five percent of his throws in Big Ten play,
hadn't surpassed two hundred yards in any of those, So
what does he do against this Golden Gopher defense? He
throws for three hundred and five, doesn't miss a pass
(13:06):
in the second half, completes eighty three percent of his
passes for two touchdowns in no interceptions. So that means
that the five quarterbacks that this PJ fleck led team
on the road this season faced completed seventy seven percent
of their passes for an average of about two hundred
and eighty yards per game, eleven passing, touchdowns, no interceptions.
(13:30):
Every Gopher quarterback, whether it was potentially a Heisman finalist,
which I guess Dante More could potentially be, or we'll
see what Julian say. It ends up being to Preston
Stone and Mark Gronowski, who are not exactly had been
lighting it up against non Minnesota. Minnesota defenses just continue
(13:53):
to turn into what is ever the reincarnation of your
favorite Big ten quarterback and it's just I mean, that's
where the discussion goes is because you and I now
again halfway into this segment, can't even figure out what
the identity is. It comes back to what does Fleck
decide to do with the defense they don't do anything well?
(14:15):
And how much of it is on Danny Collins, how
much of it is on a lot of recruiting misses
from their twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three high
school recruiting classes that should be red shirt sophomores to
red shirt seniors, how much of it is on the
portal wifs that they have had. You mentioned John Nester,
he's been a hit for them, But you brought in
(14:35):
three defensive linemen from the portal that we're supposed to
give you snaps two of them haven't really given you
anything all season. And then Rushawn Lawrence played sub ten
snaps yesterday. You're without Devin Williams yesterday, who's your leading tackler,
And yeah, that sucks, but you brought in an Oklahoma
State linebacker from the portal who started for them last year.
(14:57):
Yet you elected to start a freshman in his play
and give him a career high and snaps. And he
was part of the issues in the run fit and
they were picking on him quite a bit. And Roberson
didn't even really play. And then you get to the
corner spot where you mentioned, and Nester isn't able to
go in this one. You bring in another corner from
the transfer portal. He doesn't even play in this game.
(15:17):
And you've got already a freshman out there. You've got
Zekwon Bryan who's banged up. You mentioned what I wish
was my nickname, and Bingo McMillan, I don't how come again?
You You often tell me we don't get to pick
our nicknames, But I would love if Bingo at any
point would have stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Bingo burns. We could make that happen.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, we don't get to pick our nicknames. But like
that's where it's not just one thing for this defense.
It's really not or even how Anthony Smith, Minnesota's best player,
has Northwestern men dead to rights at least three times
in the backfield, then he can't get them down on
the ground instead of second and twenty three and seemingly
(15:58):
every time would be a yard completion or a ten
yard scrambled the other way. If your best players aren't
playing well, and they weren't yesterday, I mean, everything is
just going to continue to roll downhill for Danny Collins,
and I feel for him as a first year coordinator,
But at the end of the day, the results are
the results in the amount of busted coverages, busted alignments,
(16:20):
and guys just not making plays. I mean, that just
is not bode well for you at all.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Well, you kind of went through the percentages a little bit,
but what to what do you attribute all of this to?
Is it just recruiting misses, whether it's high school or portal?
Is it guys just aren't playing well?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
They're obviously dealing with some injuries, and a team like
Minnesota is never going to be super deep in the
new era, right There's just not going to be a
lot of guys lining up. I mean how do we
assign the burnsy the bingo burns y pie chart of playing.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I love that. I always love to use it, and
especially as we're now coming up on Thanksgiving time, and
I know that you're a big peek and pie type
of man. I respect that. I respect that about you.
