The Minnesota Gophers started the season on a high note, beating a team they should beat handily, 38-0. I say this with relief as the Gophers have struggled against their early season, non-conference opponents since PJ Fleck has come to town. It was a refreshing way to start the season seeing the Gophers assert their dominance early and often and from start to finish. The Gophers out-gained the Aggies in yardage by a total of 485-91. Jerry Kill and the New Mexico State Aggies weren't able to get anything going as they were only able to record 6 first downs and score 0 points.
PJ Fleck is now in his 5th season as Head Coach and you can see the absolute enormous size of every player on the team. It isn't anything I have ever seen in a Gopher football team in my lifetime. Birdman's Blog had this to say about the pregame prediction: "My prediction for this game is Minnesota will win 38-6. They will likely be running the ball most of the game, but hopefully they can let Morgan and the WRs get on track with the passing game to start the season on a high note and a confidence boost." The final score was 38-0 and it included 297 rushing yard, 5 rushing touchdowns, and 188 passing yards. Another beautiful prediction by yours truly! Barring any major injuries this season, this Gopher Football should end the season as at least a Top 15 team.
Entering Week 2 of the season, the Gophers will host FCS opponent Western Illinois Leathernecks on Saturday morning, 9/10. These guys aren't even a good FCS school and we should see much of the same that we saw in Week 1 from the Gophers. A heavy dose of the run game with some nice passing plays mixed in. I would imagine the Gophers should win by a score of at least 45-0 in this one and I wouldn't be surprised if they win by more.
I was able to attend the first game of the season against NMSU last Thursday night and it was a blast. Please enjoy the 9 pictures I have at the end of this post! We had some pretty nice seats right behind the Gophers bench! :) Thanks for reading, everyone!!!!