Midweek Review: Minnesota 41-14 Northwestern

Domination is not always pretty, or even interesting. The Gophers' sixth win of the year was neither. But it was what they needed to do against a bad Northwestern team whose specific weaknesses made for a favorable matchup, and now Minnesota sits alone atop the Big Ten West.

1. The Gophers stuck to their usual philosophy and were rewarded.

As I said at the end of last week's post, Northwestern was going to allow Minnesota to run the ball. The Wildcats field one of the worst run defenses in the country, giving their run-first visitors a distinct advantage Saturday.

It played out predictably: For the second straight week, Minnesota ran for more than 300 yards. Over their eight drives, the Gophers gained an absurd 84 percent of available yards, by a good margin their highest mark this season. Though there were a few more big runs than they've gotten most of the season, the Gophers did their work in smaller chunks: 3 yards here, 7 yards there, with few negative plays and a perfect success rate in "power" situations (3rd- or 4th-and-2 or shorter). It was hardly flashy, but it worked.

Mar'Keise Irving and Ky Thomas got good blocking but created a lot of their own yards. Some of the Gophers' gains came via one of them finding a hole and making a couple of defenders miss. On the below run, Thomas found his aiming point outside the hip of center John Michael Schmitz on a well-executed inside zone call. From there, he skipped away from a pile of arms and dragged his tackler a couple extra steps It was one of five carries where Irving or Thomas went 10 or more yards.

Irving also pitched in a 41-yard touchdown, his longest play from scrimmage this season, providing a dose of explosiveness the Gophers have needed for most of the year.

While not as thorough a domination as Minnesota's romp over Maryland, this game was lopsided at the line of scrimmage. The Gophers' line didn't face a real challenge, and their backs made plays when given lanes through which to to run.

You can find explanations for each stat here.
line yards and success rate are via
collegefootballdata.com.

2. Mounting injuries have created thin margins at running back.

That Derik LeCaptain scored Minnesota's last touchdown of the game was fun: The former walk-on is a special teams captain, but he's also a linebacker. While he was a prolific running back in high school, LeCaptain obviously doesn't get a lot of opportunities to carry the ball in college.

However, the touchdown also indicates how dire Minnesota's situation is at running back: In garbage time, there was no one else to turn to without risking injury to Irving and Thomas. Losing players the caliber of Mohamed Ibrahim and Trey Potts hurts less with starting-quality running backs behind them, but their injuries — as well as that of Preston Jelen, who was injured in the preseason, and Cam Wiley's recent decision to transfer — made it more important that nobody left got hurt.

Saturday, Bryce Williams was carted off following a heavy hit in the first quarter and is likely out for the season. If Williams is out for a while, that means the only healthy scholarship running backs on the roster are Irving and Thomas. The last available running back after those two is redshirt freshman Kendall Moore, a walk-on from East Ridge High School in St. Paul. Things have gotten tight.

LeCaptain is evidently the emergency running back, and it's good that he had a successful debut in that role. P.J. Fleck said the Gophers were already cycling through emergency options in practice, and that is an effort they'd be wise to increase in coming weeks.

3. Tanner Morgan had another alright passing performance but made more plays than he usually does as a runner.

Once again, Minnesota's plan didn't involve throwing the ball all that much, especially in the second half. Morgan threw just three times after halftime (four, if you count one called back for a penalty), and none of those attempts were in the fourth quarter.

When called upon, Morgan was adequate aside from one bad interception to close the first half. That the ball fell into the arms of Brandon Joseph after a deflection was not his fault, but Morgan put it at risk by throwing well in front of Daniel Jackson.

Around a third of Morgan's passes were within 2 yards of the line of scrimmage or behind it, but all but two of the rest were at least 10 yards downfield. At the intermediate and deep levels, he was a fine but unspectacular 5-for-9.

One of the surprises of the afternoon was Morgan's running. He's already more than doubled his season-long rushing total from 2020, but this was his most successful day of the season (mainly because he didn't fumble, as in the Bowling Green game). On three attempts — all off of read option — Morgan picked up 29 yards, most of which came on this untouched 18-yard touchdown.

