Midweek Review: Wisconsin 13-23 Minnesota

1. JUMP. JUMP. JUMP. JUMP.

2. The Badgers could not consistently run the ball.

There wasn't a more critical aspect of the route to a Minnesota victory than slowing down Braelon Allen. The true freshman has been one of the nation's most explosive running backs while also being built like a linebacker (a position he has played). Allen is difficult to bring down even when defenders close on him, and he has a tendency to speed away once escaping a pileup. Wisconsin doesn't pose a deep threat throwing the ball, so if the Badgers were going to get big plays anywhere Saturday, it was going to be through Allen.

Instead of getting burned, though, the Gophers shut down the Badgers' rushing attack just about entirely.

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

After the game, P.J. Fleck spoke of the two important parts of Minnesota's defensive gameplan: Hit Allen low, and swarm to the ball. Let's see if the Gophers did that.

Check and check. Allen's longest run gained just 14 yards; according to Pro Football Focus, he averaged just 1.5 yards after contact. He was totally contained.

Like last week in Bloomington and in other games this season, the Gophers defended well as a team. Jack Gibbens led the team in tackles with 8.5 but was not the only strong performer. Esezi Otomewo and Mariano Sori-Marin had good days as well. Safeties Jordan Howden and Tyler Nubin kept Allen from breaking off any big runs on the rare occasion he got beyond the linebackers. The defense as a whole played a disciplined, smart game and fit runs correctly.

It's possible Allen picked up an injury in the first half, coming off the field for a moment after getting dragged down on a run up the middle. Regardless, the results were what they were: Any time you hold an efficient rushing attack to 62 yards, that counts as a major success. To do so when the opponent couldn't move the ball any other way is how you don't allow a single offensive touchdown.

3. Wisconsin needed a strong performance from Graham Mertz, and he didn't provide one.

The Badgers went about their seven-game winning streak clinically. They'd grind the other team into bits on the ground and throw it a few times in the first half, but after the break, there was hardly any need to pass. The lead they'd built through their offensive line and running backs could carry them the rest of the way without issue.

As is the case for much of the Big Ten West, though, Wisconsin has not had enough success throwing the ball to cope with a negative game state if Plan A didn't work out. Not only was running the ball the Badgers' strength, it was a necessity.

That they couldn't put the Gophers away early, and subsequently went behind in the second half, meant they had to rely on Mertz. The former blue-chip recruit did not answer the call. His 10-for-23 second-half line, with 92 yards and an interception, says everything.

His most routine failures were the passes he bounced to targets on the perimeter. But as the game continued, he at times had trouble staying on the same page with his receivers at all. There wasn't such an instance more costly than on this 4th-and-1, where it frankly was not clear at all what Mertz's aim was:

When required to carry the load, Mertz could not. Without a functioning ground game, either, the Badgers had no way to catch up to the Gophers.

4. Paul Chryst was not as his best.

One of the keys to Wisconsin winning these teams' 2019 matchup was how much more aggressively Chryst and then-playcaller Joe Rudolph tried to take the game. The Badgers went for it on 4th down, created and exploited mismatches in the passing game, and caught their hosts off guard through misdirection. Wisconsin's coaches stepped up.

On Saturday, Chryst did not throw in any trick plays or do much of anything novel. The most the Badgers did to attack weaknesses in the Gophers' defense was trying to pick on true freshman cornerback Justin Walley, who had another up-and-down performance (that won him Big Ten Freshman of the Week). But Mertz couldn't play his part consistently enough for the tactic to pay off. With a division title on the line, Chryst went vanilla.

Nor did Chryst manage the game effectively. His most egregious error was in the fourth quarter, down 10 points with less than 5 minutes left. Facing 4th-and-1 from his own 21-yard line, he absolutely had no choice but to try for a conversion.

I said, he had absolutely no choice but to try for a conversion.

Uh, Paul?

Only after that false start set his team back to 4th-and-6 did Chryst evidently realize that punting was a bad idea in this situation. He also punted from Minnesota's 35-yard line in the second quarter, which even on 4th-and-9 is inexcusable. There's nothing to say except that Chryst's coaching was poor.

5. The Gophers smartly attacked the deeper parts of the field and profited.

I noted in my short Wisconsin preview at the end of last week's post that the biggest weakness in Wisconsin's defense was the Badgers' tendency to allow big completions. They don't allow successful passes, period, often enough for it be a consistent problem. However, the severity of the damage often done by opposing receivers meant this was what counted as a relative deficiency. If the Gophers were going to do anything against the Badgers, it was by attacking their secondary.

Even after some early hiccups, playcaller Mike Sanford Jr. did just that.

Note: the one target 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage should have been
recorded as a backwards pass (i.e., a run) by official statkeepers. To eliminate
discrepancies between my charting and the resources I use for stats, I included it.

