The Crystal Ball
Digging around in the closet for my game gear I came across my aunt's old crystal ball. My mother, who never liked my aunt, always referred to her as that witch, but I thought it was just a figure of speech until I started to dust the crystal ball and images started to form inside. Here is what I saw.
Fall Camp - The Gopher's work hard on perfecting their running game. They add 12 plays designed to destroy their opponents keys, trick plays if you will. They practice these plays everyday.
MTSU – This is no contest. The Gophers take the opening kickoff and march down the field 5 and 6 yards at a time. Bennett has a long run of 18 and Weber throws a strike over the middle to Lair. The smaller MTSU D line is no match for the size of the Gophers. MTSU goes three and out on their next three possessions and the Gophers score each time they get the ball. 28 – 0 at the half. The offense is as vanilla as a team can be.
The Gophers score early in the third quarter and begin to substitute liberally. MTSU scores in the third on a broken play and scores twice more in the 4th in garbage time against Minnesota's third team D. Final score 35 -21 but those who have watched closely know Minnesota could have named the score but the coaches wanted to give the 2s and 3s more game experience. Weber only throws 4 passes total.
Fat Pat, Souhan and Barreiro, none of whom have watched the game, all opine that the score means the Gophers will only have one more win at most . Monty Kiffin who watched the game turns off the TV with a troubled feeling. Lane Kiffin is out drinking with some assistant coaches and doesn't watch the game. They were planning where they will put the National Championship Trophy when they win it at the end of the year.
The Gophers continue to practice their 12 plays and most of them work pretty consistently now.
SDSU – More of above. The Gophers run, run, run. They show nothing. Both sides of the line show nothing and this game is even more vanilla than MTSU if that is possible. Gray plays the third and ½ of the 4 quarter at QB along with Kirkwood. Alapate gets a series in the 4th. Final score 28 – 0. Weber throws 4 more passes for a total of 8 in two games. Fat Pat, Souhan and Barreiro, none of whom have watched the game, all opine that the score means the Gophers had to struggle against a D-2 team and surly this means Brewster will be fired at the end of the season. Monty tries to warn Lane the Gophers could be a trap game but Lane is browsing brochures for trophy cases and doesn't hear him.
USC - Gophers take the opening kickoff and the first play from the 20 is a 35 yard strike from Weber to Gray. Gray is well covered but the ball is perfectly thrown and Gray easily blocks out the cornerback and gets the “rebound”. With about a 60/40 run pass mix the Gophers move down the field and score. USC comes back and at the half the score is tied 14 -14. In the second half the Gophers score twice more both scores coming on passes to Gray. The adjustments USC makes at half are worthless as Minnesota runs a half dozen of the key destroying plays they have been practicing. USC is confused and has no answer to Gray. Barkley is intercepted twice. Never-the-less USC manages to score and is driving for the tying touchdown with 7 minutes to play when, on third and one at the Gopher 2.0, the Gopher D jumps into a 4-4 stack. Barkley changes to a pass play but the receiver is confused, makes the wrong cut and Barkley is intercepted for the third time. The Gophers run out the clock. Final score 28 - 21.
This game is the turning point. The Gophers go on to tie Ohio State for the Big Ten championship and play on New Years Day in the Rose Bowl. Fat Pat retires, Souhan is “encouraged” to look else where and takes a job in Grand Forks and KFAN switches to a hard rock format. Amazingly Barreiro stays on as a DJ where he gains some notoriety for constantly criticizing hard rock in favor of elevator music.
Digging around in the closet for my game gear I came across my aunt's old crystal ball. My mother, who never liked my aunt, always referred to her as that witch, but I thought it was just a figure of speech until I started to dust the crystal ball and images started to form inside. Here is what I saw.
Fall Camp - The Gopher's work hard on perfecting their running game. They add 12 plays designed to destroy their opponents keys, trick plays if you will. They practice these plays everyday.
MTSU – This is no contest. The Gophers take the opening kickoff and march down the field 5 and 6 yards at a time. Bennett has a long run of 18 and Weber throws a strike over the middle to Lair. The smaller MTSU D line is no match for the size of the Gophers. MTSU goes three and out on their next three possessions and the Gophers score each time they get the ball. 28 – 0 at the half. The offense is as vanilla as a team can be.
The Gophers score early in the third quarter and begin to substitute liberally. MTSU scores in the third on a broken play and scores twice more in the 4th in garbage time against Minnesota's third team D. Final score 35 -21 but those who have watched closely know Minnesota could have named the score but the coaches wanted to give the 2s and 3s more game experience. Weber only throws 4 passes total.
Fat Pat, Souhan and Barreiro, none of whom have watched the game, all opine that the score means the Gophers will only have one more win at most . Monty Kiffin who watched the game turns off the TV with a troubled feeling. Lane Kiffin is out drinking with some assistant coaches and doesn't watch the game. They were planning where they will put the National Championship Trophy when they win it at the end of the year.
The Gophers continue to practice their 12 plays and most of them work pretty consistently now.
SDSU – More of above. The Gophers run, run, run. They show nothing. Both sides of the line show nothing and this game is even more vanilla than MTSU if that is possible. Gray plays the third and ½ of the 4 quarter at QB along with Kirkwood. Alapate gets a series in the 4th. Final score 28 – 0. Weber throws 4 more passes for a total of 8 in two games. Fat Pat, Souhan and Barreiro, none of whom have watched the game, all opine that the score means the Gophers had to struggle against a D-2 team and surly this means Brewster will be fired at the end of the season. Monty tries to warn Lane the Gophers could be a trap game but Lane is browsing brochures for trophy cases and doesn't hear him.
USC - Gophers take the opening kickoff and the first play from the 20 is a 35 yard strike from Weber to Gray. Gray is well covered but the ball is perfectly thrown and Gray easily blocks out the cornerback and gets the “rebound”. With about a 60/40 run pass mix the Gophers move down the field and score. USC comes back and at the half the score is tied 14 -14. In the second half the Gophers score twice more both scores coming on passes to Gray. The adjustments USC makes at half are worthless as Minnesota runs a half dozen of the key destroying plays they have been practicing. USC is confused and has no answer to Gray. Barkley is intercepted twice. Never-the-less USC manages to score and is driving for the tying touchdown with 7 minutes to play when, on third and one at the Gopher 2.0, the Gopher D jumps into a 4-4 stack. Barkley changes to a pass play but the receiver is confused, makes the wrong cut and Barkley is intercepted for the third time. The Gophers run out the clock. Final score 28 - 21.
This game is the turning point. The Gophers go on to tie Ohio State for the Big Ten championship and play on New Years Day in the Rose Bowl. Fat Pat retires, Souhan is “encouraged” to look else where and takes a job in Grand Forks and KFAN switches to a hard rock format. Amazingly Barreiro stays on as a DJ where he gains some notoriety for constantly criticizing hard rock in favor of elevator music.
