Golden Nugz - 08.17.10

More Gopher practice notes and the big news is that MarQueise Gray was practicing exclusively with the wide receivers yesterday.  I'm not implying he is done as a QB, he will certainly see some time as a receiver this year and yesterday he was given time to work on those skills. 

Sophomore MarQueis Gray practiced with the receivers Monday, a move that does not change Gray's status as the team's No. 2 quarterback behind senior Adam Weber.

"It's no secret that [Gray is] going to play wide receiver for us this season,'' coach Tim Brewster said. "We know that he's one of our best football players, so we're going to utilize one of our best football players, whether or not it's at the quarterback position or the receiver position.''

Personally I am excited to see him get some reps at receiver.  This kid will make some plays as he showed at times last year (Northwestern game and Iowa State before the fumble).  It's no secret that I don't think he should be our QB this year but I do want to see the ball in his hands and he needs to be utilized.

• Marcus tells us of Da'Jon McKnight's 2-step jump over a practice dummy.  He claims to have a 43 inch vertical (see my athlete comments from yesterday).
• It is also becoming more and more evident that redshirt freshman, Ed Olson will be your starting LT this fall.  My offensive line positional preview is next but you may not see it till tomorrow.
• Phil Miller has a nice piece on new wide receivers coach, Steve Watson.  I think he is well suited to make our current set of receivers better for this year.  We will look back on this as a very good hire.
• GI.com has a very good rundown by position group of what is next in regards to Gopher recruiting.
• Lastly, Maxim is talking about Gopher football!  No, you won't see any provocative pictures of Jeff Wills, but we are ranked #6 in the top 10 worst BCS college football teams in the country.  Someone should tell them that ISU (#5 on the list) actually beat us last year.  And how is Stanford #3?  Didn't they just have an eight win season?