Midweek Review: Minnesota 41-14 Illinois

The Gophers needed to bounce back against Illinois to get their season back on track, and they did so in a big way. While their 41-14 blowout win was against a shorthanded Illini team, and it did not totally alleviate concerns about Minnesota's flaws, it was the kind of Saturday that eased fans' anxieties and keeps Minnesota in the hunt for a high finish in the Big Ten West.

1. Mohamed Ibrahim and the Minnesota offensive line dominated.

P.J. Fleck's offenses at Western Michigan and Minnesota have been headlined by effective passing attacks, but he has always operated a run-first approach.

The 2016 Broncos had the 24th-highest run rate in FBS on standard downs and the 45th-highest run rate on passing downs despite having Zach Terrell and All-American Corey Davis leading one of the nation's best passing games. (These stats exclude garbage time, where teams' run rates are typically higher.)

The 2019 Gophers' approach was not quite as tilted, but they still ran on nearly 60 percent of their plays, and Tanner Morgan had three games in which he attempted fewer than 20 passes.

This has continued into 2020. Through three games, the Gophers' run rate is almost 62 percent. (This counts sacks as pass attempts.) By total carries, the distance between Ibrahim and the next-most-used running back in the Big Ten is 32 — which is also the number of carries he has averaged per game. Fleck has Morgan and Rashod Bateman, but he is relying on Ibrahim to lead the way.

Whether taking such an approach is best is up for debate, considering the passing attack's caliber and the general rule that passing is more rewarding than running. What isn't up for debate is whether the run game is working, as it rather unequivocally has been. According to collegefootballdata.com, Minnesota's 50 percent Success Rate on running plays is 20th-best in the country. (Note that this season, the samples are of considerably different sizes and against varying levels of opponent.) The Gophers have maintained a high enough level of efficiency to justify running so much.

What the Gophers hadn't yet shown on the ground was much explosiveness. Michigan limited their ability to reach the second level, and their output against Maryland was fairly average.

Against Illinois, Minnesota broke out.

Minnesota both consistently won at the line of scrimmage, posting the Gophers' best Opportunity Rate of the season, and turned medium gains into big ones, averaging their most Highlight Yards per carry through three games.

You can find explanations for each stat here.
Line Yards and Success Rate are via
collegefootballdata.com

Ibrahim tied a career high in single-game rushing yards with 224, and he scored four of the Gophers' total touchdowns. Ibrahim consistently saw large lanes for him to navigate, and he did well to shimmy or accelerate through them:

The Gophers' run game benefited from having some extra weight on their side. The Gophers used six-lineman sets on nine snaps, which is the most times they've done so in 2020. And even without an extra lineman, Minnesota had the advantage when it came time to move piles:

Going into Saturday, it seemed that if Illinois' defense was going to show any competence, it was going to be against the run. Minnesota made that thought look silly.

2. It was another effective performance for the Gophers' passing attack, albeit a somewhat atypical one.

A weakness Illinois had exhibited in prior games going back to last season was a susceptibility to play-action passes. The Gophers attacked it on the first play of the game.

The Gophers went back to that comeback route off of play-action or RPO a few times as the game progressed, but of course there was the usual heavy serving of slants.

The Gophers' approach differed from their usual pattern in that while they attacked the intermediate level, it was mostly to the outside of the field. By my charting, 10 of Morgan's throws beyond the line of scrimmage were on or outside the numbers, compared to six attempts on or between the hashes.

Additionally, Morgan shied away from the deep ball that so often followed play-action last season. His only attempt of 20 or more yards, while his longest of the season, was a garbage time interception on his last dropback.

For the season, Morgan has attempted just five deep passes. This marks a significant departure from how he threw the ball in 2019, when 17 percent of his throws were 20 yards or farther downfield. If he was throwing deep at that rate this season, he would have 12 or 13 deep attempts. We'll need to wait a little longer to see if this is a trend or perhaps a product of the early schedule — against Michigan, there wasn't time to be aggressive, and the deep ball hasn't been needed since — but for now, it's worth keeping an eye on how often the Gophers attack the third level.

