Gopher Update: Forever Gold and Now Ranked

Jerry Kill summed it up best, "You've got to find a way to win sometimes."  It wasn't always pretty but the win moves the Gophers to 6-1 (3-0).  To put this in perspective, the last time the Gophers started the Big Ten season 3-0 was in 1990.   A win this week against Illinois would actually give the Gophers their first 4-0 start since 1967 which is the last time they claimed a share of a Big Ten title in football.  With Iowa losing to Maryland, the Gophers are now in sole possession of first place in the Big Ten West.

The win also moves the Gophers in to the Coaches poll at #24 and grants them bowl eligibility for the third straight year.

"Doh" exclaims Purdue Pete as Cedric Thompson dives for the end zone after intercepting a pass on the first play of the game.  Thompson was called out of bounds but David Cobb followed with a TD on the next play.

Advanced Game Stats: Study Hall

Updated Big Ten Projections: #2 behind Nebraska.  Coming in to the week, Minnesota was a slight favorite in the division.  Despite winning, Minnesota's projection took a small hit and Nebraska's impressive victory at Northwestern moved the Huskers to the top of the division.  Considering we play the Huskers in Lincoln, I always felt they should be projected as the division favorite despite an early loss to MSU.

Look ahead: Illinois

Tim Beckman (1-18 in B1G play) appears to be a dead man walking in Champaign-Urbana.  It is too bad because the man is Tim Brewster v2.0 and it is a lot funnier to listen to idiotic things coming from someone else's coach.  Here are some of his quotes from just this season:

“You take out 21 points on three plays and we’re in this football game. You take away those 21 points and the final score is 23-19.”

“If we take out ten plays in that football game, it’s a different game.”

This again?

“If you look at the second half, we won.”

“I thought he played well. He didn't grade out, but no one on defense did.”

After losing to move to 3-4 (0-3) and 1-18 in B1G for his career with 6 B1G games remaining, “If we run the table, we end up with nine wins.”

Fingers crossed.

The Gophers are a 6.5 point favorite and -213 on the moneyline which translates to about a 68.6% favorite to win.  The computer models seem even more favorable to the Gophers with ESPN estimating the Gophers as a 70% win probability and Bill Connelly from Sports Nation calling a Gophers win an 89.3% probability.

In the Gophers favor are that the Gophers are a run-first (and second) team and Illinois ranks #122 in the country against the run at 271.1 yards per game.  David Cobb, who has already rushed for 1015 yards in 7 games which ranks #4 in the country, should be licking his chops.  Offensively, Illinois has been a good passing team but their starting QB, Oklahoma State transfer Wes Lunt, broke his leg a few weeks ago so the Illini are mixing in two back-ups in his place.  This is a game that the Gophers should win which would set up a potentially epic November in Dinkytown with Iowa coming to town after a bye week.

Gopher Update: Division Leaders

Basic statistics:

Advanced statistics and analysis of the game: Study Hall

But all you need to know is this: Trailing 10-17 in the 4th quarter, Northwestern drove the ball 97 yards to tie the game.  Unfortunately for the Wildcats, they had to kick off after scoring.

Sophomore CB, and former GA HS state champion in the hurdles, Jalen Myrick returns it 103 yards for the game winner.

What does it all mean?
The Gophers move to 5-1 (2-0) and along with Iowa lead the Big Ten West standings.

At least one national statistician (blogger) has Minnesota as a slight favorite to win the West: Updated B1G Projections

What lies ahead:

Minnesota is a 12.5 point favorite and -470 on the moneyline (83%) in Vegas.  The statistician I quoted earlier projects Minnesota as a winner 89% of the time so by either measure this is a very winnable game.  As a lifelong Gopher fan these are the games that scare me the most.  Purdue has actually been playing much better since switching to a more mobile QB a couple games ago.

The other Big Ten games we care about are Iowa @ Maryland -5 and Nebraska @ Northwestern +7.  Nebraska @ Northwestern is probably worth watching on Saturday night.  Their three previous meetings have all been one score games that were decided late including this Hail Mary last year.  Our rooting interests are Maryland (as always, anti-Iowa) and Northwestern although both are competitors for the division.

From Gophersports:

A win on Saturday would give Minnesota a 6-1 record to start the season and it would also make it bowl eligible. The last time the Gophers started the season 6-1 was 2008 (also last time they were bowl eligible after seven games), when they began the year 7-1. More importantly a win would give the Gophers a 3-0 record in Big Ten play. The last time the Gophers started 3-0 in the Big Ten was 1990. That year, Minnesota beat Purdue, Northwestern and Indiana to start league play. Prior to 1990, Minnesota’s best Big Ten start came in 1967, when the Gophers topped Illinois, Michigan State, Michigan and Iowa en route to a 4-0 record in the league. Purdue handed the Gophers their first and only Big Ten loss (finished year 6-1 in B1G) in 1967 (41-12 home win).

Monday Update: Sad Dose of Reality

Gentlemen,

Let's do some math here...

3/13 = 23.08%

3/16 = 18.75%

Indiana gets Masoned

Bloomington, IN

In honor of my trip to Indiana, this update gets a Kingpin theme.

