Gophers Notebook: Minnesota 30-49 Purdue

In P.J. Fleck's second year, he had an obvious problem. That problem's name was Robb Smith.

Smith was defensive coordinator at Arkansas before Fleck arrived to the U of M, and that ended in failure. It was not because the Razorbacks were bad on every down; while their opponents were fairly efficient, they were not quite moving at will. The problem was that Smith's defense could not stop giving up big plays. In 2016, the Razorbacks' run defense ranked 127th out of 130 teams in CFBD's explosiveness metric. When a defense gives up so many chunk plays, the operation is broken.

Fleck never should have hired Smith. However, the two coached together at Rutgers and with the Buccaneers under Greg Schiano, so Fleck brought his old colleague to Minneapolis.

The results were predictable. Minnesota had one of the most combustible defenses in the country. This came to a head at the start of November 2018, when the Gophers went to Champaign and gave up 55 points to Illinois. The Illini, who had legitimately explosive tailbacks but few other strengths, averaged 12.3 yards per carry and ran for five touchdowns, three of which were for more than 70 yards. They wouldn't win another game the rest of the season.

Fleck fired Smith the next day. That decision saved the Gophers' bowl chances and likely Fleck's entire tenure as head coach. Joe Rossi, elevated in the interim, turned out to be an exceptional defensive coordinator and deservedly remains in that position, likely until he finds his first head coaching job. Fleck had an obvious problem, he addressed it, and the program was immediately better for it.

Today's Gophers have no single, glaring, instant-fix problem.

The Gophers are 5-5, with realistically one more winnable game to achieve bowl eligibility. I wrote a week ago that none of this has to mean Fleck's tenure is crumbling apart. I firmly hold that position.

The nature of this defeat is nevertheless alarming because Purdue exposed Minnesota's weaknesses to the fullest extent. It was a bad matchup — the pass-first team with a mobile quarterback and a respectable skill group, despite poor offensive line play, against the defense with secondary problems, injuries at linebacker, and difficulties with mobile quarterbacks — that went even worse than expected. The score nearly matches that 2018 loss to Illinois. With Northwestern and Indiana left on their schedule, Purdue might even finish with the record Illinois posted that season, 4-8.

What has been clear since September, but that grows more strongly underscored, is that Fleck must show in 2024 that this is a momentary setback, the kind of season every team in America has in their own way. Because that is just the cycle: You get a season or two where a crop of players peaks, and when they graduate, you need to replace them. At a brand-name program, that means ending up in the Alamo Bowl rather than the Playoff. At Minnesota or Iowa or Utah or Georgia Tech or Oklahoma State, it means finishing .500 or below it. No matter who you are, you have to reckon with the truth that you cannot keep your best players forever. When they are gone, you get to know your head coach's floor.

There is ample reason to believe this is a reset year rather than a harbinger of bad times. To start with, Rossi's defense entered the year replacing seven starters. We have precedent for significant turnover on that side of the ball, and while the circumstances were extreme, the results illustrate the point.

The 2020 defense had to replace seven starters from a year before, including four NFL Draft picks. The players stepping up had an even harder time than they should have due to the pandemic, but the truth is that they were not ready. Minnesota's defense fell from 26th in SP+ in 2019 to 64th.

That 2020 defense did not lack talent. Boye Mafe, Esezi Otomewo, Mariano Sori-Marin, and Tyler Nubin all came to shine as Gophers. Mafe, once a raw athlete the coaches didn't trust in obvious run situations, is now one of the best defenders on the Seahawks. Otomewo became a versatile, every-down defensive end who could rush the passer and hold his gap. Sori-Marin looked hopeless at points but developed into one of the most valuable players on the team, a rock at middle linebacker and practically Rossi's lieutenant. Nubin had a woeful debut season, frequently ending up out of position trying to make plays he could not, and now he is likely to go in the second round of next April's draft.

That does not even include Cody Lindenberg, who had to chase Zach Charbonnet around in his first college game. In the time since, Lindenberg has shown real ability, but he has yet to put it together for a full season due to injuries. He has appeared in just two games this season; with fifth-year backup Derik LeCaptain out for the whole year, redshirt freshman Maverick Baranowski has become the de facto middle linebacker. The results, as one should expect, have been mixed.

On Saturday, Lindenberg was scratched again. Baranowski then went down the first quarter. Neither is a superb coverage linebacker, but I am inclined to believe both Lindenberg and Baranowski would have fared better defending this seam route than true freshman Matt Kingsbury did:

When one underclassman is inadequate or unavailable, another underclassman has to take his place. After halftime, redshirt freshman walk-on Tyler Stolsky took over for Kingsbury. The replacement for redshirt freshman safety Aidan Gousby, out due to injury, was redshirt freshman Coleman Bryson.

Even more than the other side of the ball, defense requires experience and continuity. The Gophers have not had that this season. When the veterans age out, the greenhorns and the transfers coming up from lower levels have to sink or swim. Even the swimmers will see their heads dip below water. But they have to play, or they will never be ready. In the short term, that means taking some lumps.