Minnesota shouldn't count on this kind of running from Morgan going forward, but the fact he supplied it helped the Gophers win and gave one of the game's highlights.

4. Morgan has found an unexpected favorite deep target.

A quick quiz: Among Minnesota's leading receivers, who leads them in Air Yards per reception?

Is it Chris Autman-Bell, who had the most targets of any Gopher beyond 20 yards last season and has hurt a number of defenses on fade routes? Is it Jackson, who a year ago barely saw any work near the line of scrimmage? Or is it newcomer Dylan Wright, the lanky red zone threat?

The fact this is a rhetorical exercise premised on surprise means you know it's none of them. Instead, it's Michael Brown-Stephens, the redshirt sophomore who a year ago averaged the fewest Air Yards per reception of any wideout on the team. He's gone from 6.8 to 18.1 yards in that statistic, putting him well ahead of the other players to make a catch this year. This second-quarter catch is an example of him getting the ball deep in the secondary:

To be clear: This isn't just a matter of Brown-Stephens making a couple of big catches to skew the numbers. He's gotten a lot of downfield targets. By my charting, his average depth of target is 19.2 yards. Just six of his 23 targets have been within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage or behind it, compared to nine 20 yards downfield or longer.

It bears noting that Brown-Stephens is the shortest of Minnesota's regular wideouts, at 5 feet 11 inches, which one might think gives him the profile of a slot receiver. (That's what I called him in the preseason.) But he's a sharp route runner who doesn't require as much effort to move his legs as a taller receiver might, allowing him to sneak into space behind defenders. See how smoothly he got open and juked a defender on this dig:

It may be an odd role for him at a glance, but Brown-Stephens is producing enough to justify it.

5. The tight ends have gotten more involved in the passing game this season, but only marginally.

When Mike Sanford Jr. arrived to the U of M, it was expected that Morgan would throw a lot more to his tight ends. The Kirk Ciarrocca era saw the position used nearly exclusively for blocking; in 2019, tight ends were the target of less than 4 percent of Morgan's passes toward a receiver.

Last year, the tight end target rate more than doubled to 9 percent. Even so, Sanford told The Athletic this summer that the Gophers needed "more production from the tight end position." Without Rashod Bateman to receive a giant share of the targets, the ball looked like it would be spread around more. It made sense that Brevyn Spann-Ford and Ko Kieft would get the ball more as a result.

Spann-Ford has: His 12 targets through eight games are double what he got in last year, ranking fifth on the team. But Kieft still is at four targets (nearly identical to his 2020 mark), and no other tight end has seen enough of the field to receive even one. As a result, the position's target rate has climbed all the way to... 10 percent.

Is this a problem? Not necessarily. Spann-Ford has become a reliable blocker, and Kieft is an exceptional one for his position. They're being used according to their skill sets. Spann-Ford, the better receiver of the two, has made a catch in all but two games so far this season. Maybe the Gophers could use them more often as receivers, but they have a players who catch passes as their primary job and are good at it. There are many valid criticisms one can make of Sanford's offense, but not following through on making tight ends more prominent as a proportion of total passes is not a big deal.

6. Evan Hull created more problems for the Gophers than expected.

If the Wildcats were going to get anything done Saturday, it was probably going to be through their rushing attack. They don't have much offensively and were going against a defense that had defended the run well over its last six games, but at least they have a couple of fairly talented tailbacks who can break off a big run every once in a while.

Hull took more than half the Wildcats' carries and, counting his three catches, was responsible for roughly half his team's total yardage. He didn't get it through consistency — Game on Paper gave Hull a 40-percent rushing success rate — but by breaking tackles and bursting through holes for occasional chunk plays. According to Pro Football Focus, Hull gained 70 of his 107 rushing yards after contact.

It didn't all come in garbage time, either: Hull averaged 6.7 yards per carry before the fourth quarter. His performance exposed cracks that hadn't existed in the Gophers' run defense since the opener against Ohio State. Obviously, that was disastrous rather than just disconcerting, but the point remains: Saturday was well below Minnesota's standards.

