Minnesota Gophers Football: 2023 Schedule Talk - Run/Pass Opponents, Key Games, Traps Games, & More!

breaking down the Gophers 2023 schedule is it as scary as it looks we'll talk about it today what we're gonna do here we're just gonna keep rowing your daily podcast on the Minnesota Golden Gopher Returns part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day we're just gonna keep rolling keep rolling and keep rowing [Music] you're listening to locked on Golden Gophers part of the lockdown podcast Network your team every day my name is Kane Rob host of the podcast former Collegiate football video coordinator and recruiting assistant here to talk Golden Gophers with you each and every day of the week now folks I know these last two days there haven't been a show and you're like Kane what is happening look the work the day job has been on the grind two major conferences I went to this week so it's been a little bit slow but we're gonna make up for it we got you covered today and I'm gonna add a Saturday show tomorrow to make sure we've got that gopher's goodness coming at you so be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any of the daily content and we'll be back at it going strong again next week and then if you're listening on audio platform speed is sure to leave a five-star review wherever you get the podcast Spotify Stitcher uh Apple pods You Name It We got it for you over there just find us at locked on Golden Gophers now today we are talking about the Minnesota Gophers 2023 schedule now it's been amped up it's been really kind of warning signs have been flashing for fans of the Gophers with how difficult it is how much it is going to be a challenge some people are already like oh we're only gonna win six games but I think there is some hope in there there is some things to maybe be concerned about we're going to break it down today though we're going to talk about the past heavy versus The Run heavy teams that are on the schedule we're going to talk about a predictions model from Kelly Ford on today's show I'll bring the show if you want to see that predictions model we'll have it up on the screen over at YouTube so another reason that it's great to follow over on that channel and then finally we are going to talk about the key games on the season trap games low spots games that will make or break what this guy gopher season will be seen as we're going to talk about all that today it's a whole lot to talk about so let's jump in right away with that breaking down of the pass heavy versus The Run heavy attack teams now when you're looking at the Gophers schedule in general I kind of break it into four quarters and you know what it's kind of ironic because there's four quarters in a football game but that's kind of what this schedule presents and the first quarter is the longest you're talking about five games in that first quarter Nebraska Eastern Michigan UNC Northwestern and then Louisiana Lafayette now those five games make up the first quarter of this season when it comes to how um the tearing out of the season that's not literally like the first quarter the first 25 of the season it's obviously more being five games but if you look at these five teams these five opponents these are all winnable games for the Gophers the Gophers could start this thing off thriving they could start it off 5-0 heading into a major game six with Michigan but before we get into that let's talk about these first five games now pass heavy versus run heavy when you're looking at it Nebraska could be more of a question mark because they have a new coach in town don't necessarily know what he likes to do I try to take a look at his time with temple and also with Baylor and the percentage of total yards that came from passing versus running now typically when you're a more run heavy team you'll either have uh more than 50 of your passing are total yardage being rush yards but that's pretty rare even if run heavy heavy run teams besides the passing academies besides previous Wisconsin and presides previous Minnesota schools Like That You Don't See more rushing yardage in the total yardage than you do passing and that's even with the teams that are more run heavy so Matt rule his team seem to be a bit more balanced 2015 59 of his passing yardage came from passing 59 so that's when you're a pass heavy team you're seeing more around the 65 plus percentage coming from passing yardage otherwise you're seeing more balanced teams between about 64 to let's say 60 that's more of the balanced attack teams have about 60 to 64 passing yardage of their total yardage and then finally 50 and above for passing yard at 50 to 59 passing yardage typically those are teams that like to run the ball more now why could a running team have more passing yards why would they be in that 51-59 well because game uh game management game uh where you're at in the game is trying what I'm trying to say I can't think of the word off the top of my brain but if you're down multiple scores you're going to have to pass the ball even if you are running team if you have to get a third and long or things like that a lot of those teams are still going to