I'm more of an apple pie connoisseur myself. I can
dally in a few different types of Again, I'm a
bigger gentleman. I enjoyed pie. But sure, I think the
(17:15):
way I look at it is the amount of just
guys out of position. There are guys that aren't necessarily
prepared for the moment. It isn't necessarily just Collins. It's
the entire defensive staff. But ultimately heat rises and it's
his staff. Now. He may not have always been the
one who got to pick nine ten months ago who
(17:37):
was going to be on his staff when Corey had
them and bolted for Miami. But this is historically Usually
I should say a PJ. Fleck gets better as the
season has gone and this defense has gotten worse as
the season has gone on. So why is that? That
is a question that Fleck has to answer. Where he
(17:59):
talked about he talks about with me every single week,
and it's one of my favorite things to ask him
is if you try to ask PJ. Fleck a question,
you know this as well as I do. He's going
to bring it back to three things. Is it coaching,
is it scheme, or is it personnel? And I think
from what I watched yesterday at Wrigley Field, I mean,
(18:19):
they turned Wrigley Field into Coors Field with the amount
of points that were being put up on the board,
and how easily that it was, how easy it was
to do essentially anything against the Gopher defense. And guys
have their eyes in the wrong spots, they're not lining
up correctly, the call can't even get in correctly where
ten guys know the call, one guy doesn't, and then
(18:40):
it's a forty yard game. I think there's got to
be that Sunday meeting. So today's meeting with them with
the defensive staff. I mean, it's probably going to be
one of the longest days of Dating Collins's life as
they try to figure out, all right, if you are
going to be remaining remaining on here, what is going
(19:02):
to change when a Wisconsin team comes to town who's
playing with a ton of confidence. It just beat Illinois
by three scores their senior day. I mean, they're not
much of a competent passing offense. But I've said that
about how many teams now in the last two months,
and the gofers make them look like the next reincarnation
of your guy Adam Weber out here. So it's it's
(19:24):
a tough conversation. And I don't know what Fleck does,
but this defense, I mean, it is just at a
point where if you can't even get guys lining up correctly,
I mean, that just brings me back to that twenty
eighteen season, that twenty seventeen season, and that's a very
tough spot to be.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Adam Weber, by the way, in attendance yesterday, was on
a six am flight out of Minneapolis to come watch
in one of his former towns, Chicago. He spent some
time there before moving back, so a lot of former players,
a lot of fans were there at Wrigley.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
That's the other thing I was thinking about.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
We've talked about it every week, Burnsey, and I'm jumping
around here a little bit because why not We've got
one more show of these like.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
This next week after the Wisconsin game. So let's get weird.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
We've talked every after every road game about how great
the crowd was, and how how much Gopher fans are traveling,
and how much fun they're having, how much fun Tod be?
How much did we talk about Oregon last week? This
show are on par and a spare. And if you
were one of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of
(20:28):
Gopher fans, I hope you enjoyed your friends on the
road this year, because I know you could. You could
have enjoyed some aspects of yesterday's game, and we'll talk
about those. Because Drake Lindsay was great. How about a
contested catch or two from a wide receiver. I'm sure
you were almost falling down in that freezing cold Wriggleyfield
press box. But if you were one of the thousands
(20:49):
of fans that either went to Berkeley or went to Columbus,
or went to Eugene or braved it down in Kinnick,
who am I forgetting besides Wriglely, I think I got
most of them. I hope you enjoyed the fellowship because
the football, the football was not not much fun, was it?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
No?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And they end the season on the road being outscored
by I believe overall one hundred and ten points. I
mean it is just something to where we got to
go to a lot of different cool places. You get
to as you said, you start in Berkeley, you got
to see the San Francisco area, you got to see Eugene.
I mean, at least it was we didn't get to
(21:30):
have to go see Bloomington, Indiana, or West Lafayette or
who could forget the nightmare of travel that is the
happy valley that we get to go see next year.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah. I feel for these fans because you and I
get to go to each one of these games, and
again we get to do it as our work, and
we're very blessed and fortunate for that. But for those
people who just went out to try and have fun
at one of these games, especially a game like yesterday,
where I think you and I would agree if you
were to have told us that Minnesota scores thirty five points,
(22:00):
it had been like they run away with that game easily.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, And the stats bear it.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Out where if you look at just in the Fleck
tenure alone, just in the Fleck tenure prior to yesterday
or prior to yeah, yesterday's game, when Minnesota had scored
thirty five points or more in the Fleck tenure, they
were twenty one and one, and they were thirteen and
one in Big Ten play. That same one was the
twenty twenty Maryland game where Who could Forget he missed
(22:27):
extra point in overtime saw them. It was forty five
to forty four.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
But even if you say, yeah, the COVID year, and
even if.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
You want to take out the COVID year and you
don't think it's a great accurate representation, the unfortunate thing
is that would be that loss yesterday would be the
first loss in fifteen years that the Gophers have had
when scoring thirty five or more points. That was back
when Who Could Forget Tim Brewster lost to South Dakota.