7. Northwestern's passing attack was toothless as always.

With such success on the ground, it was confusing why Northwestern didn't run the ball more often. It was made more perplexing by the fact that Minnesota had few problems defending the pass. NU's two quarterbacks netted 88 yards on 24 dropbacks. They threw short, and the Gophers made tackles to ensure that their completions didn't go anywhere. Additionally, when on passing downs Joe Rossi dropped eight defenders into zone coverage, the Gophers made sure there was nowhere to throw the ball.

Replacing Ryan Hilinski with Andrew Marty helped Northwestern's cause somewhat, but not nearly enough. The attribute that made Marty stand out in this game was his running ability, but he only managed 31 yards on six non-sack carries. The Wildcats haven't gotten anything from the quarterback position this year, and that didn't change.

8. The Gophers have been much more disruptive as a team than they were a year ago.

With his 10.5 tackles against Northwestern, Mariano Sori-Marin moved into a tie with Jack Gibbens atop the team leaderboard. But his most important play was a forced fumble in the first quarter, having arrived late to the play as Malik Washington attempted to stretch for another couple yards. Justin Walley picked up the ball and returned it for an easy touchdown.

The play moved Sori-Marin ahead of Gibbens in another statistic: havoc plays, an area in which the team was severely lacking in 2020. Minnesota recorded a tackle for loss, pass broken up or intercepted, or forced fumble on just 11.5 percent of opposing snaps last year, which put them near the bottom of FBS. At the end of the year, Boye Mafe led the team comfortably with 9.5 havoc plays.

But while Mafe once again leads this season, he hasn't secured the wreaker-of-havoc title thanks to improved production from the rest of the defense. Eleven players have 3.0 or more havoc plays, up from just six last year (in one fewer game), and Mafe has some competition.

Click to enlarge.

The team's havoc rate of 15.7 percent is now squarely in the middle of the subdivision. Broken down by position group (defensive line, linebackers, secondary), the rate has gone up across the board, but the greatest increase is in the linebacker corps. As I wrote about last week, Gibbens has been a tremendous addition to the Gopher defense, but this is where, statistically, he's made his biggest mark. Linebackers other than Sori-Marin (who himself has improved considerably) combined for 3.0 havoc plays, a mark that Gibbens doubled in his first seven games.

Thomas Rush deserves recognition as well. After converting from linebacker, Rush was not very impactful last year. He'd get snaps when Rossi wanted his rush end to drop into coverage, but he didn't regularly make plays. In 2021, though, Rush has been a valuable regular, ensuring that Minnesota gets production out of Mafe's position even without the team's best defender on the field. He has been a big reason why the Gophers' disruption has not been so concentrated among their top players.

9. Minnesota is on a run of uneventful special teams play (in a good way).

For the last couple of years, but especially in 2020, the Gophers saw a lot go wrong on special teams: muffs, shanked extra points, long returns by the other team, ill-advised kick returns that went nowhere — the list goes on. Some of that was due to poor performance that could have been corrected, but issues with COVID-19 and injuries played large roles in the woes of last season. Either way: The Gophers needed a lot less to go wrong.

In the games since the comical punt return fiasco against Bowling Green, little has gone wrong. Outside of a blocked field goal, not a lot has happened at all. Four opposing kickoff returns have gained an average of 11.8 yards; Dragan Kesich has forced 16 touchbacks and kicked deep enough to force fair catches when not making it to the end zone. Mark Crawford hasn't been busy the last couple of weeks but had a stellar game against Purdue and has done fine otherwise. Brock Annexstad hasn't returned many punts but hasn't made unforced mistakes, which the kickoff return team has matched. The only blemish is a blocked field goal. Matthew Trickett's only other misses have been from 50 yards out; he's also been perfect on extra points.

This is hardly Beamer Ball. However, repeatable, unremarkable competence counts as a major improvement over past seasons' special teams performances. The flashes of something more are nice, but the fact special teams are not losing Minnesota games cannot be taken for granted.

10. Minnesota has plenty of business left to take care of to win the division.

Thanks to Wisconsin's early cross-division losses and Iowa's recent stumbles, Minnesota has sole possession of 1st place in the Big Ten West with four games left to play. ESPN's FPI, which hasn't been bullish on the Gophers all season, now gives them the best odds to win the division — but also, of the three teams with a real place in the race, the worst odds of winning out. The Gophers still must play the two best teams in the West to make it to Indianapolis, and they'll probably have to beat both of them.

