Had to watch the game late tonight, but was available to avoid knowing anything about it. I was shocked by how the Gophers played as I the most likely outcome, in my mind, was a comfortable Georgia Tech win. I listened to a gambling podcast this weekend (Stanford Steve and the Bear) where they were going over all the bowl games to be played this week and "the Bear" was saying how he didn't know of anyone who was "on Minnesota" in this game. From my own perspective, I had heard so little about the bowl game from the Gophers side and combining that with this being Coach Johnson's last game for Georgia Tech I thought Tech would be the team that came ready to play. Instead, it was the Gophers who flat out dominated in seemingly every area of this football game. If not for some really curious decision making on the Gophers last drive before halftime, the Gophers would have pitched a shutout in the first half.
Mo Ibrahim was simply fantastic. He always seems to get the absolute most yardage out of every run with the exception of being caught from behind due to his lack of long speed. The kid runs like he's 250 on first contact, but still moves like a scat back to get through small holes. Any time we needed a play, Ibrahim seemed to make it.
How about Coach Rossi? I don't know if I can be skeptical about making him the full time DC any more. His defense came out and just shut down a Georgia Tech offense that had been pretty good this year. Really solid tackling and a great job of staying assignment sound by the entire defense tonight. When you combine Rossi's defense with Coach C's offense that hasn't punted in 6 quarters, you've got a lot of reasons to be excited about the Gophers.
The fact that the Gophers were ready to play today speaks very well to the leadership of Coach Fleck. It was pretty clear that he was on the road recruiting for much of bowl prep season. The game was going to be in Detroit the day after Christmas in front of probably less than 20K fans and the defense was going to have to deal with the potential for being cut blocked on every play. There was literally nothing attractive about playing this game. You also had the potential distractions of the suspension(s?) and two starters choosing to forgo the bowl game. It would have been very easy, perhaps normal, for a team to come out flat and go through the motions. Instead, the Gophers played one of their better games of the season and played with a lot of fire.
