What better way to start your Friday than with some Nugz? Oh that's right- there IS no better way. So sit back and take them in. You're welcome.
Patrick Reusse has nothing but good things to say about Gopher football. Ok, ok, so as usual he has actually nothing good to say about Gopher football. Surprise, surprise. He goes over the same tired points about how the Gophers are nowhere near as popular as the Vikings and Twins because they're not any good, and haven't been since 1969. Thanks for the insight, Patrick. We already knew this. The diehard Gopher fans will always be there, but the Twin Cities' sports fans won't get on the bandwagon until Minnesota does some real winning- or at least goes to a New Year's Day bowl. And honestly, as a Gopher football fan, I'm fine with this. This isn't Iowa City or Lincoln or any other college town where there's no pro sports teams. While I would love to see a state wide passion for the Gophs like there is in Iowa or Nebraska or Wisconsin for their teams, there's just too much else going on here in the fall for people to follow the Gophers if they aren't winning and winning often. Again, this is all probably very obvious to all of you, but Reusse thought he'd point it out just in case. For his next column he'll tell us that winters in Minnesota are cold, and that Brett Favre loves the spotlight.
The Strib's Dennis Brackin has a story about The U's offensive line bonding with bad hair cuts. No really. The guys decided really bad hair cuts would be a good bonding experience to help build chemistry and hopefully yield much better results than last year (you know what else might work to help your performance on the field, fellas? Blocking better). Who knows if this will help them play better or not, but all that matters is that they believe it. That and the much simpler scheme Jeff Horton will attempt to run this year can only help.
In other team bonding news, Shooter Now tells us that Adam Weber believes the team is as close as it's ever been in his five years here. Closer to what- the Rose Bowl? Winning a trophy game? Beating a 1-A team after October? Um no, just closer in the sense that, you know, they're all getting along. He also mentions he might want to go to law school. The entire blurb is 10 lines long. And you wonder why newspapers are struggling these days?
E!SPN.com Big Ten blogger Adam Rittenberg has a good post about MarQueis Gray pulling double duty as a wide receiver and backup QB. While I do hope that Brewster (or whomever is the head coach next year) gives him a fair shot at the starting quarterback job in 2011, I love the idea of getting him on the field in 2010 as a wideout. He's one of the best athletes on the team, and at 6'4 and 230 with some pretty good wheels, he's going to create some matchup problems. The more comfortable he gets running routes, the more playing time he'll see. With him, Da'Jon McKnight and Troy Stoudermire, that's a pretty athletic and versatile top three. Hopefully they can add "consistent" to that package this year.
Rittenberg also lists the Gophs' as the fourth best special teams unit in the Big Ten. Not quite total enlightenment on our deathbeds, but we do have that going for us, which is nice.
Hey you never know unless you ask, right? This one made me laugh out loud, but I'm guessing the folks in Boulder had the opposite reaction. So Colorado Buffaloes head coach Dan Hawkins is 16-33 in his four seasons in Boulder, including a 3-9 stinker in 2009 that would have gotten him canned had the school not been cash strapped. Anyone else would say he's lucky to have his job, but apparently Dano thinks otherwise. He was asked in a meeting of CU coaches what could be done to help his team win: his answer? Give him a contract extension. Seriously, he said that. As you might guess this did not go over well with the coaches, and even more so with CU fans once the story got out. Hey why live in reality when his little dream world is so much more fun?