Colorado Buffaloes News - MinnesotaSportsFan https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/tag/colorado-buffaloes/ Minnesota sports, but different Fri, 16 Sep 2022 21:13:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=32,height=32,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/cropped-cropped-MSF-favicon-1.jpg Colorado Buffaloes News - MinnesotaSportsFan https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/tag/colorado-buffaloes/ 32 32 Saturday is About Tanner Morgan vs Mike Sanford https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/gophers-football/colorado-vs-minnesota-is-about-tanner-morgan-vs-mike-sanford/ Fri, 16 Sep 2022 21:13:29 +0000 https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/?p=40434 The Minnesota Gophers are 28-point favorites at home vs the Colorado Buffaloes, on Saturday afternoon (2:30 PM). A spread they haven’t been on the right side of vs Power-5 competition since 2019. In fact, Minnesota played 19 total football games during the 2020 (7) and 2021 (12) seasons and went in as >28-point favorites just once.

It was vs Bowling Green (2021), a group-of-5 school. The Gophers entered as 30.5 point favorites and lost 14-10. The non-conference blunder — paired with an embarrassing 14-6 loss vs Illinois that cost them the Big Ten West — ruined an otherwise successful season. The reoccurring issue wasn’t a mystery. The Minnesota Gophers couldn’t throw the ball.

Remember 2019 Tanner Morgan?

A once-promising NFL prospect, Tanner Morgan fell off the Big Ten QB cliff. He went from 2nd-Team All Big Ten in 2019, to being talked about in the same conversations as Graham Mertz and Spencer Petras. Oh, you have forgotten how good Morgan once looked?

Head over to the single-season U of M passing record book. As a Sophomore in 2019, Tanner set the single-season school records for yards (3,253), touchdowns (30), completion percentage (66%), TD/INT ratio (4.28 | 30 TD / 7 INT). He was a third round QB, and rising, in many “future” draft classes.

But after Kirk Ciarrocca left for Penn State, and Mike Sanford began his Gophers OC tenure, Tanner Morgan became a shell of his 2019 self. He looked jumpy and nervous in the pocket. Many times, Tanner looked downright confused. Morgan’s statistical comparisons, under Ciarrocca vs Sanford, paint a vivid picture of his downfall.

The statistical downfall of Tanner Morgan under Mike Sanford

In 2020, the Gophers played just seven games. So, Morgan’s 1,374 total passing yards that season can be deceiving. But his yards per attempt and adjusted yards per attempt went sour, too. Tanner’s 10.2 Y/A and 11.1 AY/A in 2019 fell all the way to 7.5 and 7.0 in 2020. A nearly impossible decline.

Morgan’s play under Sanford didn’t get much better in year two, even with a full offseason of working together. After throwing for a record-breaking 30 touchdowns in 2019 (13 games), alone, Morgan threw for just 17 total touchdowns during two seasons (19 games) under Mike Sanford’s tutelage.

So when the 2021 season came to an end, all of the questions surrounded the Minnesota Gophers football team centered around two people. Tanner Morgan, and the offensive coordinator who supervised his decline, Mike Sanford.

Fixing the passing problem

Was PJ Fleck going to fire Sanford? Would Tanner use his 6th season of eligibility to return and, if so, would there be a quarterback competition? The answers to those questions came quickly. Yes, yes and no.

Mike Sanford was fired on November 29, right after the 2021 regular season came to an end, and before the Minnesota Gophers started preparation for their bowl game vs West Virginia. Morgan announced his return for a 6th and final year, soon after. And by the time their bowl game was played on December 28, we knew the 2022 starting job was Tanner’s and that he’d be reunited with Kirk Ciarrocca, who had been rehired as Minnesota’s OC.

So, here we are…

Fast forward to tomorrow. Through two games (vs bad opponents) under Ciarrocca, Tanner Morgan has flourished. The Gophers, once again, look as explosive offensively as they’ve ever been under Fleck.

Mike Sanford was hired by Colorado, as offensive coordinator. Converse to Minnesota’s early success in 2022, Sanford’s start in Boulder has been rocky. The Buffaloes have mustered just 23 points through two games, leading to losses vs TCU (38-13) and @ Air Force (41-10).

The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel is calling Colorado the worst Power-5 team in all of college football, and part of that has to do with what looks like a brutal OC hire, in Mike Sanford.

