- Acclaimed college football comedy blog Every Day Should be Saturday pokes fun at the Big Ten coaches in this article. Regarding Tim Brewster's thoughts on Eric Decker this statement is made:
Tim Brewster, in contrast, is full of fun and definite nonsense: not only does he support the splitting of the league into divisions and a championship game, he also thinks Minnesota receiver Eric Decker is the best wideout in college football. This is, of course, impossible because Decker is a "possession receiver,"
- Meanwhile, another news source discusses the possibility of Decker signing with the Twins:
Minnesota wide receiver Eric Decker will play for the Gophers this season but he said Tuesday that signing a contract with the Minnesota Twins, who drafted him in the 27th round in June, "is not completely out of the question."
- The Gophers reportedly have one of the toughest schedules in college football. Brewster comments on Rittenberg's Big Ten Blog:
"I want the University of Minnesota to be on that stage," Brewster said. "I want to play nationally televised games where a tremendous amount of exposure is put on our program. And when you play USC, that happens. We're going to play some other teams that are going to give us exposure."
- According to Phil Steele of the Orlando Sentinel, Minnesota will be facing the 5th toughest schedule in all of college football.
- Brett Favre will not be a Viking...at least...for now. How can this drama be considered finalized until the season has actually finished?
- Brett Bielema performs his best Muhammad Ali impersonation:
Bielema reminded reporters Monday during the first day of the Big Ten Conference preseason football meetings that UW is a combined 30-3 at home over the last five seasons.
"That really becomes evident when we try to schedule nonconference opponents and we try to go after a certain caliber of opponents," Bielema, 28-11 in three seasons as UW's head coach, said of the Badgers' home record since 2004. "In the beginning they start to get intrigued and they are interested in coming.
"But when we start to talk about home-and-home . . . all of a sudden it's not as good a deal as they thought."
Those UW fans who want to see the non-league schedule upgraded probably won't buy that argument.
- The blog Bogie on Bama lists Minnesota as the 17th best program in college football history. The article is full of statistics, historical figures, pictures, and commentary. It's well worth checking out.
- Brian Cook posts a great recap of the ridiculous circus that has become the Big Ten Media Days. A great quote regarding Jim Tressel from a Pennsylvania reporter:
I think he's [Tressel] an android. One of these days, someone is going to finally push him over the edge and he's going to snap and try to stuff a rolled-up magazine down the guy's throat and then milky conductor fluid is going to start spurting out his mouth and his head'll pop off exposing all the wiring and then millions of fans will be stunned. I will not.