pass the ball so running heavy teams still pass the ball quite a bit but that's how I want to kind of break those percentages down for you now when you look at Matt rule in 2015 he had a 59 for passing uh 59 of their total yardage was passing yardage 2016 57 of their total yardage was passing so they are more run heavy in those two years and that was with Tempo then you go over to the final year of Temple and then into the Baylor years and you're seeing actually these might all be the Bailey's you're seeing a ton of passing on that spread you're seeing 71 of the past or total yardage came from passing in 2017 63 came for it in 2018 and then 61 in 2019. so you're talking about a pretty balanced now there's some years where it's closer to run heavy some years where it's closer to pass heavy but overall he keeps tends to keep it pretty balanced and keep teams not knowing what's going to happen he's more focused on speed and athleticism and so wherever that's coming from hopefully he has it at all positions that's how he likes to balance the attack so I think overall Nebraska is more of a balanced scheme you move into Eastern Michigan last year they had 61 percent of their total yardage was passed which means they're more in that balanced range as well UNC is a pass heavy team probably the first pass heavy team that North or Minnesota will see on their schedule is North Carolina now 65 percent of their toe yardage was from the pass game and then you add on top of that you got Drake May you've got um Heisman candidate level quarterback the quarterback that people are right now talking about the number two quarterback off the board in the 2024 NFL Draft so there is a lot right there to work with you know he's going to be slinging the ball you know he's going to be passing so he is going to be the first challenge for Minnesota then you move on to Northwestern more balanced Louisiana I believe is more balanced but leans towards the Run heavy now Minnesota will find success against the Run heavy and the more balanced teams I think but the past heavy teams is where the concerns come in due to the what was a shallow room in the cornerbacks but now you just don't know what you're going to get until we actually get on the field or get more reps with them in the fall with the new corners coming in so those are kind of the ways that first quarter of the Season breaks down then you move into that second quarter only two games in that second quarter for me we got Michigan and you got Iowa now these are two some two big hitting games for Minnesota both rivalry games both trophy games luckily there's a bye week in there which we'll discuss a little bit later on the show but Michigan tends to be more run heavy though I wouldn't be surprised after what we've seen from JJ McCarthy they kind of tested him out in situations big game situations late down the season last year and he showed up now they didn't get out of the first round of the playoffs but he was the only thing really keeping them in the hunt with like corn down with the TCU really trying to play The Run and stop the run and forcing JJ McCarthy to show he could sling that thing and he did they just came up a little bit short I will we know loves to run the ball but again they've brought in Cade McNamara they've brought in now Caleb uh I want to say Caleb Johnson it might be Caleb Brown or both they have Caleb Johnson that had the running back they've got Caleb Brown coming in from Ohio State receiver they've got Eric all coming into Michigan's tight end you got Luke Lachey a tight end who showed he can ball out last year so they had the weapons to be a passing team but they still got Brian farence holding them back so we'll see what happens with Iowa on that front both of those two teams more run heavy but they have the ability to pass I would count them more towards balance because they will do whatever the opponent is is not stopping then you head into quarter three of the year now you're talking your Michigan State Illinois and Purdue now this this quarter right here these should all be winnable games but they're also games that could be overlooked in my opinion so you're talking about Michigan State with 68 of their total yardage came from the pass in 2022 last year but in 2021 59 came from the past in 2021 so much more run heavy in 2021. now that just shows Mel Tucker really switches it up with what his Personnel can do and what the strengths of that team are so Kenneth Walker was a major part in 2021 and why they ran the ball so much because he was so effective in an absolute baller on the ground then they leaned more on Payton Thorne more on Keon Coleman Jaden or Jaden Reed when he was healthy um it was so it's a total crap shoot what we're gonna get from Michigan State heading into this next year because all those players I named every single one of them Kenneth Walker Peyton Thorne Coleman Jaden Reed they're all gone they all have moved on to the NFL transferred to other schools and it's really a crap shoot what we're gonna get from Michigan State no idea but it is an absolute winnable game Illinois they tend to lean more run heavy though they do have Isaiah