A review of Saturday's ugly loss at California exposed plenty of blame to be shared and left a long list of weaknesses to be addressed.
Chip Scoggins, Star Tribune
Football players like to say that the film never lies, and for the Gophers, a review of Saturday's 42-17 loss at California should rank right up there with getting a root canal. Frustration was the overwhelming mood among players and coaches in the aftermath as they tried to explain a mistake-filled performance. "We have to be critical of our individual play," safety Dominic Jones said. "Everybody has to be hard on himself. Starters to backups. I'm pretty sure the coaches will be hard on themselves." Nobody should be immune from harsh self-evaluation. Cal clearly had superior talent and athleticism, which contributed greatly to the Gophers' poor execution, particularly on defense. But poor tackling, costly penalties and bad decisions on both sides of the ball made it nearly impossible for the Gophers to keep pace in what felt like a track meet. "A game like this, yeah you're mad, but you'll get over it," linebacker John Shevlin said. "But you've got to learn from your mistakes. This will definitely be a big week because we're going to fix the problems." It doesn't hurt that the Gophers face an awful Temple squad in the home opener. But they are fully aware that the Big Ten opener against Purdue is less than two weeks away, and they have plenty of work to do before then. Most of the frustration Saturday was reserved for the defense, which gave up 531 total yards, 28 first downs and too many third-down conversions (Cal went 8-for-13).
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