(22:55):
Was that the game forty one to thirty eight. So
it's seemingly anything that can go wrong does go wrong
for the Gophers on the road. They cannot figure out
a way to play complimentary football for sixty minutes. They
start the game incredibly slow. Again, then they put their
foot on the gas pedal, then they don't put their
foot on the gas pedal. Then they come all the
way back and then they just can't get it done
(23:17):
at the end.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Final question for this segment, and we'll talk about the
offense and special teams, because I'm sure you have thoughts
and feelings about that as well. In our second segment
with Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot com, what did
you make of the move of Danny Collins down to
the sideline for the first time. He has been a
press box coach for every second as a coordinator, right
(23:39):
when he was a position coach. He was down on
the field with me and I didn't even we didn't
even notice him.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I don't know if you did.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
We didn't even notice him until the second quarter. And
part of it was because that was the only time
that the defense finally wasn't on the field. They were
on the field for the entire first quarter, and it
was you know, I'm behind the bench most of the
time and I can't really see through what's going on there.
And then all of a sudden, I said, what's Danny
Collins doing down here? So what did you make of
that move?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
What have you learned about that move in the interim
since the game?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Well, I'm so glad you asked, because as in astudent
media jackal than I am. That was one of my
questions to the head coach afterwards, was why why was
he down there? I noticed it from the first from
the first play, because I just was looking down on
the field and I was like, that's the defensive corner.
That's interesting. Yeah, And the explanation I got from Fleck
was some of it was baseball stadium related where the
(24:28):
sitelines may not have been as good. But then he
also got long witted and talked about how and in
his words quote especially some of the guys that were
going to be playing today, we felt like him being
down on the field would probably be a little bit better,
especially on the back end end quote. So I think
more of it was just about trying to coach up
(24:48):
the guys on the sidelines that we're going to be
playing in this game. Obviously, results would tell you that
that almost made it potentially worse from the way that
that game went. But if you are moving guys from
the press box to the sideline, you already know if
things aren't going well, and the head coach is trying
to spark some type of change, and for that change
(25:12):
to not necessarily be a positive thing, is not a
great sign.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
All right, let's pause here.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
When we come back, we'll talk a little bit about
the offense, which, once it got going, was pretty good yesterday.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And Drake Lindsay was very good. Javon Tracy was very good.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Lemecky Brockington helped out, Darius Taylor had some moments. Thirty
five points in a Big Ten game should be enough.
We'll talk about how they got there and it. Burnsy
kind of hinted at it as well. The slow start
yet again, another season long issue that they have not
been able to crack. All of that, and maybe a
quick look around the Big Ten as well. When we
wrap up the show with another segment with Ryan Burns
(25:46):
from Gopher Illustrated dot Com. That's coming up next right
here on the fan final segment of Go for Football Sunday. Here,
it's Guardsy and Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot Com
joining on the Connecticut Water Systems Hotline. Sunday Sermons with
Dan Burri Barow immediately follows us at nine o'clock, and
then we've got Vikings coverage the rest of the day.
It is a border battle. It is Vikings and Packers
(26:07):
from Lambeau. That kickoff is at noon, so before we
turn it over and you know, paint the town purple,
as we say, a couple of more minutes to talk
about the Gophers lost yesterday at Wrigley Field thirty eight
to thirty five. Let's start with the slow start again,
Burnsey offensively, where they're down double digits again and they've
only run three plays right, Northwestern scores a touchdown, Gophers
(26:30):
go three and out, Northwestern tax on a field goal,
and here we are again. You know PJ talks about
starting fast. Everyone knows he talks about starting fast. Every
coach wants to start fast. I know it was emphasized
again this week to start fast. Why have they not
been able to start fast in really any game not
named Northwestern State with a pick six on the first play,
(26:53):
and that was not a real game, so that one
doesn't count. Why have they frequently found themselves down doubled
digits before most people have even had their second beer.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
I wish I knew the answer to that question. It's
a great question, one I continually asked the offensive coordinator,
defensive coordinator, and the head coach every week. And if
you want to look at specifically just the first offensive
drive yesterday. Well, you get him to a third one
and then your receiver, yeah, false start. I mean, you
cannot have a receiver false starting at any level right
(27:27):
late in season in the Big Ten. And then Northwestern
gets home on a three man rush on third and
six where Drake takes the snap, he gets three seconds
and then he's got somebody in his lap and he
gets sat So, I mean, I think it's just mental errors.
