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It is really hard to get back into the swing of things here with a 4-2 team that hasn't played competitively in the Big Ten. But here are today's Nugz from around the Gopher interwebz. I'll start with some Northwestern news and work my way back to the Gophers from there.
As you may be aware, NU had very high hopes coming into this season. They were 11-2 in 2012 and were just over 5 minutes from being undefeated. High hopes. But hopes of a BCS game, hopes of an undefeated season have been erased after back-to-back losses. As a way to wake the team up and keep them from moping after their losses the coaching staff attacked the team with 300 water balloons in their Monday meeting.
"You noticed that?" NU coach Pat Fitzgerald said. "Every once in a while you've got to wake the guys up, so we attacked them with about 300 water balloons at the end of the team meeting."
Hey, it's cheaper than shock therapy.
Northwestern has a 24-hour rule, but some players still were moping after their worst performance since stepping foot on campus.
I was kind of hoping that they would remain mopey and feeling sorry for themselves.
- Kain Colter and Venric Mark were injured in Northwestern's loss to Wisconsin and they are still considered day-to-day.
- Northwestern is going to be peanut free on Saturday. This is the University's first ever peanut free day for people with peanut allergies. The easy cheap-shot here is, don't they know that the Gophers are allergic to touchdowns not peanuts?
- Lake the Posts has a really nice post on the perception of Northwestern following two weeks of being in the national spotlight.
- Sippin on Purple wonders if this team is dead after the 0-2 Big Ten start.
- ESPN has a midseason report on the Golden Gophers. Ra'Shede Hageman is the mid-way defensive MVP and Mitch Leidner is the offensive MVP. Not sure I agree with the latter based really on a good game at Michigan but I'm also not sure who else it would go to.
- A couple NFL.com experts have Hageman as an All-American.
- Reid Travis has decided to take an official visit to Minnesota. It will take place on October 25th.
- The state of Minnesota is doing a pretty good job or representing in all other levels of football. Minnesota State-Mankato is #1 in D2. Bethel and St. Thomas are both in the D3 top 10 at 5th and 9th respectively; and they play each other at Bethel this week.
- Ryan Burns of GopherIllustrated gives you 10 recruits you need to know now. ($ required).