Every year fans enter the season being cautiously optimistic about their team’s chances. But why? Why be cautious when you can jump out of an exploding hot air balloon dressed like a Muppet while holding multiple smoke bombs and with sparklers and other fireworks attached to you? Not that I’ve ever done that, mind you.
It was Beeker, ok?
Anyway, let’s have some fun and look at why Minnesota will go 12-0 this season.
New Mexico State
Looks like just another “ease into the season” tune-up on the Thursday before Labor Day so Gopher fans can get to their cabins around 1 in the morning on Friday and enjoy an extra day on the holiday weekend. Let’s just crack open the Phil Steele and see what we can learn about the Aggies. Independent...page 222..also plays at wisconsin and Mizzou...only 13 returning starters, 4 on offense...NEW COACH JERRY KILL?!
You know, sometimes you want your team to just ease into the season and the starters to gel and the backup QB to get some reps and everyone to get out without injuries. And other times you want to grind the opponent into a fine dust that you could put into the ashtray of your new car you bought at Casa De Auto and make the coaching staff question their life choices that led them to this point because the coach hid his actual conniving, narcistic, cruel self behind an “aw shuck” veneer.
Welcome back to the stadium you said you’d never set foot in again, Jer.
Western Illinois
It’s not NDSU, so let’s just look past the 1-AA opponent and pretend nothing bad ever happens in non-conference games. Enjoy the check, Leathernecks.
Colorado
Last year’s game in Boulder was a smothering. The Buffs only got 69 yards of offense and 0 points. Karl Dorrell, who is somehow still employed, decided to fix that by hiring fired Minnesota OC Mike Sanford. WHAT ARE YOU DOING KARL?!
at Michigan State
This is not the same Spartans team that was one of the more impressive in college football last year. Whereas everything came up Sparty on the transfer roulette wheel for the 2021 vintage, everything will turn to ashes in their mouths this fall.
Also, games between Minnesota and Michigan State are usually a bit weird and you should probably watch this one. Just saying.
Purdue
Jeff Brohm will continue to turn more and more reddish-purple as his teams continue to lose every single year to PJ Fleck. At some point he will actually be the inspiration for multiple new colors in the Crayola box and will sue the company for royalties when they don’t give him credit.
Also their WR corps finally doesn’t have a terrifying presence. The only one to watch will be Tyrone Tracy when he goes for the inevitable 17-400-5 against Iowa.
University of Minnesota Police Department
Fleck’s teams do a pretty good job of policing themselves, so it seems unlikely that they’d let the opponent run up the score here like they used to under Mason and Brewster.
at Illinois
Revenge game. Payback will be delivered for the completely unexpected and stunning gameplan Bert sprung on the Gophers last year. Defense and running the ball? From a Bielema team? Dastardly.
at Penn State
At Happy Valley. At night. A whiteout.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Well, not quite.
Kirk Ciarrocca starts speaking in tongues before kickoff and calling the perfect game. Every counter, every bubble screen, every play action pass is called at the perfect time. Roc sits emotionless and still the entire game, just staring at James Franklin. After the Gophers win an absolutely asskicking, Roc gives Franklin a hug and then snaps out of it, ordering a pizza to be delivered to the locker room.
Rutgers
I don’t want to shit on Rutgers. They’re trying their best, and Joe Harasymiak is a good guy and a much better DC than Robb Smith. I think this could be a fun game, but the Gophers are a better program with a head start on where they want to be over the Scarlet Knights.
By the way, fat sandwiches are deplorable. But they’re better than the Rutgers QB room.
at Nebraska
Mark Whipple, the man brought in to save Scott Frost’s job (that he should have already lost because he’s got a very strong case to be clled the worst head coach to ever appear in the B1G since expansion started in 1991) has actually been dead for 3 years. His son has been doing a rather long-running Weekend at Bernie’s bit to enrich himself. Nobody noticed because he was at Pitt.
Also, have you seen that offensive line? You could dig up a better starting 5 at a cemetery.
Northwestern
Pat Fitzgerald misses the first half of the game when he tries to lead a picket of a local Starbucks on the verge of a unionization vote.
Also, the Wildcats just aren’t as good of a team since Mike Hankwitz and Mick McCall left.
Iowa
We’re due.
at wisconsin
Paul Chryst has more losses to Minnesota than the last 2 coaches combined. He’s obviously a failure and we can expect the Gophers to beat those shitheels to the east regularly until he retires and becomes the athletic director.
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