It's just missed execution. If I were to have just
told you a receiver false started and then you have
(27:47):
five guys to block three and they get home within
three point five seconds, seemingly is to me about the
story of the season for the offense, which if they
can just protect Drake Lindsay and keep Darius Taylor upright
in that same respect, they've been able to find success
more times than not. And it's unfortunate in a day where, again,
Drake Lindsay, I would argue you had one of his
(28:10):
best games, especially in Big Ten play, where you look
at his statistics, he completes sixty six percent of his
passes for two hundred and sixty plus yards four touchdowns.
I mean, he was making the throws. You know, my
favorite stat that I always reference on this show every
week is contested catches.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
That's why it's Bingo Burnsey because there's a Ryan Burns
Bingo that we have to play every week. So I
think the Bingo nickname that we talked about last segment
is going to stick. But contested catches, I Javon Tracy
made a couple of them, and I thought of you
every single time, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Well, look some of us have to play the hits.
You know. That's how we continue to get to go
on tour year after year on the show is I
know what the hits are and I got to stick
to the hits.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, crowd wants it.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah. But Javon Tracy had his best game three touchdowns,
and I think all of them were essentially contested catches.
You saw Malachi Coleman make his most impactful play in
a Gopher uniform where he catches that long bomb from
Drake Lindsay. I would have loved to have seen him
attack the football on the first one like he did
the second one. But that was also a theme yesterday
(29:17):
kind of with Greg Harbow in this passing offense, was
it felt like they called that game as aggressively as
we've seen agree, especially in recent weeks. I think Fleck
knew that his defense wasn't much good. And so even
from the first touchdown drive where they go for an
un fourth and goal, Darius gets the pitch out they
run to the pylon. Drake Lindsay has a twelve plus
(29:40):
a dots on the day, again a dot average depth
of target. So on thirty throws, his average throw down
the field was over twelve yards.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
That's the opposite of the Michigan State game, right, I mean,
wasn't the Michigan State game like five?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, that's what it felt like.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So anyway, I mean again, they knew that they had
to be aggressive, and that was part of the issue
yesterday was they scored thirty five points. They only ran
forty eight to forty nine plays because they were never
on the field, and that was the whole thing is
So you get the final touchdown drive where you tie
it up at thirty five apiece. And I wrote about
this afterwards on go f Illustrated dot com. It felt
(30:19):
like the Penn State game from last year all over again,
where you give the ball back to the opponent, there's
eight minutes and twenty seconds left on the clock and
Fleck has all three timeouts. Yep, what happens. You don't
give the ball back to your offense until there's forty
five seconds left on the clock and you have no
timeouts left. You gave them every opportunity to get off
(30:44):
the field, get a stop. There's a second and twenty
one on that final drive for a Northwestern where guess
what your best player, your star player, Anthony Smith lines
up off sides.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Huge penalty, huge penalty because that was the only income. Yeah,
go ahead, this.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Is only a completion. It would have been third and
twenty one instead of second and sixteen. Gets to third
and ten. I mean, I'm sitting up in the press box.
You're thinking it down on the field. Third and ten.
Just get off the field and they can't execute on
zone coverage. I mean, if you were to have told
me again the defense has goes back onto the field,
eight minutes, twenty seconds left, all three timeouts, I'm thinking
(31:24):
to myself, Yeah, of course the offense is going to
get an actual shot, right. They didn't get an actual
shot even with Koy Parritch giving the ball dang near midfield.
I mean we also saw at the end of the
game there that I mean, Fleck alects not to clock
it and he allows to take a shot at the
end zone which was past interference that wasn't called r
(31:46):
I don't know why they ended up not throwing the
flag there or even they challenge it, which was an
interesting thing that put time back on the clock from
one to three seconds. But again, thirty five points in
the Big Ten game. Yeah, they got some advantageous field
position for once, thanks to Koy Parritch and the special team.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
So right, that's supposed to be part of the equation.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It's supposed to be and I've heard it for now
for nine years. It's supposed to be complimentary football here
at the University of Minnesota. And then the offense would
compliment the special teams field position that they gave them.
