After a massive win against USC, Michigan is now set to host Minnesota for their fifth consecutive home game to begin the 2024 season. Last year the Wolverines went into Minneapolis and easily dispatched the Gophers to keep possession of the Little Brown Jug, but quite a bit has changed for both teams. Though the Gophers come to Ann Arbor with similar skill position players they boast a new QB and an overall different picture:

The Film: Minnesota has played four opponents so far and is 2-2 against them. Two of those teams represented easy buy games (Nevada and Rhode Island) while two were against power conference competition (UNC and Iowa). Among the power conference opponents, there is a stark contrast in the quality of defense faced. On one hand there's the usually stout defense coordinated by Phil Parker and on the other hand there's a defense that gave up 70 points to James Madison at home last week. I know which game is more useful to use.

Personnel: Click for big. [PDF]

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Minnesota lost last year's signal caller Athan Kaliakmanis to Rutgers, which meant PJ Fleck had to grab his own QB out of the portal. For this he went to the FCS to snatch Max Brosmer from University of New Hampshire. Brosmer is a Georgian who had little power conference interest and ended up in New England, starting as a freshman back in 2019. UNH played just one game in 2020 and then Brosmer missed 2021 with an ACL tear. He returned in 2022 and put together two of the best seasons for an FCS QB over the following seasons, being named an All-American in 2023. In his short time in Minneapolis, Brosmer has shown some positive traits but also glaring errors, which we will dig into shortly.

The Gophers managed to hold onto Darius Taylor, who was a stand-out freshman last fall. The Walled Lake product has been very good for Minnesota but his issue has been the injury bug. He missed the Michigan game last season and has already missed one game this season. The injury issues to Taylor led Fleck to prioritize backup RB in the portal, where he landed Marcus Major from Oklahoma. Major plays a major role (get it????) in the offense, which includes a number of 2 RB snaps. Jordan Nubin, walk-on brother of former Gopher star safety Tyler Nubin, is the 3rd RB thus far this year.

Wide receiver is a weak spot outside of Daniel Jackson who is a star and the Dangerman of this piece. Jackson had several big time moments last year and was one of PFF's highest graded B1G starting receivers. His importance to the offense can't be overstated because the rest of these WRs are, well, Michigan-caliber. Le'Meke Brockington has been on the team for several years but has never materialized into a significant player, while Elijah Spencer was added from Charlotte and both guys are just guys (a generous description). They played a lot of 12 and 2 RBs to mitigate the WR weakness but I guess Kenric Lanier II and PSU transfer Christian Driver exist as depth. Eternal TE Brevyn Spann-Ford moved on in the offseason, leaving a tandem of Nick Kallerup and Jameson Geers to lead the TE room. Kallerup is definitely better than Geers but their snaps are basically even, FWIW. Frank Bierman, the third TE, is also not great.

Continuity on the offensive line was a reason for optimism about this Minnesota team coming into the season and while their grades are pretty solid so far in PFF, what I saw against Iowa was not terribly encouraging. Pass protection was a pretty big issue for this line except at left tackle, where Aierontae Ersery entered 2024 with considerable draft hype. He is a legitimate Dude and I assume pro observers will be interested in watching Ersery go head to head with Derrick Moore and Josaiah Stewart. Tyler Cooper is a pretty solid LG but the right side of the line beginning at C is a concern.

Center Greg Johnson is athletic but has struggled this season, while Ashton Beers at RG is the biggest issue on the line, a constant headache in pass protection. Quinn Carroll at RT (who they wanted to move to G pre-season) has the same issue now as he did back when he was at Notre Dame, a mauling run blocker but concerning pass protector. Martes Lewis is the first off the bench to play a starting job and can sub in for Beers but it's not clear he's better, while Phillip Daniels played some as the bonus OL vs. Iowa. As always for Fleck's Minnesota, these guys are mammoth (6'6+ or taller and 310 lbs. or heavier).

[AFTER THE JUMP: kinda bad]

Spread, pro-style or hybrid: Minnesota is still playing mostly out of the gun, but they had a few under center snaps. Most of them tilted to the run as you'd expect

The most interesting part of this section is what I'll get into later on the piece, the interesting skew of Minnesota towards the pass. They ran 41 passing plays to 17 rushing plays, a trend that was pretty consistent regardless of score in this game. The Gophers passed a lot, which was a dramatic reversal of last season, when I charted them as extremely run-heavy. Here it is by down:

Down

Run

Pass

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

On 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down, Minnesota was skewed towards the pass. I don't think this is necessarily a major trend, as Minnesota was much closer to 50/50, if not tilting run, in their other games. But definitely interesting.

Base Set: Gophers played out of 11 personnel and 12 personnel pretty evenly in this game. Here's 11:

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And here's 12:

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As mentioned, their 2 RB set was something that popped up a decent bit, usually 21 personnel:

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These were the main three looks that covered the vast majority of the snaps.

Gap or zone blocking: Minnesota was running a lot of zone concepts on the ground in the few rushing snaps they had against Iowa, with split zone and its variants being the base running play. I saw the odd gap play here or there but it was pretty rare. Last year they were also firmly zone, but were running more inside zone (though they dialed up stretch against Michigan and hit the Wolverines with it a few times).