I was high on Minnesota entering the season, but I’m not sure we’ve learned a thing about the Gophers yet after blowouts of New Mexico State and Western Illinois, and even this week’s step up may be fairly useless because Colorado is my early leader for worst Power 5 team in the country. — Stewart Mandel (The Athletic)

Climbing out of Sanford hole starts with a glow up vs Sanford

So, Saturday’s game isn’t about the Minnesota Gophers vs Colorado Buffaloes. Because the contest, itself, shouldn’t really be a contest. Instead, the Gophers need to prove themselves as worthy Big Ten West favorites.

To do that, Minnesota needs to prove that Tanner Morgan can revert back to the QB we saw in 2019. So far, so good. Through two games, he’s posted 461 yards on 73% completion and 12.5 Y/A, easily looking like the best QB in the division, behind Purdue’s Aiden O’Connell.

But those numbers were posted vs FCS (Western Illinois) and bad group of 5 (New Mexico State) competition. As mentioned, Colorado isn’t a good P5 football program. They are, however, a P5 football program. That means P5 talent and P5 size.

So, this is an important step for Morgan and the Gophers offense. We need to see, again, the poised/confident version of Tanner Morgan. The same guy who has been IMA for two seasons. It’s an opportunity to show everybody watching that he wasn’t the problem, during the Sanford tenure.

Because this is the final preseason test that new/old Tanner Morgan and the 2022 Minnesota Gophers will get. Next week, the 30-point favorite games are done, when the Gophers hit the road to play (#11) Michigan State, in East Lansing.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

]]> Fri, 16 Sep 2022 16:13:31 +0000 Minnesota Gophers Football Gophers Have a New Three-Headed Monster at Running Back https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/gophers-football/gophers-have-a-new-three-headed-monster-at-running-back/ Sat, 18 Sep 2021 20:53:52 +0000 https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/?p=36303 The Colorado Buffaloes defense was being propped up all over the country after holding the #5 Texas A&M Aggies to just 10 total points last weekend. They had only given up 117 rushing yards total over the course of their first two games. But, as I wrote about earlier in the week, I expected the Minnesota Gophers running game to prove the Buffaloes defense as overrated.

And that’s exactly what happened. It started, unsurprisingly, with a lot of Trey Potts. He looks better and better every time he takes the field and that progression continued today. Minnesota dominated time of possession and their defense held Colorado’s stagnant offense to an incredible 63 total yards and 0 points.

This is what you call a blowout, ladies and gentlemen.

3-Headed Monster?

Potts finished with 26 carries, 121 yards and 3 touchdowns. But PJ Fleck and the offensive coaching staff talked earlier in the week about getting other running backs involved on Saturday vs Colorado, to take some of the load off of Potts. So after redshirt Junior, Bryce Williams, fumbled his first carry early in the game, Fleck turned to true Freshman, Mar’Keise “Bucky” Irving, who immediately electrified the CU football field.

The two of them, along with some well timed Tanner Morgan completions, had Colorado questioning their existence as a football program. Redshirt Freshman running back, Ky Thomas, got in on the action late and looked great too.

It’s clear that the Minnesota Gophers have a bright future at running back. That’s something we’ve covered at Minnesota Sports Fan since Ky Thomas and Bucky Irving committed in 2019 and 2020, respectively. And after 2021 Mohamed Ibrahim dropped out with an injury after week one, I knew it was only a matter of time before we saw those two guys emerge from the fray.

Mar’Keise Irving

A true Freshman and former 4-star recruit, Bucky is a homerun threat every time he touches the ball and he’s impossible to bring down for such a small dude. He’s only 18 years old so as he gets bigger and builds out, he’ll only get better. That should scare opposing Big Ten West teams. Irving got a lot of carries while Saturday was still a game and held a better YPC average than Potts did. He’s clearly the new RB2.

Ky Thomas

Entering the season, I expected redshirt Freshman Ky Thomas (another 4-star recruit) to be ahead of Irving on the depth chart but it’s possible that (a) Bucky is that good and (b) Thomas is still climbing his way back from shoulder surgeryhe had last year.

But Thomas finally got some run in the 4th quarter Saturday. The game was decided, when he entered, but Ky didn’t care, running over just about every defender he came in contact with. His 9.4 YPC average (on 7 carries) tells a pretty good story. He also got in the endzone.

Three is better than one

It’s hard to say how touches will get divided for these running backs, going forward. We know Trey Potts is still the RB1 but it’s clear that Fleck has at least three guys who can cut up a football field in chunks. He wasn’t sure of that when they flew into Boulder.