4. The Gophers' star receiver had his first big game of 2020.

It's not quite fair to call Bateman's first two games — in which he made 13 catches for 163 yards — a slow start, but his involvement could have been described as productive more than dominant. The long touchdowns down the sideline on which he made his name as a sophomore have been missing. Michigan contained him well enough, and he didn't see much of the ball at Maryland. He played well, but by his high standards, it felt like a minor letdown.

Against Illinois, Bateman didn't turn in the kind of all-world-level performance he often does. But he set season highs in yards per catch (13.9) and scored his first touchdown on a corner fade.

Goal line fades: still bad.

His route running was superb all day, such as on this deep out:

And he picked up yards on the run, as on the first of two tap passes he received:

Only from such a talented player could a day like that seem almost routine. But again, the deep balls weren't there, so it wasn't overly flashy. Bateman was, however, Morgan's favorite target at the intermediate level, accounting for eight of 14 throws between 10 and 19 yards.

The places Bateman has been getting the ball give one an idea of how the Gophers value his ability to carry the ball, not just to serve as a big target downfield. Forty-one percent of Bateman's yards have come after the catch, which is up from 31 percent last season. In the Maryland game, not one of Morgan's three deep throws were for Bateman; they each went to Chris Autman-Bell. Bateman was the leading YAC-getter among receivers last season, and the Gophers have so far asked him to get more.

4. The running back position should be deep for years to come.

After making cameos in last season's Rutgers and Maryland games, Treyson Potts has emerged as a solid second running back, averaging more than 10 yards per carry. In Champaign, Potts scored his first touchdown of the season and the second of his college career after hurdling a stumbling lineman.

Unfortunately, Potts' game ended after just three carries after he was carted to the locker room and returned to the sideline wearing a boot. (Fleck said Monday Potts was "day-to-day," which could mean he'll next play this Saturday or next fall.) He missed chunks of multiple high school seasons with injuries as well, which merits concern.

But if Potts' injury history is less habitual than unlucky, and he comes back healthy, he could become the Gophers' first-choice running back as soon as 2021. (This assumes Ibrahim leaves for the NFL. I'm unsure he will, but as a running back, it's probably worth getting paid as soon as possible.) And he won't be alone, as Fleck's staff has recruited a number of backs in recent classes. Cam Wiley, the new No. 2 in Potts' stead, is a redshirt freshman and looks like he still has room to add bulk. True freshman Ky Thomas has not played yet, but he was the third-highest-rated recruit in Minnesota's 2020 signing class. And four-star prospect Mar'Keise Irving has been committed to the Gophers since May. There will be no shortage of options in the backfield after Ibrahim is gone, whenever that happens.

5. This was the Gopher defense's most disruptive game of the year.

Illinois quarterback Caron Taylor had a rough evening. The fourth-stringer had only been sacked once against Purdue, but Minnesota got to him four times and (officially) hurried him on three other snaps, and he twice fumbled. It was the Gopher pass rush's strongest performance yet this season. Esezi Otomewo, the less heralded Gopher defensive end, led things off:

The Gophers also got a boost from Taylor. Here, he held the ball for 4 seconds and failed to notice the two checkdown options in front of him, and Boye Mafe brought him down from behind on a three-man rush.

Mafe, who got a strip-sack in the fourth quarter, leads the Big Ten in sacks with 3.5.

Even redshirt freshman M.J. Anderson got in on the action, not officially forcing a fumble on this play but at least partially causing it by pushing his blocker into the quarterback.

How do you end up in 3rd & Goal from the 48? A personal foul, a QB with a hand injury, and this pic.twitter.com/AOaPLUVRM5

— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) November 7, 2020

Minnesota ended the game with their most havoc plays — and highest havoc rate — of the season.

A havoc play is a pass defensed (intercepted or broken up), a tackle for loss (including sacks),
or a forced fumble.

If this performance foreshadows more havoc plays, that will be a positive development for this defense. It looks like the Gophers will give up a handful of explosive plays per game. While they obviously still need to correct that, they can partially make up for it by creating more negative plays. 

