Jeremy: Mixed Bag

Wow, nice to see Jeff back huh? After almost two months of... well, I don't know. Anyway, nice to have you back buddy. Can we maybe get Luke, Kris and Kyle to take Jeffrick on a roadtrip maybe once a month to keep Jeff hungry? Or at least maybe so we can get more 'stache stories?

After spending the weekend watching the Gophers and Vikings both lose close games, it was nice to go to bed last night knowing our hometown 9 is going to the playoffs. After being 12 games under .500 in June, for this team to come all the way back, overtake the White Sox, and be looking at the possibility of still winning the division... well, it's pretty unreal.

Speaking of the Gophers...
I didn't get to watch the Gophs game against Purdue live, but I did DVR the game and watch it on Sunday morning, when I, unfortunately, already knew they had lost. Having already known the final score, I was really taken back by just how not-in-it the Gophers looked for most of the game. Although the score was relatively close, the Gophers certainly never played well enough to win.
Some notes:
*The Gopher pass rush is still completely non-existant, and Lockwood barely ever sends a blitz. The reason behind this is probably fear. The Gophers are already giving up plenty of yards and big plays, sending blitzes that could be picked up and exploited for more big plays is a scary proposition.
*Penalties are a major concern for the Gophers. 8 penalties resulting in 80 yards against them is far too much against a mediocre Big 10 opponent. Play like this will be exploited on an even larger scale against top talent like Michigan this weekend. Penalties to this degree, in my opinion, come from a lack of preperation.
*I've been very hot & cold on Bryan Cupito over the past 3 years. I love his arm strength, and his accuracy when he finds the open receiver. But I learned something about Cupito watching the Purdue game. Cupito is a pocket passer... and that's it. The coaching staff should never call a play requiring Cupito to run. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that they should never, under any circumstance call a play that requires Cupito to be outside of the pocket. With less than two minutes left in the first half the Gophers called a quarterback sneak that caused to laugh out loud. The middle of the Purdue defensive line was wide open before the snap, as the center snapped the ball he went strait ahead to keep the lane open for Cupito. Instead, Cupito turned his left shoulder and began to fall toward the right tackle, trying to follow him to the touchdown instead of the center. I'm convinced that Cupito had his eyes closed, because there's no way he could have missed the hole right in front of him if his eyes had been open.
*Lastly on the Gophers, I hope that we can all agree that the Alex Daniels experiment needs to come to an end. If not for the fact that Daniels doesn't look like he knows what he's doing when the lane isn't wide open for him, at least for the fact that Amir Pinnix has proven (28 carries, 172 yards, 6.1 yds/carry) that he can carry the load, and carry it well.

Speaking of carrying it well...
*How about Chester Taylor doing exactly what he was brought into Vikingland to do? 3.7 yds/carry and averaging 25 carries per game.
*In my opinion the Vikings played better on Sunday losing to the Bears than they did in their previous 2 games. So are the Bears really as good as everyone thinks? And if they are, does this mean that we aren't far behind them? There's still a ton of questions up in the air for this season, but we do know a couple of things:
*Chester looks like he can carry the bulk of the carries at RB.
*Mike Tomlin is for real as a defensive coordinator. He says all the right things, schemes to get his players in position to make plays, and he is an emotional leader.
*Tomlin's defense is for real too, and for the first time in almost two decades the defense of the Vikings IS the strength of the franchise.
*Antoine Winfield is the quiet leader of the defense. The man had 10 tackles on Sunday.
*The offensive line has the ability and talent to be top tier, but OH MY GOODNESS do they need to do a better job of protecting Brad Johnson. I simply am NOT ready for the Brooks Bollinger era to begin.
*Brad Johnson has a lot of targets to throw to. Jim Kleinsasser should not be one of them.
*We should all be thankful to the Packers for being dumb enough to let Ryan Longwell go.