Gophers Notebook: Nebraska 10-13 Minnesota

The customary "Midweek Review" series is going away this year because Chandler does not have as much time as he used to have. This is the first post in his new format for his opinions, the "Gophers Notebook." It's a less organized and a little less formal but in theory more immediate, aiming less to encapsulate an entire game than to hit on key takeaways.

Ugly wins still count. If you felt physically ill for much of the second half, that's understandable. Nebraska's always well-traveling support did not overrun Minneapolis like it has in the past, but the calls of "Go Big Red" and "Husker power" were especially audible as muted frustration and hastily-unlocked Minnesota pessimism took over the home crowd. Minnesota's rushing attack — the basis for their entire schematic identity — posted a success rate of just 24 percent. Their return game was woeful. Nebraska found just enough offensive efficiency through quarterback Jeff Sims to build and hold a narrow lead. The Cornhuskers' toughness impressed after years of Scott Frost football, but both teams' skill was lacking.

Nevertheless, a couple of big turnovers gave the Gophers late life. An astonishing catch tied the game, and a successful 1-minute drill gave their new kicker a chance to make a mark on his fourth-ever college field goal attempt. Dragan Kesich knew it was good the moment it left his foot.

In a roar, the crowd released their hopelessness and "typical Minnesota" cynicism. The Gophers, in spite of everything, are 1-0.

Against a team that hasn't gone bowling in the last six seasons, it shouldn't have looked anything like this. Greenhorns and veterans gave mixed performances. Nebraska revealed cracks in both the offensive and defensive fronts for Minnesota, leaving the Gophers with questions to answer in places that are usually their strengths. For half the game, the Huskers were in control.

Win probability chart via Game on Paper.

But for now, the Gophers are 1-0. Their fans get to watch the rest of the Week 1 slate at relative peace, celebrating the return of college football and knowing that next week, against possibly the worst team on the team's schedule, there is the opportunity to iron out deficiencies, let injuries heal, and hopefully have a far less stressful evening.

Athan Kaliakmanis showed all the promise and the inconsistencies he showed in 2022. There's still so, so much to like about Kaliakmanis' game: the poise and the fearlessness under pressure, the scrambling ability, the quick release and impressive arm strength. He is still, as a redshirt sophomore in his sixth career start, a work in progress.

Kaliakmanis' placement and touch can be off, putting passes behind his target when he needs to give lead, rocketing short passes when he has plenty of time and the receiver has plenty of space, and not putting enough on a ball to the opposite sideline when an underthrow means an interception.

Against Nebraska, Kaliakmanis was also late. On the Gophers' touchdown drive, he should've only needed one play in the red zone to score. If he had gotten Daniel Jackson the ball just a moment sooner on 1st down, Jackson would have likely been able to complete a catch in bounds. Even on his actual touchdown, Jackson should not have needed to pull off an impossible toe drag. He had beaten his defender, and Kaliakmanis very nearly wasn't on time.

The Gophers' quarterback can still become the best this program has had in a long time. He just needs to gain more experience, refine his rough edges, and develop his processing speed.

One tactical change I'm monitoring: pre-snap shifts. It's somewhat en vogue for teams to shift formations before the snap, but the Gophers haven't done it much during P.J. Fleck's tenure. There's been motion and single-player shifts, but not stuff like this:

Did that make much of an impact? I'm not sure, and there's not much of a way to tell. The theory behind this tactic is that changing formations will cause the defense to either reveal their call (i.e., man or zone) or adjust their alignment in a way that opens up space to exploit.

What was notable, though, was how seamlessly it fit into the Gophers' pace. Minnesota has long been a slow-moving team, to the point of frequently risking delay of game penalties and pushing their head coach to waste timeouts avoiding those penalties. That didn't happen once on Thursday. Early on, it seems like co-coordinators Greg Harbuagh and Matt Simon adjusted the offense's tempo to accommodate this extra wrinkle. Minnesota will remain a deliberate team, but they might (might) have actually solved one of their long-running problems.

We need more data to evaluate the new arrivals, but Minnesota doesn't win this game without them. Corey Crooms Jr. was the most effective of the Gophers' transfers, making seven catches for 63 yards. As the game progressed, Kaliakmanis relied more and more on his favorite targets, Jackson and Brevyn Spann-Ford, but his new slot receiver made some significant plays in the first half.

Crooms' fellow ex-Western Michigan Broncos, tailback Sean Tyler and linebacker Ryan Selig, were not as impactful. Tyler had very little room against the Cornhuskers' defense, and for all his skill, he's not built to make it through packed boxes. Another newcomer, freshman Darius Taylor, got his first carry, but that was all. Redshirt freshman Zach Evans did not play.

Defensive back Jack Henderson (Southeastern Louisiana) had a part-time role in the slot and missed a tackle, and Tyler Bride (Georgia Southern) and Chris Collins (North Carolina) barely featured at all.

The most impactful defender was Tre'Von Jones (Elon), who allowed a Pro Football Focus-tracked 1 yard after the catch, broke up a pass, and intercepted Sims in the end zone, killing a scoring threat before halftime. Jones was one of three Gophers who played every defensive snap, and he didn't look out of place at all despite the step up from FCS. Whether that will hold when Minnesota faces better receiving groups is to be seen, but Jones did his job.

Maverick Baranowski is not there yet. Baranowski's first taste of a major role in Minnesota's defense felt a lot like that of the player whose spot he was filling. As vital a player as Cody Lindenberg is now, and as much as the Gophers clearly missed him in Week 1, observers should recall how bad he often looked in his first college season. That was particularly true in his debut. He flashed talent, but other teams exposed how behind Lindenberg was. He took time to the adjust to the speed of the game, consistently take the right angles, and improve his tackling.

Baranowski, to his credit, found the ballcarrier a lot in his first start. (That was expected.) He even broke up a pass at a key moment late in the game. He also had some brutal missed tackles, including one that turned a loss into an explosive play:

With both Lindenberg and Derik LeCaptain out, Baranowski had to play. He definitely took his lumps, but the only way to fix that is for him to get more reps. I remain confident that once he does, he becomes a solid regular.

Do the Gophers have a pass rush? Or were they just playing Nebraska? According to PFF, in this matchup last year, Minnesota generated pressures on 15 of Nebraska's 28 dropbacks, converting four into sacks. This time around, the Gophers got 10 pressures and three sacks on Sims' 24 dropbacks. That comes out to a lower pressure rate than last year's game (54 to 42 percent), but still higher than we saw from the Gophers for most of 2022.

We assumed Nebraska's offensive line was still going to be a problem for them, a weakness that Minnesota had to exploit. The fact that they did exploit it, and that the pressures did not come from just one or two players, is highly encouraging. Like a lot of things in Week 1, though, we must temper our reactions and wait until we've seen more before ruling definitively that the pass rush is fixed.

Tyler Nubin is still one of the best safeties in America. With so much turnover across the defense, and the injuries the Gophers either came into Thursday with or suffered during the game, Nubin returning for another season has already proven invaluable.

According to Game on Paper, Nubin's fourth-quarter interception was worth nearly 50 points of Win Probability Added. That makes it by far the most important play of the game, not to mention the Gophers' biggest play by WPA since Justin Walley's interception at Penn State last season.

Any accolade feels on the table for Nubin: Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, All-American honors, the Thorpe, the Nagurski. He could be better as a Gopher than Antoine Winfield Jr. was, and he could go higher in the NFL Draft than Winfield's 45th overall. Nubin is a special, special player.