Counting one deep attempt eliminated from the statistics by a pass interference call (not included on the above chart), Morgan threw nine passes that traveled at least 10 yards in the air. That included his touchdown to Chris Autman-Bell, who ran a deep crosser into the space occupied by the other two receivers running a double post.

Wisconsin's defense thrives against short completions to the perimeter, where their defensive backs and linebackers can swarm in a hurry. Minnesota was smart to avoid taking the "easy" completions and try to land bigger blows in the intermediate and deep levels.

It wasn't just explosiveness, though: The Gophers posted a 44-percent passing success rate, according to collegefootball.com. For once, Sanford did a lot to help out Morgan. Though Minnesota still ran too often on early downs, setting up difficult late downs, quick passes and frequent use of play-action made things easier for Morgan. He took advantage of open space behind the linebackers.

In the face of a fearsome rush, the Gophers' offensive linemen and running backs were not sterling in pass protection but kept Morgan clean for most of the day. Morgan was allowed to throw his touchdown because Ky Thomas picked up a delayed blitz. Derik LeCaptain did so as well on a big 3rd-and-long pickup in the opening minutes of the game.

By taking a more aggressive approach, and thanks to good execution, Minnesota threw the ball well against a team that hadn't allowed very many opponents to do so. The Gophers finished six of their ten drives on the Badgers' side of midfield, and the passing game had a lot to do with it.

6. Morgan kept his team in an important game.

The whole season, Morgan has come under criticism for his play. It has not been the worst year of his college career, but the only reason is that 2020 was worse. He has been a mediocre quarterback — arguably the second- or third-best in the Big Ten West, but that counts for little — and at times played a major role in losses. Even acknowledging the difficult situations the offense's approach often put him in, Morgan has not always performed as needed.

But on Saturday, Morgan was sharp enough to win. His one interception, a pick-six, was costly but came off a tipped ball. That was the only instance of one of Morgan's passes being disrupted by a Wisconsin defender. He was mostly accurate, he didn't put the ball into harm's way, and he detected pressure when it was upon him. Maybe he didn't always do enough to get away from that pressure, but generally, he stepped up and delivered well-placed, on time passes with defenders in his face.

I don't spend much time on lazy narratives about "proving the doubters wrong," but Morgan was up to the challenge against one of the nation's toughest defenses when it . If he wasn't, the Gophers likely would not have reclaimed Paul Bunyan's Axe.

7. The Wisconsin run defense largely looked like itself.

Not every part of Minnesota's evening went swimmingly. If there's one area where the Badgers are still the Badgers, it's in their front seven. Entering the game, according to collegefootball.com, Wisconsin allowed a (garbage time-adjusted) rushing success rate of 32 percent, the lowest in the nation. Though UW has been slightly more prone to allowing explosive runs, that has still been an area of strength for the team. Opponents do not run the ball well against this defense. Minnesota was hardly any different.

First, the good: Minnesota's offensive line avoided negative plays better than just about better than any team facing Wisconsin does. Before Saturday, Football Outsiders had Wisconsin posting an absurd nearly 29-percent stuff rate. For Minnesota to have avoided stuffs at less than a third of that rate is indeed a real accomplishment. The Gophers have succeeded at doing so for much of the year, and against their biggest test, they did so again.

But even with a few exciting flashes from the Gophers' young tailbacks, the Badgers killed any hope of generating explosiveness on the ground. The Gophers gained 10 or more yards on a run one time.

The biggest reason was perhaps Leo Chenal, the Badgers' inside linebacker who finished the game with 11.0 tackles (1.5 for a loss). Chenal demonstrated an astonishing ability to chase down the ballcarrier and prevent small pickups from becoming anything more damaging. Thomas and Mar'Keise Irving had a handful of runs where they came this close to breaking off a big one, but Chenal so often was there to slam the door shut.

Not that Chenal is the only superb defender Wisconsin has. It's an elite run defense because it contains plenty of disruptive players, and they all flow to the ball and make plays. Minnesota got a firsthand experience of that fact.

8. The Gophers presented the burliest formation of their season in the third quarter.

The term "MANBALL" gets used a lot in a bit of a derogatory manner around the football internet. Its users often aim to make fun of a stodgy, regressive form of offense that runs the ball for the sake of running the ball rather than because it's the best way forward.

I have been part of that piling on. I've advocated several times for the Gophers to lean less on their rushing attack and throw the ball more often: Passing is more efficient than running in the aggregate. Fleck, with co-coordinator and receivers coach Matt Simon, have recruited and developed a number of talented pass catchers. Running the ball as often as the Gophers do, at their sluggish tempo, has gotten them in trouble before and will again in the future. Minnesota would pose a far greater threat on offense if the team moved away from its current, run-centric approach — which one might call "MANBALL."

But "MANBALL" isn't always a pejorative. The game is about blocking and tackling. It is a physical sport that appeals to us, in part, as an outlet for our simple, animalistic desire to see people push each other around. A run-based offense, if executed well and in tandem with a head coach who is aggressive in 4th-and-short situations, has entertainment value.