Williams who is a talented wide receiver out there they've gotten a new quarterback so who knows what Brett Bielema wants to do but I think overall he likes to be on the more run heavy side we've seen that in his time with Wisconsin we've seen it now with Illinois especially with Chase Brown last year so we're going to count them more run heavy in this year's schedule and then you move on to Purdue now Purdue could be a crap shoot huge new new coach coming from Illinois so you would think run heavy but then you take a look at the offensive coordinator Graham Harrow who is offense coordinator for USC in 2019 2020 and 2021 and then he was the offensive coordinator for West Virginia last year now if you break those down 2019 74 of the total yardage came from passing for USC 20 20 77 of it came from passing and then 67 in 2021 with USC so he was absolutely throwing the ball throwing the ball throwing the ball now in 2022 with West Virginia it was down to 57 of the yardage came from passing so that team was a lot more run heavy so definitely more pass heavy teams in his time I think he leans more towards the passive east side but he is capable of having a more run heavy team I think with what Carol has done at UFC plus the addition of Hudson card and them really going out trying to get a quarterback who has high experience in power five programs I think they're showing they might want to sling The Rock more so I would lean uh pass heavy for Purdue and then the final quarter of the year you're talking Ohio State you're talking Wisconsin that's the final tier the final quarter for me two games huge games for the Gophers and both of them will be pass heavy so that if you're talking about that you're talking about one team with some of the best receivers probably the best receivers in the entire country and then another team that's bringing in a new offensive coordinator that absolutely wants to play a more air raid style they brought in a quarterback who absolutely loves to throw the ball throw the ball throw the ball now Braley Allen is still going to get his Touches at Wisconsin but overall you can see they're wanting to play more pass heavy so if you're looking at all that you can see we're going to need the cornerbacks to play at a high level because we play at least four teams that will be more pass heavy and then on top of that teams that are in that balanced Area Michigan uh who else was I on there Nebraska could be more balanced um Eastern Michigan more balanced Iowa could play more balanced depending on what they do with this new talent that they have so overall the golfers are going to have tests or challenges for their cornerbacks the cornerbacks are going to get tested but next we're going to take a look at an interesting uh prediction model from Kelly Ford I sat over on Twitter that they made for the Gopher season now this in-depth predictions he's the Kelly Ford's been doing for multiple years now it's a pretty interesting thing I'm gonna bring it up on the screen so you can see the breakdowns of what they have the Gophers winning this next season the percentages the odds and much more we're diving into that coming up next first I want to talk to you about our friends new friends over at bird dogs now bird dogs they've got shorts they've got pants and they look real nice this look I was tentative I'm seeing all these ads on Instagram or uh on Twitter of all these shorts and new pants that you got to try out that make your body look good they fit nice they're comfortable and I'm like okay sure like it's just an advertisement that's how they get you right then I started wearing these bird dogs look 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even if this is going to be a more passive team let's we're going to talk about that coming up in this week actually probably next week tomorrow we're going to talk about the new commit for the Gophers in the 2024 class but if you want to find out this and so much more definitely make sure you are an everyday or hit subscribe and tap into the show each and every day but let's talk about Kelly Ford's prediction model because they've got the Gophers there's in an interesting position this year and I want to talk more about it so here it is I just pulled it up if you're not seeing it over at YouTube you would or if you're not listening over at YouTube you won't be able to hear it but I'll try to do my best to describe it so what Kelly Ford's prediction model has done is it's taken the Gopher schedule it breaks it down and gives you a line for every single game this season it gives you the opponent it ranks not only their their rank from Kelly Ford's opinion their offensive rank in the country and their defense for very in the country but also gives you a win percentage on each game so you go and you look through these games we've got Nebraska we have a 72 win percentage for Minnesota Eastern Michigan a 95 win percentage they give Minnesota a 38 win percentage against North Carolina then Northwestern we're seeing an 81 percent win percentage in Louisiana we're seeing at 88 win percentage so this model shows that they think the Gophers are going to likely go four and