We got in to Bloomington early on Friday so we decided to head to Nick's to play a little Sink the Biz.   This game needs to find its way to Dinkytown.  The rules are pretty easy.  Pour the beer, in a steady stream, in to a small glass that is in a bucket of beer.  Whoever sinks the glass has to drink the glass.  If anybody sinks three in a row they must drink the entire bucket of beer. 

With the amount of beer that was consumed on Friday night, Mrs. Whitebread woke up feeling a little like this: 

So naturally, we got a little bit of a slow start to Saturday morning.  However, I was quite impressed with the tailgating scene at Indiana.  Memorial Stadium (and Assembly Hall) is about 7 blocks north of campus.  The first few blocks of that walk are housing and then the last 4-5 is a grassy area with trees mixed in that allows for a great tailgate.

Prior to this I would have ranked the golf course at Michigan as the top tailgating area that I've been at in the Big Ten but I think Indiana has a better set up.  And despite the quality of the team most of the campus and many alumni show up to tailgate.

I know what you're wondering now.  But how were the girls?  As a married man, on a trip with Mrs. Whitebread, I couldn't take any pictures so I'll just leave you with this gif as a proxy for what we saw.

The thing about playing Indiana is that they are all offense and no defense.  They average 42 points-per-game and they have a top 10 passing offense (came in to the game on pace to break the B1G record for yards-per-game) but they also sported one of the 10 worst rushing defenses in the NCAA.  So watching a game against them is a little bit like this:

The game got off to a great start with a flea flicker moving the ball in to scoring position.  The drive was culminated with a 3rd down TD pass to Chaska phenom Derek Engel.

IU followed with a FG.

Oh, a field goal!  Look out.  IU brought field goals to a touch down fight!

The Gophers ended the first half with a 28-13 lead and a 100-yard advantage in passing yards so the Hoosier decided to head back to the tailgates.

The scene at Memorial Stadium early in the 3rd quarter.  The Hoosier "Faithful" had clearly seen enough.

The Gophers weren't done yet though.  David Cobb added a 27-yard TD in the 3rd quarter to take a 35-13 lead with 6:24 to go in the 3rd quarter.  Cobb's score brought the Gophers rally to 28 unanswered.

David Cobb had 188 yards rushing with 1 TD and 48 yards receiving.  He now has 803 yards rushing on the season.

35-13, suck it Indiana.

But like I mentioned earlier, playing Indiana looks like this.

And Indiana responded.  The change of QB from Tre Roberson to Nate Sudfeld gave the IU offense rhythm and all of a sudden they were hitting on all cylinders.  The Gophers pulled out all the stops from a bomb (that was dropped) on 4th and 2 to a fake punt that was a cleat away from making it but it didn't matter.  Before you knew it Indiana had a 39-35 lead and the Gophers fans were thinking I know this feeling, go away and let me puke in my toilet.

About that time the Gophers must have remembered they had just beaten Nebraska last week and were now playing Indiana.  We're better than this team; we should score at will on this team.  And just like that, Nelson found Maxx Williams for his 4th TD pass and 298th passing yard of the game as Maxx rumbled for a TD and a 42-39 lead.

Maxx Williams 50 yd TD for the the go-ahead score

But, the touchdown was a little like this scene in Kingpin.

Beer and nipping out should be a great combination it just doesn't always work, and Maxx Williams scoring a TD is good but the score was too quick.  It left 3:06 on the clock.  That is a lot of time for an Indiana offense that is moving the ball and scoring on will to find a way to score 3 to tie or worse.  And just as they had for the last quarter and a half IU moved the ball down the field and in to the red zone with ease.  Gopher fans in attendance were praying just to hold them to a FG and force OT.  But then, in Glen Mason-like fashion, something unbelievable happened to the Hoosiers.  Tevin Coleman ran out in the flats and Nate Sudfeld tried to hit him with a backward pass.  Coleman bobbled it and Brock Vereen hit him to make sure it wasn't caught but neither Vereen nor Coleman seemed to understand the pass was backward.  However, linebacker Aaron Hill did so he picked up the ball and ran with it effectively ending the game

RB Tevin Coleman screws up by running backward and QB Sudfeld screws up worse by throwing a bad pass behind him leaving Indiana Masoned in Bloomington on homecoming.

While I fully acknowledge the win looks a little like this.

A win is a win and as a Gopher fan I don't feel the need to apologize because I've seen this game end the opposite way so many times in the past.  With the win, the Gophers move to 7-2 (3-2) on the season and now are in 3rd place in the Big Ten Legends division.

Yes, that is Michigan and Iowa behind us in the standings.

We get Penn State this week which seems like a winnable game.  The early line is Gophers -1.5 which is a change from their high-single digits to low double-digits underdog status the last three weeks.  If/when we beat Penn State and have an off-week I will go through rooting interests for the Gophers to get to the B1G Championship Game in Indy (to be massacred by the Buckeyes) but until then lets just enjoy this one.

When you're the Gophers, enjoy winning conference records when you can.  They don't happen often enough.