Gophers DC Danny Collins on Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele: 'He doesn't play like a freshman'
Minnesota football defensive coordinator Danny Collins met with the media on Wednesday afternoon.
Among the subjects discussed by Collins were the California offense, the challenges that it presents, and the Golden Bears’ young signal caller Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele.
Sagapolutele, Cal’s dynamic skill players will be a tall challenge for the Gophers’ defense
“He doesn’t play like a freshman,” Collins said about Sagapolutele. “He’s really comfortable back there. He’s comfortable running their offense.”
“It looks like he’s been running. It looks like he’s been running their offense for a lot of years. Very confident young man. Really good in the media. He’s a mature guy, and leads that football team.”
Through the former On3 five-star prospect’s first two career starts, Sagapolutele has completed 47-of-68 passing attempts for 501 yards and three touchdowns with just one interception.
In his first career start two weeks ago against Oregon State, the true freshman was spectacular, completing 20-of-30 passing attempts for 234 yards and three touchdowns.
The true freshman may be one of the better quarterbacks that the Gophers face all season but not only will the former five-star be a challenge for Danny Collins’s defense but so will the entire Cal offense as a whole.
Through two games, Cal’s offense has averaged 34.5 points and over 400 yards of total offense per game. They’ve been a mostly balanced offense with 70 total passing attempts to 63 total rushing attempts.
“I think they do such a great job balancing their offense,” Collins said. “They establish the run game and then they have a lot of dynamic weapons.”
“Number 21 (Jacob de Jesus) is a guy that plays in the slot that is dangerous and is a shifty gadget guy,” he continued. “Number 7 (Trond Grizzell) and 15 (Mark Hamper) on the outside. They’re possession guys, longer receivers, bigger bodies that we’ve seen. So that will be a challenge for us on the outside.”
“Their running back, number one (Kendrick Raphael) had a great game last week. Kerry Brown’s teammates. So I watched him in high school, actually live. So it’ll be good to see him again. O-line, very solid. They’re tight ends, can block very well, but they can also receive as well. So it will be a great challenge for us.”
Communication will be key for Gophers
A challenging offense that uses plenty of formations and motion in order to confuse opposing defenses, the Gophers will have to be disciplined with their eyes while also continuously communicating.
“We have to have crazy communication all game long,” Collins said. “Coach Harsin has been doing this for a long time. He’s had very successful offenses, whether that’s at Boise State or Auburn when he was the head coach and running the offense there.
“There’s a lot of different formations. There’s a lot of different personnel packages within the personnel, not just 11, but who’s in there, things like that, where guys are aligned, all that stuff,” he continued.
“We got to be on our A-game in terms of the checks, the adjustments, and crazy communication.”
The Gophers’ discipline and communication will be put to the test on Saturday evening in Berkeley when the Golden Gophers take on the Golden Bears with kickoff scheduled for 9:30 p.m. CT.
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