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Dominant. Constant. Coherent. You pick the adjective, but defensive coordinator Joe Rossi had that defense playing at an elite level today.
Some statistics from this afternoon’s competition:
– Colorado finished the day with -19 rushing yards on 21 carries. If you adjust for the bags it was a total of 12 yards and a soft 0.7 yards per run.
– Colorado finished the game with 63 total yards on 45 plays. Minnesota allowed 1.4 yards per game.
– The longest play allowed by the Gopher defense today was 12 yards, which means no “big” plays are allowed
– The Minnesota defense ends the day with eight loss tackles, four sacks and four broken assists, all of which are season highs.
– Minnesota ends the game allowing zero points, the first time since 2006. The 15-year drought is over.
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Whichever way you want to look at it, the Minnesota defense has completely put an end to this Colorado offense. I’m aware that the Buffaloes’ offense isn’t the best the PAC-12 has to offer, but it’s still a PAC-12 team. And Rossi’s defense has been inconsistent to start the year. So, in order to do what they did today, you must be feeling incredibly encouraged.
After the first two weeks, I was starting to wonder what had happened to the Minnesota defensive line that I had seen at fall camp. But they arrived today at high altitude. Thomas Rush and Boye Mafe both end the day with two sacks, but the inside of the defensive line has helped them a lot. Guys like Val Martin, DeAngelo Carter, Nyles Pinckney and others maintained their spreads and got the penetration, which allowed the ends to twist around them for sacks and linebackers to cross for tackles for the loss. Joe Rossi spoke about how much he needs more of the defensive line this week, and we saw more of it today. They didn’t allow Colorado to win the line of scrimmage and they wreaked havoc all afternoon.
Minnesota’s two main tacklers today were linebackers Jack Gibbens and Mariano Sori-Marin and both continue their strong play from a week ago. Gibbens was a sure tackle at the point of attack and forced a fumble that gave his attack an exceptional position on the pitch. Another good day for Sori-Marin as well with two tackles for a loss and five sacks in total. They didn’t allow the plays to break on the outside and just made the play that was in front of them. Consecutive weeks for this linebacker field to lean on.
And the secondary kept everything in front of them too. Colorado’s passing play isn’t the highlight of their offense, but this unit kept it that way. We saw more real freshman Justin Walley today in high school and the youngster excelled. If a deep pass has broken, if he keeps his feet, it may be an interception. And he also stuck a Colorado WR on the sidelines. You see the advantage there. We also saw Terell Smith, Tyler Nubin, Coney Durr and Phillip Howard provide support throughout the game.
This is what it looks like when a good defensive game plan meets great player execution. A big credit to these players and coaches for excluding a PAC-12 team in their place.
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