6. Minnesota's issues against the run did not disappear, but they were less pronounced.

The first two games set a low bar for the Gophers' run defense to clear, but one could say they did on Saturday: The Illini were only a little better than average. Progress!

At its worst moments, the Minnesota defense showed the same problems that more frequently got it into trouble in the first two games. On Illinois' biggest play of the evening, Cody Lindenberg flowed the right way but got caught in traffic, and Otomewo got off his blocker but could barely swipe at Mike Epstein. Justus Harris and Benjamin St-Juste couldn't free themselves to make a play either, and neither Jordan Howden nor Tyler Nubin took a good angle to the ball.

Not the biggest problem here, but: Was Nubin blitzing? If so, why wasn't he closer
to the line at the snap? Was he anticipating a reverse or tracking the quarterback?
If so, why did has path lead to the inside of the defensive end?

Epstein ran for 108 yards on just 11 carries; if you subtract the 63 yards he gained the run above, he still averaged a decent 4.5 yards per attempt. No Illini rusher lost yards except Taylor, who has flashed speed in his first two appearances but has not yet put it to good use. Considering the fact Illinois line, already unremarkable, was missing its best player, this is not a performance to warrant great pride.

But at least it was a performance off of which the Gophers can build. At the end of 2018, after Joe Rossi (who is out indefinitely after testing positive for COVID-19 last week) took over as defensive coordinator, the Gophers weren't good against the run — they were just passable. That was good enough to finish the year on a 3-1 run. If the current unit can be passable against the run most weeks, and the pass defense holds up, the offense can do the rest. For such a young unit, passability at the less important side of defense is a reasonable short-term goal.

7. The Illini posed no threat through the air.

While he was better than expected against Purdue, Taylor is not a Big Ten-level starting quarterback. His line against Minnesota reflects that: 6-for-17 for 106 yards and a meaningless late touchdown. Even granting that in the third quarter he hurt his hand in a pileup at the line of scrimmage, Taylor was not nearly good enough for Illinois to win.

But as easy as the Gophers' test was, they passed it comfortably. We've already talked about the pass rush; we haven't highlighted the secondary. Taylor played antsy and frequently searched too long for targets downfield, something for which the coverage deserves some credit. Additionally, four of Taylor's 11 incompletions were broken up, which is a decent ratio. Mariano Sori-Marin nearly made a one-handed interception in the third quarter.

The pass defense was as good as it needed to be.

8. The Gophers have started rotating their linebackers more.

Sori-Marin, Lindenberg, and Josh Aune saw the overwhelming majority of the team's snaps at linebacker in the first two games, but that changed on Saturday. Redshirt freshmen Donald Willis (who appeared at Maryland) and James Gordon IV each saw the field on defense, with Gordon making three solo tackles.

If it seems like rotating players like this is a bit haphazard, like pushing different buttons on your new blender to see what they do, it's because it kind of is. But there's nothing wrong with that. (As a matter of fact, I advocated for a larger linebacker rotation on last week's episode of We Are Maroon and Gold.) The Gophers clearly have problems on defense, particularly against the run. With so many inexperienced options — excluding rush end Thomas Rush and the injured Braelen Oliver, 12 of the 15 listed linebackers on the roster are underclassmen, and 10 are freshmen — it's honestly a sound strategy for Minnesota to spread around the opportunities and give young players in-game reps. As the lone experienced linebacker until Oliver returns, Sori-Marin never leaves the field, and even with his deficiencies, that's probably for the best. But the other spot should continue to feature different players getting chances to prove themselves.

9. With a full complement of specialists, Minnesota won the field position game.

Kick coverage was a strength for the Gophers against Maryland, and with Dragan Kesich in the fold, that was true again against Illinois. On drives begun from kickoffs, Illinois' average starting field position was their own 22-yard line. Kesich's seven kickoffs resulted in four touchbacks, and the shortest of the other three was caught at the 1-yard line. It was a successful debut for the true freshman from Wisconsin.

