Gophers coordinators Kirk Ciarrocca, Joe Rossi see much to like already

For typical football fans, a Gophers schedule that starts with games against New Mexico State and Western Illinois won't exactly get the heart pumping and the corpuscles jumping. After all, the Aggies and Fighting Leathernecks were a combined 4-19 last season, and both were installed as more than 35-point underdogs for their visits to Minneapolis.

For Kirk Ciarrocca and Joe Rossi, however, last week's 38-0 win over New Mexico State and Saturday's matchup against Western Illinois carry a sense of urgency.

"It's a race against time, is the way I always look at it,'' said Ciarrocca, the Gophers offensive coordinator. "Between Week 1 and Week 2 is where teams can make the biggest jump that they're gonna make all season.''

Added Rossi, the Gophers defensive coordinator: "There's a race to get to our best, and we'll never get there. But we're always working to get there. This week is just the next step in that process.''

Both Ciarrocca and Rossi dissected film from the New Mexico State game, broke down Western Illinois' season-opening loss at Tennessee-Martin and planned the Gophers' approach to Week 2. They saw much that they liked, some things they didn't like and room to improve across the board.

"You're either improving, you're staying the same or you're getting worse,'' Ciarrocca said. "That's the truth.''

Clicking on offense

"His pocket movement was much better in that particular game than it was in 2019 when I was here before,'' said Ciarrocca, who's back running the Gophers offense after a two-year stint at Penn State and West Virginia. "Whenever a quarterback is really good in the pocket, there's a lot of instincts that go into that. I gotta give him the credit for it.''

Ciarrocca also pointed to Morgan's improvement when forced to adjust on the fly and find a secondary target.

"He had to make the split-second decisions, and he made them,'' Ciarrocca said. "There was only one in the game that I did not like.''

"They did a really good job,'' he said. "Their pass protection was excellent. Throughout the game, we're always gonna run the ball, but they came off the ball well in the running game. Their communication was really good, which was something I was very worried about going into the game.''

Thirty-three and out

"I don't really see it as a negative,'' he said. "Our goal is to play the least amount of plays as possible defensively because that means we're getting the ball back for the offense and then that means they're controlling the ball.''

"Sometimes the casual observer doesn't necessarily notice all those hundreds of details that go into a game plan, but we do, and that's what we value,'' he said. "… From Week 1 to Week 2, we just want to see us execute that better.''