Hurry it up or grind it out: Nothing too interesting in terms of pace. Minnesota hasn't been a particularly quick team in the past under Fleck and I didn't see any signs of it in this one. I didn't chart any deliberate tempo snaps in the Iowa game and the Gophers were pretty ordinary in terms of pace, maybe even tilting towards the slower side.

Quarterback Dilithium Rating (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): I did not record any designed runs for QB Max Brosmer against Iowa, though he did have a few instances of scrambling. So far in his Minnesota career, it does not seem that mobility is much of an attribute for Brosmer, with 18 non-sack carries (~4.5 per game) going for about 44 yards, under 2.5 per carry. The "carries" he got in this game were pure scrambles like this, not terribly productive:

As a matter of fact I actually thought the scrambling was a bit of a crutch for Brosmer, too quick to defer to it and bugging out of clean pockets. He also had a rather poor ability of reading his pocket and a penchant for running into the pressure rather than escaping. I don't see QB run as a major part of this offense and with Brosmer's scrambling being nothing to fear at all, neither his feel for it nor his speed, there's not a lot here. Brosmer is faster than Jared Goff so he can't be a 1, but I will leave this at a 3. He likes to scramble more than he should which ups the number, but it's not effective.

Dangerman: Last year I featured RB Darius Taylor, who ended up being unable to play against Michigan. We'll talk about Taylor later, but this year I want to give the focus to WR Daniel Jackson because he's the only thing keeping the roof up for Minnesota's passing game. So far this season, Jackson has 21 catches and the next closest Gopher receiver has 12. #3 in catches on the team is a RB (Taylor as a matter of fact). #4 in catches is also a running back. WR and TE are grim positions outside of Jackson, who is pretty good.

Michigan fans ought to remember Jackson, because he caught a TD against the Wolverines in the meeting last season. He also brought in the "Jumpman" TD against Nebraska on national TV in week one last season:

Last year put Jackson on the map as an upper tier B1G receiver and he has continued to prove that he's a real player, while his importance to the Minnesota offense has never been higher. Against Iowa Jackson put up 9 catches on 12 targets for 112 yards, while no one else had more than four catches or 43 yards. This next clip is the third of three catches in a row for Jackson on three consecutive plays:

You'll see him pop up in a few of the HenneChart clips that I'm saving because they are more pertinent to Brosmer analysis but he was dangerous vertically in those moments. They also threw him a screen:

One impressive Brosmer throw I do want to show here is this next one, where Brosmer hits a rather tight window. I'm putting it here because Jackson gets the feet in and hangs on despite significant contact:

This kid can play. He doesn't have a TD yet this season but it's only a matter of time because the Minnesota passing game has to feed him the ball routinely or else it's going to be spinning its tires in the muck. Outside of the possible EDGE vs. LT battle, Will Johnson vs. Daniel Jackson will be the most entertaining matchup on this side of the ball on Saturday.

HenneChart: One Max Brosmer arrives from New Hampshire to lead Minnesota's offense in this 2024 season and so far he's off to an okay start. Brosmer's season stats read 65.8% completion at 7.3 Y/A, 5 TD to 3 INT. Not setting the world on fire, but pretty solid. He was clearly better than what we saw last year from Athan Kaliakmanis, but I also didn't come away thinking Brosmer was a star either. Here's my charting:

Brosmer graded out fairly well overall, especially given iffy pass protection and an offense placing way too many pass attempts on his shoulders. Brosmer made a lot of fairly routine and simple throws in this game, but he did drop some dimes too. I liked this one (caught by Daniel Jackson, because of course):

I thought this seam shot was also pretty solid (yes, Jackson catches this one too):

The accuracy was generally pretty good but I didn't see terrific arm strength or anything that suggests that you have to be very worried about Brosmer airing it out for the deep ball. It's also not clear that Minnesota's pass protection could even give him the time to do so anyway. The less good side of Brosmer was how he dealt with navigating the pocket, something I briefly mentioned in the Dilithium Scale section. He ran into a sack on one occasion and bailed on pockets or went straight into throwing the ball away pretty quickly. I didn't like that, nor did I like this:

Where some of the negative traits come together is on this next play, where pass protection breaking down forces Brosmer to speed up but Brosmer also makes a very poor decision and pulls the trigger on a ball that is intercepted. On first down, take the sack, man:

As a whole, I think Brosmer is okay. He's significantly better than 2023 Kaliakmanis was, which is nice, and a welcome improvement over the sorts of dreadful QBs we've grown so accustomed to seeing in FFFF. He is somewhat accurate, makes decent reads, and for the most part puts it in solid spots and seems to have developed chemistry with Jackson. On the other hand, his pocket presence is fairly iffy, his arm isn't massive, and his decision-making and accuracy can waver from time to time, leading to some regrettable decisions. Brosmer isn't a savior of Minnesota football, but he's also still a decent player who filled what was somewhat of a black hole last year. That's fine.

