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Good morning sports fans, we're going to do the nugz real fast today, so there aren't quite as many links. I've pulled out some nice quotes for you to make up for the brevity. Without further ado.
ESPN has some useful insight on Minnesota's QB situation, what with Mitch Leidner dinged up and Chris Streveler waiting in the wings.
This week it probably won't matter given the way Minnesota ran the ball all over San Jose State last year. But Michigan is looming next week, and the Gophers would likely be better off if they didn't have to keep answering questions about their starting quarterback.
Since we're on the topic of Mitch, his leg injuries are limiting his mobility.
The sophomore from Lakeville is dealing with turf toe along with the sprained left knee he played on in Saturday's 30-7 loss at Texas Christian. "He's moving around but not as well as we'd like him to right now," Kill said. "It's from a lot of reasons over the last few weeks. We'll just have to see. He's not moving around as good as he was earlier in the week last week."
The offensive line hasn't passed the eye test so far this year, and that's a bit unexpected.
"It all starts there, and we're not playing the way we need to right now, so that's a big challenge for us," Limegrover said. "I've taken it upon myself, and (Kill) made that clear, that we need to be better in those positions."
Since we're on the topic of line play, the defensive line would also like to be more productive.
"If you’ve watched those first three games, it’s mostly been a lot of three-step [drops], a lot of screen [passes]," Cockran said. "They’re getting the ball out pretty fast. Three steps, it’s going to be hard to get back there. But we’ve gotten good pressure on them. We’ll improve on that. I’m not really worried about that sack number right now."
Stepping three yards back, we come Damien Wilson, who has looked solid in all three games this year, and might have a future playing on Sundays. Based on David Cobb's statement below, I love his attitude.
"He plays with a certain chip on his shoulder, a certain swag to him," said Cobb, also his roommate. "He feels like he's the best player when he steps out there."
The B1G Ten's football troubles can be attributed to population shifts, apparently.
Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press points to the electoral map to emphasize the population drain within the Big Ten footprint. In 1980, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania combined for 99 electoral votes. By 2012, that number had shrunk to 74. Meanwhile, Florida, Texas and California went from a combined 88 electoral votes to 122. According to Footballstudyhall.com, those three states combined to produce 39.1 percent of the FBS-level players from 2008 to 2013.
Winding down, here's a Gophers Football Plus video. I'm not going to quote it because my CTRL+C function doesn't capture audio.
Go Gophers! I hope they kick the crap out of SJSU! I'm pretty confident they will.