What to watch for: Golden Gopher spring football
By Tyler Haag
The Gophers will be holding open practices, starting today and culminating in the annual spring game April 14th.
With the Spring game just around the corner and the first open to the public practice taking place this afternoon, what should we be looking for from the Gophers football team this spring?
First, the starting quarterback in for the Gophers in 2018 remains a mystery to even their head coach. PJ Fleck brought in the best junior college signal caller available, as well as a number of redshirt freshmen who will be looking to compete for the starting job this fall. If Vic Viramontes can not separate himself from the pack, it may be wise for Fleck to go with a QB by committee approach to best facilitate the offense. Remember, this offense will be centered around the running game with Rodney Smith. The QB play does not have to be incredible for the offense to be successful.
As we have already seen with Shannon Brooks injury, keeping your best players healthy through spring ball is of the utmost importance. Given the depth on this team and the lack of experience of the quarterbacks, injuries could really ruin this season. If Rodney Smith were to go down, we might be staring at a winless ball club and months of snow and cold.
Fleck spoke a number of times last season about the lack of depth on their roster, necessitating the removal of redshirts for a few players last season. This year is already an improvement over last, with an entire starting line available for practice. The number of players will not be an issue this year but the Gophers will lack depth in talent, if not numbers.