Golden Nugz - 10.11.12

Happy Ten Eleven Twelve everybody!!! How fun! I bet there's lots of people having weddings and marking the day with counting things.

Speaking of counting, just two days until we get back to Gopher football! And actually, the amount of content to talk about is a bit lacking.

* We've been busy around here raking in the Northwestern preview stuff, and likewise the Northwesterners (Northwesternites?) want to know our perspective. GN and I both answered some questions for this Lake The Posts preview.

* If you missed it yesterday, I did a piece on why I think the defense still makes the Gophers a bowl team over at OTE. The Hawkeye fans were not impressed. Be sure you read the comments section as GoAUpher DOES WORK on said Hawkeye fans. A quick snippet of his fine, fine work:

Here's a stat for you.

63% of the yardage allowed by MN against Iowa came on just 7 plays (i.e. 12.5% of the total plays). The average yards per play on the [other] 49 plays? 2.83. Those are the stats of a defense that broke down badly on 3 consecutive drives (plus 1 play on the first drive).

I didn't realize that gaining 2.83 yards per play for 87.5% of the game now qualified as "owning" someone for the whole game.

* Tom Powers thinks that Jerry Kill talks too much about how young the Gophers are. Good to see that the Twin Cities press has plenty to write about these days.

* Tubby Smith is calling Trevor Mbakwe his 6th man? Ever heard the phrase: "that aught to go over like a fart in church"?

* FSN says Max is probably going to get one more start before Q is ready to come back full-strength, and Shortell is ready for a third consecutive start:

"You want to get back in it, get right back in things," Shortell said. "But you get a week off and think about everything you did wrong and things you could have done better. "

* Nick Bjugstad has some unfinished business and that's why he came back to the U to play hockey. In other news, apparently the "unfinished business" mantra in sports hasn't worn out yet.

* Tracy Claeys is pissed that the Gophers had to wait two weeks to come out and prove that the defense that showed up against Iowa is NOT the same defense that will show up the rest of the season.