But when the team needed the defense most on that
final drive, they just were like what they've been the
last three weeks. They can't find a way to get
(32:32):
off the field or god forbid they get a turnover,
because now that's I mean, we continue to search for
anything positive with the defense, but just no takeaways yet
again again, Matt Kingsbury has one go right through his hands,
and not only does it not go into his hands,
it goes into the Northwestern receiver's hands. Or Koy Parritch
(32:54):
runs fifty yards down the field, knocks out the football.
It immediately goes out of bounds. Sometimes that's the way
the ball bounces. But I'm also a big believer, and
you just make your own luck, and this defense needs
to start to compliment this team.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Well, you mentioned them getting the ball back with eight
plus minutes left and the Gophers not being able to
get him back, and there were so many opportunities, So
just make one play. Just you're looking for one play
to just get your offense to ball back on the
flip side as we're waiting for the never ending trip
back from Chicago, which is I think added a little
(33:29):
bit to my salt on the entire weekend in general.
I'm watching Iowa be down seventeen to ten score to
tie it up at seventeen with less than two minutes left,
and somehow get the ball back in that one minute
and x amount of seconds time to make their one
play that they need to make a crazy catch by
(33:52):
a guy who probably wasn't going to be recruited by
August Stana in the two Falls era area, but somehow
is a star in the Big ten because that's just
what Iowa does.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And they kick a field goal with time, Like I'm
not watching the game.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I'm talking with people who are like on the plane,
and I said, how did I already lose? Is overtime already?
How did I will win as overtime? I already know
they got the ball back in regulation? I said, got
the ball back in regulation? They scored with like one
fifty left and they only had two timeouts, Like, how
did that happen?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Well?
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And incomplete and a couple of timeouts and you get
the ball back. But that's why that eight minute bit,
And I was thinking it the whole time because of
how they had controlled Northwestern, had controlled the clock. I
don't really have a question for this part of it, Burnssey.
It was just that was such a microcosm of like
how Iowa wins games and how the Gophers of lost
games this year. Was like, they got the ball back
(34:42):
somehow with less than two minutes left after being down
ten in the fourth quarter, and that's just what happens.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It's just the craziest thing.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Well, look, we're here to be a therapeutic davenport of
love for you, for me, for the listeners, for all
those people who watched that game yesterday, and a frustrated
I'm frustrated I covered the team. You're frustrated you cover
the team, and to see Iowa continue to have the
voodoo magic of Kinnick. Where in what world other than
Kinnick magic are you going to find a way to
(35:13):
win that game? Now? It also helps to have a
kicker who can make field goals from forty plus yards,
which I think is about to from the look on
your face, Lee is going to lead us into another discussion.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Well, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I mean that you've been saying this for a long time, right,
I mean really all off season you were saying, is
this really the plan? Is this really what they're going
to do? Because you know the numbers, You looked at
the numbers, and because most games had not come down
to this, it hasn't really reared its head, right. He's
(35:47):
made some kicks in other games this year, obviously, but
not like the super crazy pressure ones. And this first
miss yesterday was like why it isn't even a description
of it, unfortunately, And I know the second one was
a little bit closer. But that's it's unfortunate that you
were as prophetic as you were when it came to that,
(36:10):
because there's you can simplify it to right there, there's
your ballgame, right those two miskicks.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
I think that's an astute observation. And you once told me,
because one of your favorite bands is Smash Moude, that
I may not be the sharpest tool on the shed.
But it's I could not believe all offseason that they
just elected to look at the at the transfer kicker
market and say, you know what we're gonna do. We're
(36:37):
just gonna go get a guy who worked with our
special teams coordinator. And I know the stats would tell
you he's three of nine in his career from forty plus,
but you know what, guards he We know better, we
can fix him. And guess what. Now, eleven games into
the season, with two games left, he is now two
of seven from forty plus yards. You mentioned his first
(37:00):
kick into the third baseline wide, write I don't think
does it justice? And then unfortunately for him from forty
with all of the pressure in the world on him,
it starts left, stays left in Minnesota. Does it get
a chance in overtime, and to not have a viable
kicker from forty plus after you struggled again last year
(37:22):
with Dragon Kessige in twenty twenty three Big Ten Kicker
of the Year twenty twenty four. Nobody misses more kicks
in the Big Ten than Dragon Kassich, which is unfortunate.
