OSU Vs. MINN

11-15-14
Week 12

Well I'll be the first to say that the final score of the Ohio State at Minnesota, 31-24 OSU, did not tell the story of the game.  Ohio State controlled the majority of the game, and JT Barret seemed to run all over the place with his 195 rush yards averaging 11.1 yards a carry.  Not to mention his 200 total passing yards.  Though Minnesota did stay competitive throughout the game because of Ohio States three turnovers.  Minnesota's defense was off and on; they either looked well and forced a punt, or they let Barret, and Elliot run all over them.  Not surprising is the fact that Minnesota's offense barely do anything outside the redzone, bar Cobb's 30 yard touchdown run on 3rd and 13.  Leidner threw one pretty bad interception, there was underneath and over the top coverage.  What is really frustrating is at half Minnesota had 133 total offensive yards, and Ohio State had 354 total yards, and 310 yards belonged to Barret.  More surprising is that at half Minnesota had only 15 passing yards...
Obviously that is embarrassing and cannot not happen.  The worst part of this is that Minnesota only ended up with 85 total passing yards.  How can Minnesota expect to beat a top tier team with no passing game.  I feel that the offensive play calling was strange, and poor, for example, calling a QB draw on 3rd and 10... That's Mitch Leidner back there, not JT Barret.  Despite all of that Minnesota kept it and close, and interesting game.  Hopefully the bowl selectors look favorably on this one touchdown loss.  I know that there was a Tax Slayer.com bowl representative at the game, along with a Citrus Bowl representative.  Hopefully the Citrus Bowl wasn't just there for Ohio State, but we'll have to see how the final two games turn out.

There are a couple positives to take out of this game though.  First, it shows that Minnesota can hang with elite teams, and potentially win the game.  It just seems that they are that one step step away from clinching a big win.  This relates to the passing game, if they can get more than 85 passing yards in a game, I think they could beat an Ohio State or Michigan State.  Second, this game shows that Minnesota did improve during the season.  When they played, now #4, TCU the Gophers only managed to score only 7 points.  Today when the Gophers played an arguably similar Ohio State team they scored 24 points.  I cannot say with 100% confidence that Minnesota improved, but I believe that they have improved over the season.  Gopher fans keep your head up, the future looks "golden" for these Gophers.

Ski-U-Mah