Hey, today is 8-9-10, unless you live in Europe then it's 9-8-10 and that's not nearly as exciting.  Moving on...

Football is officially here.  The Gophers held their first practice on Friday and they are not fully preparing for the season.  Here is a roundup of the local coverage thus far (I apologize that some of these are older but if you missed them you should read them)...

• Phil Miller is adjusting to Gopher practice.  He admits to not being in mid-season form yet but so far he is putting out whatever info he can glean from 20 min of observing practice and then post-practice interviews.
• The Smash Brothers are leading the way for this new look defense.
• Weber is receiving praise for being the team leader in the team's first practice.
• Marcus talks with Weber about his conditioning and the team's new offensive system.
• I almost forgot to include this.  Xzavian Brandon is no longer with the team.  The sophomore WR suffered and knee injury and may be back next year.
• Marcus also talks about Hageman.  This kid is getting a lot of hype and I'm getting excited to see this beast.  Is the fact that a redshirt freshman is our strongest player a sign that Hageman is just so massive or that the rest of our team isn't strong enough.  My vote is the former.
• GI.com has a very good post-practice update with a lot of good info.  It is a subscription site and you should subscribe. One of the many good nuggets is that redshirt freshman, Ed Olson was playing with the first team offensive line at left guard.
• Lastly, unfortunately Eric Decker is on the injured list.