And to now not have any ability to make a
forty yard field goal with any faith. You're two of seven.
I mean it it is I talked. I mean you
said it like I talked about it all off season.
(37:43):
I'm asking people over at the GOP Football Complex and
am I crazy here that you just have this blind
faith that you can have this reclamation project and fix him?
And they told me you're going to see and I
think I may have I guess better foresight than they
do on something like that. And look, if it's up
to me at this point, you've got two games left,
(38:06):
why not give the kid from Alexandria Football Cross Minnesota's
own Daniel Jackson his shot from forty plus. Denaberg has
proved himself from thirty nine and in great but two
of seven for forty plus after being three of nine before.
How much more data do we need to see that
that's just not going to be an option. We were
(38:27):
waiting for the game it was going to cost Minnesota.
Well here you go.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
It's interesting and this is going to be an offseason
discussion topic for sure. And we talked a little bit
about it on Pair and to spare this past week.
But for whatever the reason, and they might say it's money,
they might say it's financial stuff and they still got
to figure out yep, you know, revenue sharing and nil
and all of that. We talked a lot about that
on Pair and a spare this week. But I think
(38:54):
we're we're living with a lot of portal decisions right now. Right,
you mentioned the kicker, you mentioned secondary members, We've talked
about offensive line. There almost needs to be I know
it's not a perfect science, but portal recruiting should almost
be more perfect than high school recruiting. Right, You would
think the percentages should help you a little bit. And
(39:16):
whether it's taking guys that have injury history, like they've
done that on both lines, right, that's been an issue.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
It's almost like.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
They really need I don't want to overreact to one year,
but that's a big part of this season's story, right,
the issues that we've talked about all season long. A
lot of them have to do with decisions for whatever
reason they were made in the portal coming back to
bite them.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Is that a fair representation?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I think so. I mean, I think you can certainly
point to their portal hits of like Benjamin Saint Juis,
Chris Williamson, Jack Gibbons.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
For sure, and Max Brosmer.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Yeah. Absolutely, but you also can look at the season
and say, well, the right side of the offensive line
is just a complete liability to where finally we saw
them put in Tracy Minnesota's own Tony Nelson for the
final ten snaps of the game and replace the transfer
who had been there at right guard. I mean, I
talked about it in the first segment. You bring in
three transfer defensive linemen and they played I think it
(40:20):
combined seven snaps yesterday, and two of them haven't played
a single big ten snap all year. Like portal recruiting
is hard, it is because you have a lot of
data in terms of I guess college film, or maybe
not as much college film, but you're trying to figure
out why they're leaving their program. Was it work ethic,
(40:40):
was it just some type of issue with a coach
was it trying to go from the group of five
to the big ten. There's a lot of different reasons,
and every single recruitment is different. I'll be the first
one to tell you every single tea every single year,
and I've done this now for fifteen years. The priorities
for a kid are different from kid to kid. But
(41:02):
that's where I look at this team and I'm like, yeah,
the portal misses. I mean they're very apparent of you
know why flex trying to tell the media after the game.
You know, they're very young and experience in different spots. Well,
part of that is because you whiffed in high school
recruiting in twenty one to twenty three. So the guys
who should be third, fourth and fifth year guys in
the program either are no longer here or they're just
(41:24):
not your best option at that point, which means you
whift And then the guys who were brought in to
raise the floor from the portal, I mean, there's just
not enough hits. And that's where that's got to be
the thing that I think Fleck in this staff look
in the mirror about, is all right, what do we
change with our portal recruiting process, with our high school
(41:47):
recruiting process. Even though I think, particularly this high school
class that they have committed, I feel pretty strongly about
that this is one of Fleck's better classes. Yeah, that's great,
but they are likely not going to help you until
twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, and this team needs
an inflection or an influx of talent here in the
(42:07):
short term. So whether that's looking at whatever Marcus Hendrickson
and his staff are trying to do in terms of
portal evaluation, I think after a loss like we saw yesterday,
there needs to be a lot of self a lot
of looking in the mirror and saying what can I
do better? I know that Fleck and his you know,
his staff also point to that. You know, they don't
(42:29):
get probably a ton of support at times from administration.
