Five to Watch: Minnesota observations

With Minnesota traveling to State College Saturday for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff with Penn State, Blue White Illustrated reviews the Gophers' game from last week – a 31-24 home win against Colorado State.

Here are some of our observations from that game...

- Minnesota’s starting center Tyler Moore (No. 77) is only a sophomore, but he’s one of the more reliable options of an OL that underwent an overhaul this off-season. Alongside him at RG here is Jared Weyler (No. 62), who is making his first career start against Colorado State. He’s filling in for juco signee Vincent Calhoun, who missed last week with an injury and is expected to miss the game vs. PSU as well. Without him, the combination of Moore and Weyler was effective at times against CSU. In the play above, they double team the nose guard on an iso, which seals the hole and springs the RB for the 31-yard gain. The TE pulling to the left also draws the backside defenders away from the play momentarily. CSU’s play-side DE also hesitates for a second as he reads the QB, who is known to run.

- This will be an important matchup for Penn State’s defensive tackles, specifically the one-techniques. Not only is this the style of inside run that Minnesota likes to run, but, as I’ll get to later, pressure up the middle on pass rushes gives Minnesota issues in this game against CSU.

- Mitch Leidner (No. 7) is a fifth-year veteran who is a threat both passing and running, especially in the red zone. But when he faced pressure up the middle against CSU, even if he wasn't hit, Leidner proved to be inconsistent. In the play above, late in the second quarter, the Rams bring the MLB on a blitz while keeping the NT on a spy. Despite the blitz being picked up by the RB, Leidner doesn’t step into a throw toward the boundary and it is intercepted by CSU’s nickelback.

- In this play at the start of the third quarter, CSU’s LOLB stunts behind the DE. With the RG picking up the DE, the LOLB crosses into the middle of the pocket, forcing Leidner to throw off balance and incomplete.

- This is another reason why Penn State will need a strong game from its DL and from its LBs, too, even with the injury problems. With time, Leidner is one of the best passers in the Big Ten, and without containment he’s also one of the more effective rushing QBs. He’s a threat with the read option. But in this game pressure up the middle proved to have the most impact against him from CSU's defense.

- Later in this game, in the fourth quarter, Leidner took his first sack of the season.

- Following a 670-yard season as a redshirt freshman, Rodney Smith (No. 1) is now establishing himself as the primary RB in Minnesota’s three-headed rotation. Juco transfer Kobe McCrary has the highest yards-per-carry average on the team (8.4) but Smith averages 99.3 YPG on just 19.7 carries. On this a 13-yard rush in the second quarter, which is a similar call as the double-team iso featured above, Smith shows his vision and ability to make tacklers miss. Smith finished this game averaging 5.8 YPC.

- When Smith and his fellow RBs find chunk yardage like this, it opens up the play-action pass and read option. Those are plays with which Leidner appears to excel at, so stopping the run in the first half is a point of emphasis for PSU.

- This clip comes directly after a 7-yard first-down pickup from CSU. Hurrying to the line to run another play, Minnesota gets caught in the middle of a substitution. Unable to get all of their players off the field before the snap, the Gophers are twice penalized – for an offside and an illegal substitution.

- CSU almost caught Minnesota off guard earlier in this game on a like situation, using up-tempo after a first down. Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead has shown various speeds with which he operates his no-huddle system. They’ve gone slower at times this season, but against a defense that regularly substitutes and shows challenges against an up-tempo offense in this game, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Nittany Lions fire off plays at a quicker clip Saturday, especially after first downs.

- Minnesota is without starting TE Brandon Lingen in its game against CSU and he's expected to miss the game vs. PSU as well. In his place is Nate Wozniak, who at 6-10 is the tallest skill player in college football. In this play, Leidner goes deep to Wozniak off a play-action pass and draws a pass interference.

- Although his action has been limited, he has two catches this season of 25-plus yards, so Leidner likes to go deep too him at least once a game. That's something Penn State's secondary will have to worry about, but he's not the style of blocker that his teammate Lingen might be.