While Minnesota was able to pull off a 24-17 upset win over No. 11 USC on Saturday evening at Huntington Bank Stadium, the Gophers run defense once again struggled in the loss. For the third straight game, the Gophers allowed 150+ rushing yards and through six games this season are allowing over four yards per carry.
After a strong start to the season against the run, keeping North Carolina to 3.6, Rhode Island to 1.4, and Nevada to 1.9 yards per carry, the Gophers have allowed Iowa, Michigan, and USC to average a 5.17 yards per carry over the last three games.
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The Gophers defense otherwise has been very good this season. Through six games they own the nation's top rated pass defense, allowing just 114 yards per game.
That being said, Iowa, Michigan, and USC have all heavily against the Gophers over the last three weeks, combining for 116 carries, 57% of the total carries the Gophers defense has faced this season. Their 600 total rushing yards in those three games, makes up for 72% of the rushing yards allowed this season.
With that, the Gopher run defense will be under the microscope going forward for the rest of the season. On Monday during his weekly press conference, P.J. Fleck was asked about the run defense and how the Gophers can fix it going forward.
“I think it's a combination of both (getting healthy and executing), it really is,” Fleck said when asked about how the Gophers can fix their run defense. 'I mean we got to be able to get healthy, we got a lot of guys fighting through a lot of stuff right now you know this is going to be week seven and then there's a bye after that but it's a race. It's a race all the way through and being able to play our best football," he added.
"I think it's a combination, one, you got to give USC a lot of credit. They're really big, they're really physical, that was the whole game plan was can they stay consistent with the run game and it wasn't like we're going to give them the run game but if you watched our defense we're putting a lot of people in coverage. Playing a lot of dime, playing a a lot of nickel, and I felt like they eventually were going to throw the football that it wasn't going to be consistent over and over, 12 to 13 straight runs and so the philosophy was, ‘Hey you know, we know what they are on the outside, we know what they are in the perimeter, we know what we got to be able to do but you're not going to be able to stop everything. So what are you going to be able to force their hand to be able to do and for us it was if they were going to stay really really consistent committed to the run game.’
While being willing to give up yards on the ground in concession of keeping an opposing team's passing attack quiet is part of the game plan at times for the Gophers, Fleck also acknowledges that the Gophers still have work to do against the run.
‘And we have to be better, we have to play better, we have to coach them better, we have to continue to scheme it better, we have to get healthy. Guys are fighting through a lot of different things, we have to be able to tackle through people not to people there. Sometimes we're just reaching for tackles so there's a lot of fundamentals in technique, there's some schematic stuff that we're going to be looking at."
This weekend, the Gophers will have a quality opportunity to build positive momentum within their run defense. Their week seven opponent, the UCLA Bruins have yet to total over 100 rushing yards in a game this season and have averaged just 2.7 yards per carry this season on 121 rushing attempts. This past weekend against Penn State, UCLA totaled 29 carries for 93 yards, an average of 3.2 yards per carry.
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