one in that first quarter that we had talked about now I do think that North Carolina game is winnable we'll dive in deeper details this off season on why I think that and we'll use a whole show to talk about that North Carolina matchup because I do think it is going to be a key one on the year but you're talking about four in one or Five-0 potentially heading into that second quarter of the Season which is huge now the second quarter is Michigan and Iowa in my opinion but you've got Michigan at 18 win rate or win percentage for Minnesota and then Iowa at a 42 percent win percentage for Minnesota so those two games they're tough ones for Minnesota if if we take these percentages to heart that means the Gophers could start off four and one but then end up four and three after we get out of week eight so that could be a huge tough turn for Minnesota moving from there but then they've got three games that they should come out on top of in Michigan State Illinois and Purdue that brings you back to seven and three and you're looking at seven and three with two huge games to close out the year Ohio Ohio State and Wisconsin now Ohio State we have a five percent win percentage in this model and then Wisconsin we have a 47 wind chance so that is about a toss-up of 50 50 a coin flip there so you're talking you're heading into the last game of the year and you're talking about having Minnesota at seven and four with a coin flip matchup against Wisconsin now that really could be realistic I could see it happening but I think that a lot of these games overall you're talking about your I was it's closer to the coin flip something that's actually winnable North Carolina it's still a winnable game so the two games that they've really taken us out of the hunting is Michigan in an Ohio State game now if Minnesota you got to take into context on this one if Minnesota is 5-0 if we beat North Carolina and we're 5-0 at home versus Michigan and the bank is going crazy I think Minnesota can keep themselves into a game we saw teams hang around with Michigan last year and then late in the game start to lose it in Michigan pulled away but peop different Big Ten teams really stuck in there with Michigan last season now I definitely think they can do that again this year and I think Minnesota if they're 5-0 feeling themselves thing are things are clicking you're at home anything can happen there so I would maybe bump that up higher than the 18 that we got in there but who knows but the greatest thing after that is you have a bye week before you head into that back half of the schedule now if you take a look on the right side of the screen you're going to see The Realistic expectations and the percentages and right now the highest range of wins for the Gophers next season is six through eight that's kind of where they got it and that kind of matches the Vegas lines that we've seen we've seen a six and a half when we've seen a seven and a half those seem to be The Sweet Spot seven and a half is really The Sweet Spot I think the highest percentage right here we've got seven wins 27 percent and they've got eight wins at 20 and six wins at 23 so you're talking about that six to eight win range is definitely in favor of the Gophers this next year now where Kelly Ford's prediction model has the Gophers ranked not only in the division but Across the Nation they've got them ranked 33 in the entire country next year with the offense ranked as 52 in the country in a defense ranked eighth in the country now I would think that offense is going to tick up higher than that 52 but the defense could also fall depending on how this defense clicks there's a lot up in the air on that front but within the division they've got us ranked third in the west they've got us offensively the third best team in the west and defensively the second best team in the west so if you head on over to that middle section you'll see because we play all the teams in the west who is higher than us offensively and this is what kind of threw me off with the predictions model is that they have Purdue as the number one offense in the West in Wisconsin as the number two offense in the West in the Minnesota coming in at the number three offense now Purdue is ranked 41st in the country on offense Wisconsin Johnson's 48th and the Minnesota is 52nd now I could see we we've talked about the hype of Wisconsin we've talked about how they're bringing Graham hero or not Graham hero Phil Longo who came from North Carolina who had them absolutely slinging the ball with Drake May last year but I don't know if so I can see why they're in front of Minnesota when it comes to the rankings on offense but Purdue that one threw me off because Graham Harrell Yes again has thrown the ball but it's not like USC was absolutely lighting it up before Lincoln Riley got there and that's when Graham Harrell's time was there and then West Virginia we're not even going to talk about with last year they weren't a offensive Dynamo by any means so I think this 41 on Purdue is a bit high but overall I think maybe Minnesota is looking at the number two offensive rank with in the west which should help our case on this