Wow. It's been a good weekend so far for Tom Watson, but a truly bad weekend for Erin Andrews (good for her lawyers, though).
Oh, and no link, but it's common knowledge now: Grant Potulny, Gopher hockey hero, is back at the Mooch as an assistant coach to Don Lucia. Welcome back Grant.
It's also a great weekend for TDG readers and purveyors of the Nugz - a weekend link dump with opinions! Here are five morsels for you to digest until Monday:
(1) Here is a great read from Dr. Saturday asking why more spread teams haven't adopted the triple option offense, which also rips Stewart Mandel (which I rarely disapprove of). You'll notice that Air Force is prominent in the article, including the ridiculous statistic that AFA ran 85% of the time in 2008. Irony notwithstanding, this is an offense unique to anything Minnesota will see in 2009, and while it will prepare the Gophers well for Jadvid Best on 9/19, I hope the Gopher defense is ready for what will be a very tough test from the Falcons. They won't get one from Syracuse.
(2) A couple weeks back I referenced the Wolverine Revolution Army's inquest into Rich Rodriguez's first season in Ann Arbor (which was, to be polite, a disaster). Here is part one. This past week, they posted part two. My take? Rich Rod felt he could impose his system regardless of players. While it was the right thing to do, it didn't work - 1 returning starter on offense, and an historically bad defense. Many players transferred out, the head coach and D-coordinator didn't get along, and the unsuccessful recruitment of Terrelle Pryor equalled the worst Big Ten quarterbacking since the 1950s. The talent level is higher now, the returning players are all healthy. Michigan should win 6-8 games this year. In 2010, they'll be back in the BCS.
(3) The California Golden Blogs is running a very interesting series about how the Cal offense sets up defenses with similar-looking plays. Here is part five of their twelve-part series about setting up the flea flicker in the 2008 Emerald Bowl against Miami (yes, that Miami). My position is that Cal's speed is going to be very difficult for the Gophers to deal with on 9/19. Posts like this make me very concerned about our secondary, which is why losing Tramaine Brock is significant. Players with Division I-A experience are always missed, even if Royston ably replaces him. Ryan Collado is still too close to the field for my liking in the current depth chart.
(4) Hammer and Rails, a trusted Purdue blog, drops knowledge about the Gopher football team. Purdue visits the Gophers to be the sacrificial Homecoming opponent to be worthy Homecoming adversaries on October 10, 2009. And I must say I significantly disagree with H&R's assessment and truly worry for Minnesota's season if we lose to Purdue.
(5) This might be the most amazing stat I've seen since I started caring about college football recruiting: Boise State has only FIVE scholarships available for the 2010 class.