So while winning this game was huge and obviously the #1 positive to take out of Saturday, multiplying the backfield by three trustworthy backs will pay dividends when Big Ten play resumes.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

]]> Sun, 19 Sep 2021 10:00:16 +0000 Minnesota Gophers Football Colorado’s Defense Looks Great on Paper, But Video Tells a Different Story https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/gophers-football/colorados-defense-looks-great-on-paper-but-video-tells-a-different-story/ Fri, 17 Sep 2021 15:56:43 +0000 https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/?p=36282 The Minnesota Gophers are 1-1 and coming off of an unimpressive 31-26 victory over the Miami (OH) Redhawks. That’s led many fans and media members to doubt PJ Fleck’s 2021 squad and it has made them (+2.5) underdogs vs the Colorado Buffaloes on Saturday.

On the other side of Folsom Field, which sits in the middle of Colorado University in Boulder, will be the Buffaloes. Karl Dorell‘s team is coming off of a 10-7, 4th quarter loss to Texas A&M, in a game the Buffaloes led for 45 of 60 minutes. It was an impressive defensive showing that many experts think will translate to a win over the Gophers this weekend.

Intrigued, I decided to watch that CO vs A&M game. And after further review, I’m unimpressed. Here’s why.

A&M’s Young QB and Gameplan OR Colorado’s Defense?

Kellen Mond was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in the 3rd round of last year’s NFL Draft. That meant Texas A&M head coach, Jimbo Fisher, had to hand the keys to one of two underclassmen quarterbacks. He eventually turned to his redshirt freshman, Haynes King, who lasted less than five quarters. King left the game vs Colorado after the Aggies’ first drive.

His replacement, Zach Calzada, looked absolutely terrible for most of the game. He finished with a completion percentage under 50% (18/38) and it wasn’t for a lack of opportunities or open receivers. At one point late in the 3rd quarter, Calzada was 9/23 for 68 yards. He finished with 183.

The mistakes you see below from the first half only. He wasn’t anymore impressive for most of the back-half. You can watch for yourself, here.

Does Jimbo Fisher Hate His Running Backs?

While the Colorado defense was solid against the run, it was far from perfect. Yet, Fisher REFUSED to run the ball consistently, even when it worked. And it did work at times, as you saw in the highlights above. When it didn’t, swing passes and bubble screens did a fair amount of damage. But instead of challenging the Buffaloes at the line of scrimmage, A&M continued to pile their fate onto the arm of their 3rd-year Sophomore backup QB, 5-10 yards behind it.

And Zach Calzada rode the struggle bus, as the 10-7 final score obviously indicates, until late in the 4th quarter. Finally, he settled down and made two huge throws on the Aggies final drive of the game. Well, he looked pretty good the drive before, too until he dove and fumbled into the Buffaloes’ endzone for a Colorado touchback.

If there’s one thing I can promise you about Saturday, it’s that the Gophers will not rely on Tanner Morgan’s arm to win in Boulder, Colorado. They will pin their winning hopes on Trey Potts and (MAYBE) other running backs like Cam Wiley, Bryce Williams, Ky Thomas and Mar’Keise Irving. The Buffaloes will have to prove they can stop those guys on every single drive, which is not something they had to concern themselves with vs the Aggies, who handed the ball off to their running backs just 17 times, total.

We’ll Find Out Saturday

Don’t get me wrong, the Buffaloes have some very nice pieces on the defensive side of the ball, especially Mike Linebacker, Nate Landman, who was 1st Team All Pac-12 last season. You won’t miss his old school neckroll.

Who knows? Maybe they’re as good as advertised, which is one of the best in the country. And maybe this Colorado defense will be the first team in years to hold the Minnesota Gophers running backs down. But I doubt it. As for Tanner Morgan? He certainly has his faults but I’ve covered him for most of his career and he absolutely would’ve made the Buffaloes defense pay on a lot of the missed throws you saw in the first video of this blog.

The result looked good on paper vs A&M but they’ll have to play better on the field Saturday, if they’re going to hold the Gopher offense down. And if winning is the goal, Colorado will have to keep the Minnesota offense off the board. That’s because their backup quarterback Brenden Lewis, who will start vs Minnesota, isn’t very good and was determined to be the worst QB on the field last weekend. He succeeded, finishing 13/25 with 89 yards and an INT.

I expect the Minnesota Gophers to bounce back, beating Colorado and their overrated defense, 27-17 in Boulder.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

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