Through five games, I have been waiting for one of the young receivers to step up and become an actual part of the Spread Coast. But through five games the freshmen have combined for three catches and one touchdown. Brandon Green, Broderic Smith, Xavier Brandon and DaJon McKnight have been unable contribute much of anything to the offense in their freshmen seasons.
We keep hearing how talented they are, but yet we never see them on the field on a regular basis. We finally have some answers as to why they are not on the field yet. Kent Youngblood tries to give us those answers with some great quotes from people in the know.
"The amount of talent we have on this team, I don't think we've shown it quite yet," Weber said. "These young guys, we've been saying since day one that they're very, very gifted. But it's about time they put away their rookie cares and start playing like veterans."
It appears that the transition from high school to D1 football was tougher than they thought it was going to be.
"It was really long and stressful," Smith said of the process. "Just coming from high school to a Division I program, everyone here is good. You have to work extra hard to get in the game. It takes a lot of work, more studying. This is probably the hardest I worked in my whole life."
At what point will they have done enough to warrant playing time? If their talent really is a notch above what we have seen from Kuznia and Spry, then they really need to get things straightened out. We need something on the other side of Decker.
- How about a little hockey news. Gopher Puck Live has an interesting scoring breakdown by class for each school in the WCHA. The bad news is that we graduated 32% of our scoring. The good news is that 50% of last year's scoring will be in our sophomore and junior classes. If we have some scoring returning, are adding a stud freshman or two and have Kangas in net maybe this will be a better year than 2007-08's seventh place finish.
- Over in Kentucky, Billie Gilispie is taking advantage of the NCAA rule which allows two hours of practice per week and turning it into a public Midnight Madness. Midnight Madness is rather common, but Gilispie is holding his a week before anybody else. I don't really have an opinion on the matter but the NABC is likely going to institute a rule change to not allow this take place. A Sea of Blue is annoyed with the whining.
- Rivals has upded ther 2009 recruiting class rankings. Minnesota was nowhere near the top 25 in previous, but with the additions of Justin Cobbs and Rodney Williams we have jumped to #17. This is third best in the Big Ten behind Illinois (#6) and Indiana (#3). If Rodney Williams can move back up near his old ranking, Tubby's 2009 class should approach the top 10.
- On another basketball note, the Star Tribune's Myron Medcalf watched the basketball team practice the other day and had some good notes on individual players. There is a lot of good info in there but here are some highlights.
Al Nolen - is bigger, stronger and more vocal
Blake Hoffarber - is who we thought he was
Colten Iverson - is a legit 6'11" and physical
Paul Carter - could be the surprise of the incoming class
Devron Bostick - is a true scorer
I guarantee this team will be fun to watch. I am truly enjoying the football season but basketball is going to be great. Watching this team come together, figure things out in the non-conference games and then finish top 5 in the Big Ten will be a blast. - Finally, I know you have all seen my weekly votes in the official, unofficial Blog Poll. We rarely post a link to Brian's poll on MGOBlog. Here is the Week 5 Blog Poll and all of the entertaining peripherals.