Click to enlarge.

Wisconsin beating Iowa makes the battle for Paul Bunyan's Axe much more important to Minnesota: Beat the Badgers, and they're no longer a concern in the race unless things get real weird. The Gophers most likely need to win back the Floyd of Rosedale, too, as they shouldn't trust Nebraska to help them out. While computers like Nebraska better than human eyes do (SP+ actually favors them over the Hawkeyes on Black Friday), we all know how the Cornhuskers have fallen on their faces in winnable games. Losing to either rival could eliminate Minnesota from the division race.

If they win the West, there's a real chance the Gophers make it to the Rose Bowl, as discussed last week. It's not a guarantee, though; the second-highest-ranked East team may be selected instead. If you believe Michigan is better than Michigan State (which I do), the Wolverines' loss this weekend counts as good news. Both are likely to lose to Ohio State, whose offense has quickly turned from the best in the country into an unbeatable death machine, and who is a good bet to make the Playoff. (Should OSU miss the Playoff, it will probably take a shocking upset in the conference championship game to keep the Buckeyes from Pasadena.) If someone can hand the Spartans a second loss, the situation may become muddy enough for the Rose Bowl to invite a nine- or 10-win West champion. Contenders in the West will want the status quo at the top of the East but chaos below it.

The important thing for Minnesota, of course, is that continuing to win takes care of everything else. Fleck's line about "one-game championship seasons" is a bit hokey, but if the Gophers trip up against Illinois or Indiana, then as far as the Rose Bowl race is concerned, it likely won't matter what happens in the two trophy games. Especially after the Bowling Green loss, Minnesota doesn't have much margin for error entering November. If they want more than just bowl eligibility and a respectable year-end record, they must continue to breeze past inferior competition and then conquer their rivals.

Next Game

November begins with a visit by the Illinois Fighting Illini, who rank lower in the Massey Composite than every team they've played this year except for one. They've punched above their weight by beating Nebraska and Penn State in weird games; outside of that, Illinois has only won against Charlotte (that one team worse than the Illini). In mid-October, first-year head coach Bret Bielema was already pushing blame onto his players and the prior staff for his team's struggles. It's been a rough season in Champaign.

The problems start at quarterback. The Illini have bounced between Brandon Peters and Rutgers transfer Artur Sitkowski, who have combined to average 5.2 yards per attempt. Peters has dealt with injuries this season but did start against Rutgers following his counterpart's season-ending injury against Penn State. He has a better history of running than Sitkowski; it probably won't make a difference. Peters will attempt to make heavy use of former quarterback Isaiah Williams, the U of I's leading receiver this season.

Of somewhat greater concern is the Illinois running back group, which is led by a couple of solid players in Chase Brown and true freshman Josh McCray. An experienced (if imperfect) line will block for them. In the end, though, this offense has no reliable source of big plays. Running with moderate efficiency hasn't been enough to carry Illinois in most games, and it shouldn't be this week.

The Illini have succeeded in preventing big plays, but not nearly enough to make their defense a decent one. Opponents have run for 4.8 yards per non-sack carry, the 78th-lowest mark in FBS. The Illini don't do anything to throw teams off schedule. The recent loss of veteran linebacker Jake Hansen for the season means Illinois' run defense is likely a bit weaker.

Minnesota should be able to pass as well. The Illini secondary ranks 79th in completion rate and 73rd in yards per completion allowed, which might be generous to them. Virginia threw for 423 yards against them in September; if not for Sean Clifford's injury, Penn State might have done something similar a couple of weeks ago. Illinois hasn't faced a lot of good and healthy quarterbacks, nor many receiving groups as deep as Minnesota's. While cornerback Devon Witherspoon and edge rusher Owen Carney Jr. are worthy of some respect, there aren't enough good defensive backs or pass rushers to cause too many problems.

The Gophers may be able to run as much as they want (which is a lot), but being aggressive out of the gates might put the game away too quickly for the Illini's woeful passing attack to keep up. Minnesota should win handily.