Hartman: Gophers' miscues proved too costly against Badgers

After losing the previous two games to Wisconsin by a combined 90-26 score, you might think that Gophers coach Jerry Kill would accept Saturday's 20-7 loss to the 16th-ranked Badgers as progress, but that wasn't the case when Kill held his postgame news conference.

His first words to his team after the game were to the tune of how he doesn't deal in moral victories, only real ones. Winning is the only thing that counts.

And as Kill pointed out, the elimination of three crucial Gophers turnovers could have given the home team a chance to score one of the biggest upsets in the recent history of the maroon and gold.

Wisconsin scored two touchdowns, one that followed a Philip Nelson fumble at the Wisconsin 42-yard line when the Gophers held a 7-3 lead and appeared to be driving for another score, and another that followed a questionable pass interference call on third-and-9 when it appeared the home team was going to force a field-goal try.

"When you play a quality opponent you have to make plays," said Kill, pointing to the fact that the Gophers passing game definitely missed leading receiver Derrick Engel, out for the season because of a torn knee ligament. Without him, Nelson completed only seven of 23 passes for 83 yards with a long of 31 yards. The only Gophers points were scored by the defense, on a 39-yard interception return for a touchdown by Aaron Hill.

Kill was proud of that defense, which held the high-scoring Badgers to only the one second-half touchdown.

The 12 seniors who were honored Saturday should be proud of how they finished their final home game, and regardless how they come out at Michigan State, a good bowl invitation awaits them.

Ponder has shown some improvement this year, posting his highest completion percentage in three years in the NFL at 63.7 percent, up from last year's 62.1. Also his 6.84 yards per attempt are a career high, all this despite the fact that he has been sacked 18 times in seven games.

Ponder was asked if he believes it is harder for QBs to come straight into the league and start playing successfully.

"I don't know if I agree with that or not," he said. "I have to be playing the best I can. Two weeks ago I played well, last week I didn't. I had too many turnovers. I just need to find consistency. My expectation is that I should be playing better than I am, and with more and more experiences I'm going to keep learning from those and trying to get better."

Ponder was reminded that General Manager Rick Spielman had once talked about the struggles that Eli Manning and Drew Brees went through in their early seasons before becoming stars.

"And [Manning is] a guy that has won two Super Bowls," Ponder said. "He took a little more time to develop, but every quarterback is different. It's hard to peg every guy in the same hole. I don't know."

Ponder did have a strong start in last week's loss to the Seahawks, going 9-for-13 for 114 yards and a touchdown in the first half to post a 122.0 quarterback rating. But his second half was not pretty: 4-for-9 for 15 yards and two interceptions before getting pulled for Matt Cassel.

"It was the tale of two halves," Ponder said. "I think our offense and myself played pretty well in the first half, but in the second half, especially the fourth quarter, just played pretty poorly. We have to close out games. We've seen a couple times this year where the fourth quarter didn't come through and we didn't win the game."

Still Ponder believes that the Vikings can win a number of games going forward as long as they clean up their play.

"Our expectations are we're going to go out and win as many games as possible," he said. "… It's going to be tough to go into Green Bay and win, but if we do win this one, it will be good for us [and create the chance] to put us on a six-game win streak."

Ponder also said that he knows it will be different going up against the Packers without star quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the game. Ponder and Rodgers have faced off five times with Rodgers having won four of the five meetings.

Jottings
• Among the 12 Gophers seniors honored at the Wisconsin game was Connor Cosgrove, son of former Gophers and Badgers assistant Kevin who is now at New Mexico. Three years ago, Connor was diagnosed with leukemia, ending his football career. But Jerry Kill kept Connor on scholarship and in describing the seniors called him the toughest kid on the team.
• Kill made sure that Gophers great Bobby Bell was at Saturday's game, having a friend fly him in. In 1962 when the schools met for the final game of the regular season, the teams were tied atop the Big Ten with 5-1 conference records. The Gophers held a 9-7 lead in the fourth quarter when Bell was given a roughing-the-passer penalty, negating a Gophers interception that would have most likely sent them to the Rose Bowl. Gophers coach Murray Warmath argued so angrily that he was given a 15-yard penalty, and Wisconsin scored three plays later for the final 14-9 margin.
• Former Gophers men's basketball coach Tubby Smith is off to a 4-1 nonconference start at Texas Tech, with his lone loss coming at Alabama 75-65 and victories coming against Houston Baptist, Northern Arizona, Texas Southern and South Dakota State. The Red Raiders play Pitt in New York on Monday.
• ESPN recently updated its top 300 junior football players in the class of 2015 and the No. 1 recruit in the country is Cretin-Derham Hall defensive end Jashon Cornell. Cornell has been offered scholarships by more than 20 schools, including the Gophers and 10 other Big Ten teams. He is the lone Minnesotan on ESPN's list.
• Speaking of ESPN's recruiting rankings, Duke jumped to No. 1 overall for the class of 2014 after Mike Krzyzewski landed Apple Valley's Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor out of Chicago.