That is true for a new quarterback as well. Athan Kaliakmanis' Saturday was a continuation of two of this season's trends: visible improvement week-to-week and lingering inconsistency down-to-down. In moments, Kaliakmanis will make good decisions and strong, accurate throws, and his improvisational ability is a clear strength.

His deep ball seems to be improving as well, even if it helps that he has Daniel Jackson running go routes for him. Kaliakmanis can still offset those gains by forcing throws into double-coverage or just putting a sideline throw out of his target's reach.

Kaliakmanis' 42.9-percent completion rate and 292 yards for the game summarizes the day pretty well: Purdue's heavy reliance on single-high coverage and man coverage naturally leaves open space downfield, and that meant Kaliakmanis had to try some low-percentage but high-reward throws. He connected on a few, and he missed a few. Drops at all levels did not help the passes the receivers never had a chance to catch. He could have been far worse, but Kaliakmanis needed to be better to have a chance at the win.

For the quarterback's struggles and for those of everyone else, is there anyone you can blame for this season falling short of its modest expectations? Because when fans demand "changes," that is a thin euphemism for finding some fall guys. The problem is that there is not a member of this coaching staff who obviously has failed at his job.

Fleck's game management has generally improved since the Northwestern disaster, but against Purdue he reverted back to his conservative ways on 4th down. The Gophers also remain overly dependent on the run game. But with an inconsistent quarterback and another solid crop of running backs, that approach can change only so much.

Greg Harbaugh Jr.'s playcalling has been fine overall. He has made shifts and motion a greater part of the team's approach, the latter of which has shown significant value at the NFL level. The Gophers play with lighter personnel than under previous coordinators and have basically thrown out the Wildcat package, changes that do create more room for the ground game in neutral situations. Minnesota still does some annoying things they've always done (like run the ball on every 2nd-and-short), but these are issues with the head coach's philosophy more than with the coordinator.

Granted, Harbaugh is not a quarterbacks coach by trade. Fleck's insistence that the quarterbacks coach be the playcaller makes a lot of sense for teaching quarterbacks the playbook or how to diagnose coverages, but it may not be as helpful for improving technique.

The problem is that that line of thinking is mostly conjecture: From the outside, we do not know what Harbaugh does and does not know about playing quarterback. The only way to see if he is good at that side of his job is to see how Kaliakmanis' mechanics develop, and whether he becomes more consistent in subsequent seasons.

Criticism of any position coach carries the same inherent flaw. In the Gophers' case, it is far harder because so many coaches on staff either have positive track records or just joined the program.

It is fair to question whether Matt Simon's reputation as a receivers coach should be as great as it is, but Jackson's continued development and that of the now-injured Le'Meke Brockington are points in Simon's favor. While Brian Callahan's offensive line is merely fine compared to past seasons, none could say that Minnesota does not attract good recruits and turn out effective linemen.

Both secondary coaches are in their first two seasons in their current positions. Cornerbacks coach Nick Monroe just arrived after coaching multiple pros in Syracuse's secondary. Danny Collins oversaw Nubin's leap from good player to all-time program great, he brought in Jack Henderson as a transfer, and he is the lead recruiter for Koi Perich, the top recruit in the state and in the Gophers' 2024 class. Based on the data we have, can we say that Monroe or Collins should be doing their jobs better? It is difficult to blame either too much for the current problems at defensive back, the unit most in transition, unless those problems continue next season.

Even Rob Wenger, derided by fans for his role as special teams coordinator (despite the returner position being the only consistent problem), can point to successes coaching rush ends. Under Wenger, Mafe turned into one of the top edge defenders in the conference, Thomas Rush made a successful transition from linebacker, and now Danny Striggow has become a solid starter.

And Rossi has earned ample trust. He has twice turned around this defense. Whether his run-focused style will work as well in the new Big Ten is an impossible question to answer until Minnesota is in the new Big Ten. Rossi deserves the leeway to prove this season is a blip rather than a trend.

Of course, this is a pretty optimistic reading of the situation. As someone who tries to have rational opinions about Gopher football, I genuinely think the roster just needs development. This season is most likely a natural trough in the life of a college football program, even a healthy one.

I nevertheless have my biases and my own expectations as a fan. I tend to take sports as they are rather than getting angry or sad about a thing I cannot control, which I struggled with when I was younger. I reserve the right to be critical but try to enjoy what I have. If I am unable to let myself do that, I see no point in watching. However fully I believe the points I have made in this post, I consume Minnesota football my own way. That way is why I am quick to push back against fatalism and finger-pointing — lest we spend our Saturdays in misery and needlessly speedrun the Glen Mason arc.

There is a real chance that this is not just a reset year. Maybe the players who have not clicked never will. Maybe important players lose faith and transfer out, and no one suitable comes in to replace them. For no one does success last forever, even if a coach has not entirely lost his touch. Every regime has its expiration date.

Right now, we can only try to predict where things are headed. The one way to see which path Fleck's Gophers are on is to wait and see where they end up.