one and then you flip it to defense Iowa is not only the number one defense in the west but they're the number one defense in the nation in this predictions model and I'm not sure if I fully agree with that one I mean much love to Iowa they're definitely a top five unit in the nation but I think Georgia has shown us back-to-back years now even after major departures in that first title run they had new guys step up and had other players some of the best in the nation stepping up again so I would definitely give them the crown at one I'd probably still have Iowa in the top five but this whole model is very interesting I like where it's going I think overall if you look at the bottom left corner you can see the 2022 expectations that Kelly Ford had was Minnesota would have eight wins and they ended up having eight regular season wins now you can see the rankings from previous years as well they had Minnesota at 21st in the nation last year 26th in the nation in 2021 in 20th in the nation in 2019 so they've had some some decent consistency with how Minnesota has been seen I think they're maybe being a little bit more skeptical on Minnesota in this next season because Tanner Morgan's leaving because Mo Ibraham because John Michael Schmitz and I asked Kelly Ford what what kind of put Minnesota down for you and they had mentioned that there that those are some major losses leaving the team in a lot of unknowns heading into who steps up for it so I don't blame it but I can see where they're coming from I think there's some some leniency both ways but I love to look at it in this format and I hope it was interesting for you as well but what I want to do to wrap this show up is talk about the Trap games talk about the make or break games in this season I'm Gonna Leave the model up so you can see the schedule itself and that's how we're going to close this one up coming up next all right go first then so I'm Gonna Leave This model up really quick just so we can talk about some of these games and then I will kind of bring it down to wrap this show up but let's talk about the Trap games the make or break games in this season now for me the Trap games are Illinois or Purdue plain and simple now what is the Trap game for those listening that don't understand it's a game that you absolutely should win you'll be favored in but if you are looking past them if you're looking maybe to a future game that's more a priority for you because they are might be seen as more difficult or arrival or things of that sort then maybe you drop a simple game ah e-e look at Bowling Green look at uh Illinois in the past or Purdue last year I mean there are trap games every year and some people fall into them and some people do not now last year and the year before I believe we've definitely fallen into some trap games hopefully we can get over that this year but I think Illinois and Purdue are those Trap game spots this year uh they're right next to each other so that makes it a little more dangerous but I think because you've got Ohio State and Wisconsin to close off the year major games and hopefully at this point in the season Minnesota is only the last one or two games on the year and you're heading into a final quarter of the year that is going to be difficult now if Minnesota has somehow beat either Michigan or Iowa and one of the two in that second quarter and North Carolina then I think you only have one loss heading into those final two games and that's huge for trying to push for some new year's new year six opportunities but if you've lost to North Carolina and you've lost to one of those teams in Quarter Two you're already talking about a two last team you're fighting to try to get a 10-win season or better and you're heading into an Ohio State in Wisconsin you might be heavily thinking about it and that's when you maybe not thinking enough about Illinois enough about Purdue and those two teams those two programs always play Minnesota tough especially Illinois with Brett bilima I think you're going to have to be all in in not not looking ahead otherwise you can definitely drop those so I think that spot right there in the season is going to be one that Minnesota should absolutely win but could run into looking too far down the road now when we're talking about make or break games there are five of them in this season I think you're talking about North Carolina you're talking about Michigan you're talking about Iowa and then you're talking about the final two games in the year in Ohio State and Wisconsin now North Carolina is the first big game that you have it's the first big test and again that first quarter of the Season you could head into playing Michigan at home 5-0 in North Carolina I think is the only thing massively standing your way could Nebraska be there yes but I think playing them week one with them having a new coach and having a whole bunch of new things in in process and you're playing them at home I'm not saying that they wouldn't be able to beat the Gophers I'm just saying that that is a whole lot of new on the road in the very first game of college so I think that favors the Gophers on that one outside of that Eastern