The 26-year-old Australian Mark Crawford, meanwhile, also impressed in his first college game, albeit in a sample too small to be that informative. Crawford's one punt placed Illinois at their own 11-yard line.

Only once did the Illini gain possession farther than 25 yards from their own end zone, and it was off a fumble recovery. Though it wasn't a pristine game for special teams — Michael Lantz missed a PAT attempt in the fourth quarter — the fact it was a pretty good one should be taken as a positive.

10. Morgan's pooch punt was not the worst idea in the world.

On 4th-and-5 from the other team's 40-yard line, you're kind of in the definition of "no man's land". While it's nowhere near unmanageable, 5 yards is a significant enough distance that though I generally endorse aggressiveness on 4th downs, I do not condemn coaches who find it too risky. But the alternatives are unappealing. You're likely too far away to kick a field goal. You're too close to gain much from punting, especially since the odds of a touchback are pretty high. For that reason, going for it is probably the best choice.

However, Fleck's choice was acceptable: a pooch punt. With the Illinois defense prepared for Minnesota to run a play, there was no risk of a return, so Morgan didn't have to kick well enough to resemble someone whose job it normally is. He didn't; it was an ugly 21-yarder that put Illinois at the 19-yard line. A traditional punt might have gone for a touchback or ended in a return to a better spot on the field. Depending on the situation, I wouldn't oppose Fleck trying it again in later games.

Next Game

Even in their first win of the season, a 49-7 demolition of Michigan State, Iowa couldn't get the passing game going, averaging a measly 6.2 yards per attempt. For the season, redshirt sophomore Spencer Petras has completed just 54.3 percent of his passes and averaged 10.3 yards per completion, both poor marks for an FBS quarterback. Receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette has been Iowa's big-play receiver since 2018, but he hasn't gotten much opportunity to continue that success (in part because of a suspension last week). Tight end Sam LaPorta has instead caught the most passes of any Hawkeye, and he's turned his 13 catches into only 128 yards and no touchdowns. Meanwhile, the offensive line has posted rather pedestrian numbers despite the presence of two future pros in left tackle Alaric Jackson and center Tyler Linderbaum.

But Iowa is not totally toothless. According to collegefootballdata.com, the Hawkeyes have had the 16th-most explosive rushing offense in FBS this year. Here is Tyler Goodson giving a demo to the Spartans.

That should be worrisome for the Gophers. They can try to reinforce the line against this threat by using a third linebacker (which they'll likely do anyway to counter Iowa's 12 and 21 personnel), but that didn't work very well against Michigan. And while Kirk Ferentz has earned the reputation of a conservative and unimaginative coach, the Hawkeyes will take advantage of undisciplined defenses and break from tendencies at an opportune moment. Take this example from the Gophers' visit to Iowa City a year ago:

Unless Minnesota can force Iowa to throw the ball, it might be a long night for the Minnesota defense.

Iowa's defense, for its part, is one of the nation's best, particularly against the run. The Hawkeyes allows 3.3 yards per non-sack carry and a 30.7 rushing Success Rate. Co-offensive coordinators Mike Sanford Jr. and Matt Simon have demonstrated a lot of trust in their stout line and tank of a running back, but handing off the ball cannot be the only route the Gophers take.

Morgan threw 36 times for 368 yards against the Hawkeyes last season. It may be necessary that he repeat that effort. But it will be tough to do it the same way against a secondary that so far has limited big gains through the air and a pass rush that has remained effective even after losing A.J. Epenesa. Though Morgan went deep seven times in that game, he likely will have to stick to this season's script of attacking the intermediate areas. Bateman and company shouldn't expect many yards after the catch either; Iowa's defensive backs are strong tacklers. Explosiveness doesn't look like it's on the table, so the Gophers should aim for efficiency.

If the Gopher defense can put the Hawkeyes behind schedule on early downs, that will keep the Floyd of Rosedale within their reach. If they maintain their gaps better and don't allow many opportunities for Goodson and Mekhi Sargent to break into the open field, that will also do the trick. At that point, it will be up to one of the Big Ten's most efficient offenses to chip away at a tough defense. This game is winnable, but it won't be easy.