And I'll be the first to tell you the University
of Minnesota is sixteenth in the Big Ten and athletics
spending out of eighteen teams. Now, they're only fourteenth in revenue.
But when you look across college football, even here in
the last week, Wisconsin has come out and their boosters
have said we're gonna, you know, with keeping Luke Fickel.
(42:52):
We're going to be throwing X y Z million into
the whatever they are spending on players. You've got Mike
Loxley at Maryland getting a vote of confidence in their
administration saying, guess what our boosters and us, we're really
going to support football. Yep, you know there's got to
be some type because at the end of the day,
with football, especially in the Big Ten, I mean, if
(43:13):
you just can't even be in the same swimming pool
as some of these teams, it's tough to go out
to the deep end if you can't take the water
wings off. So whether that is just trying to find
a way to get more money for the football program,
there's a lot of different avenues to explore and that
makes it a very complex topic. I'll be the first
(43:34):
to tell you that. But with a Wisconsin team coming
in with a lot of energy and a lot of confidence,
I mean, yeah, being able to keep the ax in
Dickey Town, especially if your defense just continues to be
a no show, it's going to be a dogfight on
Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Water wings, you just remind me I have to pack
them for the Bahamas.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
So thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
With women's basketball in the Bahamas the next couple of days. Lastly,
you just mentioned it, Wisconsin would love nothing more than
to come in here and take the ax back right
after the season that they've had and the stress that
that program has been under and that head coach has
been under. And we've talked about it all year on
Parentis Spear. I've marveled at AFAR and how quickly outside
(44:14):
forces in Wisconsin can basically just tear down their program
from within, even though that just makes no sense what
I'm saying, I actually feel pretty good for Luke Fickle
and the guys that have hung with it, because I
haven't liked a lot of the stuff that I've seen
from AFAR over there, just in terms of overall supporting
of a coach. Don't have time to get into all that.
But what do we need to know about this Badger
(44:35):
club that must be feeling pretty good when their old coach,
Brett Bulmo was just in Camp Randall and left with
a seventeen point l and as a ranked team.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah, we're talking about a Badger offense that finally put
up twenty four to twenty seven points. They they put
up over three hundred total yards for the first time
since Week two. Since Week two, they had dan near
gone two and a half months without putting up that
many total yards in a game. In the Wisconsin offense
is on i think fourth or fifth quarterback. They're playing
(45:06):
a true freshman there. They're very banged up everywhere there's
for this current iteration of Wisconsin. They are defensive. Their
defense is their strength, and you look at what they've
been able to do defensively, I think here in the
last month, month and a half they are much improved Defensively.
They are very physical, and that's where I mean Greg
(45:28):
Harbow's unit is going to have to do the heavy
lifting because even with Wisconsin's offensive struggles and it looks
like it's going to be a chillier type of game
next weekend here in Minneapolis, we'll see highs in the
twenties and thirties potentially. So who wants to be there?
This is a Minnesota team that just lost in spectacular
(45:49):
fashion at Wrigley Field. They got blown out off the
bye week against Oregon. What do you have left in
the tank? Because this is a Wisconsin team again, They're
not going to be in a bowl game. They don't
have anything other than they want to get the ax
back for their Super Bowl. You better come ready to play,
You better come play with a lot of physicality, and
(46:11):
there's got to be at least some light at the
end of the tunnel that the defense against. Like I said,
Wisconsin put up three hundred and one total yards against Illinois,
three hundred and one for the first time since Week two.
If they're ever a team to quote unquote get right against,
it is this Wisconsin offense. But what faith do you
(46:32):
have that the Gopher defense is capable. That's going to
be the question we talk about all week.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
We will do that on Tuesday on Parren Sperr. I
know you've got go for Gridiron coming up a little
bit later. Thank you, Burnsy, have a great Thanksgiving too.
I'm sure this audience wishes you well on that. And
we will talk to you next Sunday morning at eight fifteen.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
We'll save you a slice of peek and pie.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
That is Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot com and
that is Gopher Football Sunday.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
We're done for today.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
It'll be podcasted later Dan Barrero and Sunday Sermons has
come up up next right here on the fan
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