Michigan Northwestern and Louisiana all need to be wins hands down you can't mess those games up so you're talking about North Carolina as the make or break in the first quarter of the Season as you head into some difficult games it's on the road in North Carolina so the Gophers won't be be favored but I definitely think it is something that can be won there's a lot of Departures in North North Carolina as well they just lost Josh Downs to the draft they're by far most productive receiver they've also I think Antoine green left for the draft he was their second most productive receiver so they got a whole lot of new receiving cores new pass catchers out there to work with Drake May he's got the talent he's got the legs to keep it moving on the outside but this defense has been a strength of Minnesota's and they'll have two weeks ahead of this game to really get things going and juicing and the chemistry flowing so I think that is key game number one Michigan is obviously key game number two if you beat North Carolina you're 5-0 you're probably ranked at that point and you're playing Michigan at home who is definitely going to be one of the top five teams in the country at that point so a lot on the line there then you got a bye week which is perfect that bye week is everything for Minnesota because you're playing Michigan but then you have a whole week to focus before you head on the road to Iowa who you haven't beat with Coach Fleck you've basically won in every statistical category for the past two seasons now but haven't walked away with the dub you need the dub you've got a whole bunch of talent out there in Iowa but they've still got Brian ference on the OC which is a positive for Minnesota and so that game is probably the staple game in the middle of the Season where it is placed but the bye week is everything in helping Minnesota possibly have a better chance at winning that game that could be seen as more of a coin flip again 42 percent in this model then your final two games of the year Ohio State and Wisconsin how you close this year is going to be massive you probably need to take one of those final two you want to keep the ax back home of course so it's at Minnesota that helps that plays in our flavor favor um I'm actually kind of interested now that the win percentages in Wisconsin's favor in this model because it is at home a little bit strange but by this point Wisconsin should be clicking so it's not too shocking that they're definitely in that race I think those are your five games the key games of the Season you need to walk away if you want to be a higher Bowl consideration you have to walk away with probably four wins in those five games maybe three wins and you can still sneak into something but that means say if you win three of those and you drop Ohio State in Michigan but you win the other three you're probably still getting in consideration for some of the better higher quality bowl games if you win four of them and you take down Michigan you take down Ohio State I think you're talking New Year six both I think you you walk out of this with one loss you're talking New Year six for sure so is it possible well it's gonna be tough it's definitely going to be tough you've seen why this schedule overall can uh worry some folks but I think overall the Gophers are going to be better than what teams think now if I had to go with my gut we'll do an actual prediction show later in the year but if I had to go to my gut right now I would say that the Gophers walk out of this thing with a wins I do I think seven is probably the line seven and a half is that perfect line that we've seen from our friends at FanDuel but seven and a half is perfect I think I could see him at seven I could see him at eight if all things are going wrong I could see him at six I do think they will be a bull eligible team but this the schedule you can see why it's daunting uh ESPN gave them the number two or number three most difficult schedule in the country but with a hard schedule comes potentially better expectations moving forward now you've got a young team 2024 could be the year that everyone's starting to peek out we've talked about that with Ryan Burns on the show earlier so if you can walk out of your most digital difficult a top five difficulty schedule with eight wins you can see the improvements now people are going to be like we've won eight games nine games these last couple years yes but now we have a top five schedule so if you can walk away with eight nine wins that's big that's big it shows consistency in the it should help in the recruiting games as well that's gonna do it for us on today's show I hope you like this let me know what you thought of that model what you agreed with what you didn't if you liked being able to see it over on YouTube let me know in the comments I appreciate you guys listening and tapping in each and every day uh I will see you tomorrow we're gonna have a Saturday show and we're gonna talk about something football related I haven't necessarily honed in on it yet but we'll be in here tomorrow I'll see you then throw the bullets guy you might go golfers And subscribe on YouTube