Go Gnome, You’re Drunk: Week 2

Hello Gophers friends! The Gnomes come before you pleased. Not only did the Gophers dominate the hapless New Mexico State Aggies, but the rest of the Big Ten tried very hard to give the Gnomes reason for merriment. As for our next opponent...well...we’ll get to that.

Per the new Gnomes plan, we’ll open with the Aggies.

Last “opponent” to face Minnesota

Poor, poor, New Mexico State. They came into the season with hopes of another bowl game. Instead, they now sit 0-2 after getting blown out by a cumulative score of 77-17 by both Wyoming and the Gophers. The Gnomes were loving this game anyway and then Antoine Winfield Jr. just destroyed everyone on that punt return and their little hearts filled with joy (and possibly bloodlust...they’re scary when Minnesota is winning y’all).

Minnesota treated a body bag game like they were supposed to. This will always please the Gnomes.

Next opponent

Um, so Fresno State is probably good. This combined with the fact that the Gnomes know nothing about Fresno State makes them harder to ridicule. The Gnomes went looking for memes they felt applied to this scenario and found something odd about Finland not being a real place, but then they got tired and started bickering because what they really want to do is make fun of Illinois and Nebraska.

So yea, let’s go ahead and do that. I don’t need the grief and it’ll be more fun.

POINT AND LAUGH

Oh Illinois. We’ve been told about how you’re rebuilding and that Lovie is getting the pieces in place to be better. And then 5 of your best recruits under Lovie get suspended for reasons your staff won’t announce. Right before the game. THEN, you almost manage to lose to Kent Effing State, who is worse than New Mexico State (some would argue they’re the worst team in college football and who are the Gnomes to argue). To beat Kent State, you had to add two TE’s to block on every play. That’s right, the worst MAC team out there beat up your front 5 so badly you had to bring in extra blockers.

Let’s just say the Gnomes have doubts about the Lovie Smith experiment right now. And that’s a very very good thing.

As for Nebraska? They are still 0-0 after having to cancel their game against Akron due to bad weather. Why is this something the Gnomes want to mock? Because there is a decent chance Nebby needed that game for bowl eligibility given the difficulty of their schedule. Which means there is a non-trivial chance they could end the season 5-6 and not be eligible for a bowl game.

To make this even better, Akron (wisely) told Nebraska to shove it when they tried to reschedule the game for Sunday morning (they’d already checked out of their hotel, no other hotel rooms were available, and the Zips decided being a body bag and creating a short rest week while getting stuck in Husker dorms wasn’t worth the trouble). Nebby is covering Akron’s expenses for the trip and a basic reading of the contract language suggests that Nebraska is going to owe Akron some amount of additional money.

This has created a world where some Nebraska fans are suggesting they pay Akron to declare Nebraska the winner of a game the definitely did not win.

Oh, and Nebraska probably won’t refund their fans for their tickets either.