Thursday, September 25, 2008

Scouting the Golden Gophers, Updated

Quarterback
Sophomore Adam Weber returns to the QB spot after throwing 57.5% for 2895 yards, 24 touchdowns, and 19 interceptions as a red-shirt freshman. So far this season he is a much improved throwing 71.8% for 967 yards, 7 touchdowns, and one interception. His big game this season was against Bowling Green, throwing 84% for 233 yards and three touchdowns.

Runningbacks
The running game is lead by DeLeon Eskridge, one of the highly touted freshman, with 204 yards and 5 touchdowns. Returning starter sophomore Duane Bennett has 140 yards and 2 touchdowns. Bennett is often compared to Lawrence Maroney, not only because he wears #22 but based on his running style.
UPDATE-I failed to mention that Bennett is out for the season with a knee injury from the BGSU game.

Receivers
Junior Eric Decker leads the team with 454 yards and one touchdown. Outside of playing baseball as an outfielder at Minnesota, last year in football he had 909 yards and 9 touchdowns. Second in receiving is RB Bennett with 140 yards.

Defense
This unit was not very good last year, in fact Minnesota would be 0-12 if Miami would have hit a 33-yard field goal. Over the summer Coach Brewster dismissed three defensive players, but based on the stats last year they won't be missed. So far this season they are still struggling allowing 354 yards/game with 109/game on the ground and 245/game in the air.

This Season
Some quick stats about Minnesota, #4 in nation in turnover margin at +2.75/game, 4-0 for first time since 2005, #11 in pass efficiency at 164.83, and #17 in kickoff returns at 25.86 yards/return. That being said, the defense was still pretty bad against non-conference games, which isn't comforting for them going into conference play. Minnesota was able to avenge the loss to Florida Atlantic, which is good because the loss last year was the first victory for a Sun Belt Conference team over a Big Ten team. Otherwise they have beat Northern Illinois, Bowling Green, and Montana State.

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