Thinking positive about Gophers football in 2008? Great. Now get ready for the wake-up call of wake-up calls. Here's a selection from MGO's Thursday lambasting of all things Gophers to keep you in positive frame of mind:
The secondary is going to be awful, as it has always been and always will be, peace be upon it.
This is interesting coming from Brian at MGOBlog, as his Wolverines are about to depart on a season that could well be a miserable failure, perhaps even epically so. Expectations wise, last season was just as bad for Michigan as it was for Minnesota. So then, you'd think one might be careful to poke fun at teams that lose to a Division 1AA team. Negatory.
Last Year
Awful, awful, awful. Awful. Also: awful. Worst in total defense, 114th in rushing, 116th in pass efficiency, 109th in scoring. Gave up fewer than 30 points twice, once against Iowa and once against a I-AA NDSU team that put up incredible numbers: 394 yards rushing and nearly 600 total yards. No North Dakota State drive was shorter than 31 yards. The Horror was bad. This was worse.
See, I fondly remember The Horror being quite the devastation for the maize and blue. I might even remember the launch of Emo Week at MGO following Michigan's egg-laying at the hands of Appalachian State, while Michigan was a top-5 team, at home. The loss was a virtual crater in the dreams of the Michigan partisans. Beforehand--I'm sure it happened somewhere--some rowdy Michigan drunkard was pounding Jag bombs out of a replica Little Brown Jug sluring concotions of national championships. Oooops! Or, shall I quote Brian: "Yipe?"
Brian also doesn't seem to like Brewster, or believe in Rivals' lofty ranking of Minnesota's recruiting class, because, of course, Minnesota could never put together a recruiting class on par, or better, than Michigan.
Last year I predicted a brief, miserable sqeak of a head coaching career for the excitable but woefully unproven Brewster, who'd never been anything but a tight ends coach. Though this prediction is off to a stirring start, I was wrong about one thing: Brewster's recruiting. Suckered in by the lure of a stadium named after a bank or free Wild tickets or something, recruits flocked to Brewster's banner. Minnesota ended up with the #17 class according to Rivals The capture of Indiana dual-threat quarterback and Army All American Marqueis Gray was the most notable coup; there was also a healthy sprinkling of four-stars elsewhere, including a highly touted instate linebacker who, unfortunately, just had open-heart surgery. His career is in doubt.
Is it going to help this year? Eh... probably not so much. It's overrated because of its size (29 players) and JUCO-heavy. The best player in it is stuck behind a pretty decent returning starter, and there's only a few kids who will be around by the time Minnesota is rebuilt into an annoying midlevel Big Ten team.
On the first score, Brewster having a short tenure, I'll just point out that Minnesota fans, for the most part, have stood by Brewster. Lloyd Carr on the other hand? He was scorched toast the day MGO began putting cute pictures of kittens on the blog's masthead instead of, you know, manly stuff or Mike Hart.
Concerning recruiting, this line of trash-talk was expected after seeing the title of Brian's post was "Minnesota: We Suck, But Look at this JUCO." There seems to be a tinge of jealousy here. The Wolverines are still stuck playing three yards and a cloud of dust football and have nothing resembling a dual-threat quarterback of the future. Sweater Vest out-maneuvered Rich Rodriguez for Terell Pryor. And now it looks like the once-feared, now tumbling Wolverines will turn to a former walk-on to line up under center.
Once again, I offer: Yipe? And kittens too :-)