Overview

Minnesota's offense has felt fairly stale for a few years now. Last year you could partially chalk it up to Kaliakmanis as well as injuries to skill position talent and a mediocre offensive line. How about this year? Things still feel stale, as Minnesota failed to crack 20 points or 300 yards against either of their first two power conference opponents, but what do we attribute that to? I would say similar problems to last year, a better QB but worse skill position talent (particular receivers) and offensive line play that wasn't honestly doing much for me against Iowa.

As always, we'll walk through section by section of this team and examine what the tape that I reviewed turned up. Starting with the ground game, the Gophers boast the two-headed attack of Darius Taylor and Marcus Major. I covered Taylor quite a bit in last year's FFFF of the Minnesota offense and not a whole lot has changed. I still think he's a good football player who Minnesota is fortunate to have on their team. The rushing highlights were few and far between against Iowa, but this was a nice chunk run for Taylor:

Run blocking I thought was okay for Minnesota, but they struggled to reach the second level and that allowed Iowa's linebackers and safeties to fire downhill and plug it up pretty quickly. Clips like this one:

Major and Taylor combined for 67 yards on 15 carries, which is not great but is an okay clip. There was a 17 and an 18 yarder in there, which reduces the other carries to 2.5 yards on average, though. Not what you want but Iowa does have an obviously strong defense. What confused me was how little Minnesota was running it, given the state of their pass-catchers and pass-protection. This not an Air Raid team loaded at receiver and it felt like they got away from their identity too much. For example, nine of the first eleven plays they called in this game were passing plays. That's just too many for a team like Minnesota, no matter if your rushing attack is limited or not. You have a mammoth OL that can at the very least hit a double and run behind that for a few yards, as you saw in the above clip with Taylor running behind RG Ashton Beers and RT Quinn Carroll.

I've praised Taylor, but I think Major is fine too (not as good though). Both of them play roles in the passing game and they do play together in 2 RB sets. They ran this next play on their second play of the game:

The 2 RB set works in part because both Major and Taylor can function as pass-catchers and both do it quite often. They were a pretty safe over the middle checkdown option for Brosmer in this game:

It's a nice safety valve to have because I don't have a lot of hope for the rest of the receivers. Le'Meke Brockington made one really impressive catch in the Iowa game but we have a wide sample on him suggesting that Brockington is not a major factor. Slot Elijah Spencer from Charlotte can be force fed screens and showed a bit of shiftiness in the open field but I didn't see a ton from him downfield. And the TEs are purely just guys. It's an uninspiring group that doesn't help Brosmer whatsoever and limits the ultimate ceiling of this offense.

What else doesn't help Brosmer is the pass protection issues I saw in this game. The right side of Beers and Carroll have their moments on the ground but whatever they generate positively there they give it all back in pass protection:

Beers in particular is a major sore spot, but I didn't think C Greg Johnson was much better. He made one really nice play on the ground getting out into space and setting blocks upfield but he also had moments like this in pass protection:

The issue of frequent pressure against Iowa forced Brosmer's clock to speed up and his overall game was less effective. Brosmer had nice moments under pressure, don't get me wrong, but it also forced a number of incompletions be it from throwaways or passes broken up by defenders that Brosmer had to rush. I had little negative to say about LT Aireontae Ersery, so I suppose that's why he's on NFL Draft radars and is likely to be All-B1G. But all the other spots on the line feel like they can be attacked with pass rush. Here's LG Tyler Cooper getting run over by the DT, right into the lap of Brosmer who has to fire the ball quickly and it gets PBU'd:

The pass pro grades for the Minnesota OL for the season are fairly decent for the line, but we are early in the year and 50% of the sample came against Nevada/Rhode Island. What I saw in the Iowa game was not terribly pretty and it definitely stunted the offense's progress, as much as it could be stunted when you don't have more than 1 good WR/TE to throw to. All of this makes the decision to keep throwing over and over again even more surprising on Minnesota's behalf. They're much better off with a balanced offensive attack, because throwing as many times as they did against Iowa isn't sound logic. They don't have the personnel to do it, not the protection nor the receivers. Their run game may not be very good, but neither is the passing game and I'd rather alternate between two not great phases rather than double down and force the issue with only one.

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[Patrick Barron]

What does this mean for Michigan?

It's hard to see Minnesota having a ton of success against Michigan's defense. The pass protection problems on the right side of the line seem ripe to be brutally exploited by Michigan's defensive line talent and that's going to force Brosmer into situations he didn't excel in against Iowa. I would expect a few mistakes from him in those instances, including an interceptable ball or two. Their receiving talent does not threaten Michigan at all, as the Wolverines can stick Will Johnson on Jackson and beyond that Minnesota does not have the sort of receivers who can challenge Zeke Berry and Jyaire Hill, or tight ends to exploit LB coverage vulnerabilities. On the ground, they'll probably hit a run here or there but not with the efficiency to make that a significant engine of offense. Maybe they'll get a couple chunk plays when Wink does something dumb, but this offense doesn't appear to have the horses to mach up with Michigan's defense and do significant damage.