An explosive run from the middle of the field, with mobile offensive linemen pulling across the formation to set tailbacks loose into the secondary, can be a primeval ballet. But a well-executed short-yardage run is like a meaty, sludgy heavy metal album: littered with punishing, slow-motion crashes coming together to create an exhilarating symphony.

Following that metaphor, then, this formation was the Fleck era's Master of Reality.

It was just pure art. Five offensive linemen to the right of center John Michael Schmitz. Axel Ruschmeyer at fullback. Pancaking cult hero Ko Kieft to the strong side, with Brevyn Spann-Ford as the only blocker on the left. There was only one place the ball was going, and it was Wisconsin's job to stop it from getting there. The Badgers didn't succeed. Thomas had a free scamper into the end zone.

This play also had strategic merit: Though the Gophers had used Ruschmeyer as a fullback before in seven- or eight-lineman sets, this specific look wouldn't have appeared on film before Saturday. The Badgers didn't present a front that adequately responded to the overloaded right side, and it would have been hard for them to defend no matter how many of their linemen won up front: They were just outnumbered. It was the football equivalent of a blunt instrument, but this was a smartly designed play that Sanford called at the right moment.

Still, its primary appeal for the average football viewer — or maybe just those who played offensive line at some point — was its beautifully brutalist aesthetic. Sometimes MANBALL is magnificent.

9. Minnesota won on special teams.

For the ninth time in 2021, the Gophers had a superior average starting field position to that of their opponents. (This excludes drives entirely consisting of kneeldowns.) This was largely due to winning the turnover battle, but it also helped that the Gophers once again were successful on kickoffs. The Badgers started, on average, 17.6 yards from their own end zone following kickoffs, the result of good coverage and a pair of holding penalties.

Even acknowledging Wisconsin's advantage in the punting game, the edge overall goes to Minnesota thanks to the work of Matthew Trickett. After hitting all three of his field goals on Saturday, Trickett is 12-of-13 on unblocked attempts within 40 yards. Though he hasn't been as effective on longer kicks, he's stabilized the kicking position as much as the Gophers hoped for when he arrived from Kent State. His three field goals were important to the final result.

10. Just days removed from their final regular season game, there has been plenty of news affecting the Gophers' outlook for 2022 and beyond.

Between the end of Saturday's game and Tuesday night, the following occurred:

• Andy Greder of the Pioneer Press reported that Morgan will return for his fifth season as a starter (and sixth in the program)
• Zach Barnett of Football Scoop reported the departure of Sanford
• Daniel Faalele, Boye Mafe, and Otomewo accepted invitations to the Senior Bowl
• Five players elected to transfer, including quarterbacks Zack Annextad and Jacob Clark

The happenings at quarterback — most likely stemming from Morgan's decision — set up a competition between Athan Kaliakmanis and Cole Kramer for the starting job in 2023. Sanford's departure means that Matt Simon will likely have a second go at calling plays in a Minnesota bowl game and may take the job on a permanent basis. (Yesterday, I suggested a few names of coaches who could replace Sanford.) The loss of three linemen who had a chance to return further ensures that the Gophers will see major turnover up front on both sides of the ball.

This all sets up an important and potentially busy few weeks. In addition to a potential offensive coordinator search, the early signing period looms; and Minnesota may pursue transfers to steady their lines, back up Morgan, and fill any holes opened by subsequent transfers or departures for the NFL. There's a lot to pay attention to even before the Gophers' bowl destination becomes known.

Next Game

Finishing 2nd in the West, with eight wins, might improve the odds of Minnesota making it to a better bowl than previously expected. At the very least, it rules out an undesirable trip to Detroit.

Specific projections vary. CBS Sports has Minnesota in the Music City Bowl against Tennessee. ESPN's projections are split between the Las Vegas Bowl (facing Arizona State) and a return trip to Tampa (facing Arkansas). Sports Illustrated still pegs Minnesota for the Pinstripe Bowl, which would count as a disappointment.

If a total of three Big Ten teams make the New Year's Six bowls or Playoff, that improves the Gophers' standing in the queue of bowl-eligible Big Ten teams. However, that seems unlikely. Iowa might have to win the conference championship game, earning a Rose Bowl berth and leading to Ohio State and Michigan filling other New Year's Six slots. If Michigan wins the title, Ohio State probably goes to Pasadena. Maybe Michigan State takes another major-bowl bid, but the Spartans' 56-7 loss in Columbus might have kicked them out of contention.

Gopher fans wanting to take a trip to somewhere warm only have to hope for something other than the Pinstripe Bowl. The Music City Bowl should satisfy that. Those not planning on going, who just want to watch a game on TV that doesn't interfere with the average person's work day, should want the Las Vegas Bowl, the former Cactus Bowl, or one of the New Year's Day games in Florida. The bowls out west, it should be noted, occur late on weeknights. However, they appear to be the most likely destinations that don't start in the middle of the afternoon.