2004 Football Season Recap: Offensive Line

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Gopher Football For the third year in a row, the Minnesota offensive line showed that it’s one of the top units in the conference. Greg Eslinger and Mark Setterstrom both returned for their third year as starters. Those two, along with senior Rian Melander, were honored with a vast amount of post-season recognition. Each of […] READ MORE


2004 Football Season Recap: Special Teams

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Gopher Football 2004 has to be considered a disappointment for the Gopher special teams. Coming into this season, I felt all of the pieces were in place for the Gophers to be dominant in this area. Rhys Lloyd was coming off a good Junior season with two game winning field goals, Marion Barber and Laurence […] READ MORE


2004 Season Recap: Recievers & Tight Ends

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Gopher Football With all the hype surrounding the Gopher running backs in the offseason, the opportunity was there for the Minnesota passing game to catch a few people off guard. As it turns out, it didn’t take very long at all for this to happen. In the first game of the year, Minnesota had 10 […] READ MORE


2004 Football Season Recap: Defensive Backs

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Gopher Football In a growing list, Gopher senior Ukee Dozier became another member of the secondary to turn in a solid season and position himself to get drafted. Ukee led the Big Ten with 15 pass breakups and chipped in 3 interceptions to land All-Big Ten first team honors from the media. Unfortunately, Ukee was […] READ MORE


2004 Football Season Recap: Linebackers

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Gopher Football 2004 would see the Gopher linebackers be as experienced as they had been in about five years, with two fourth-year starters and one fifth-year starter. Unfortunately, they didn’t play like the veteran group they were. Mental errors and missed tackles plagued the linebackers for most of the season and led to a couple […] READ MORE


Music City Bowl Position Grades

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Gopher Football Every year before Big Ten ““ SEC bowl games, there is always the speculation about how the slow Big Ten team will do against the fast, athletic SEC team. Like they did in 2002 against Arkansas, Minnesota not only proved they belonged against Alabama, but they dominated both lines of scrimmage and physically […] READ MORE


Revamped Defense Shuts Down Alabama

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Gopher Football For the first time in school history, the Gophers have won three-straight bowl games. OK, they were all minor ones, but they were against some high profile teams: Arkansas, Oregon and Alabama. The much-maligned Gopher defense was the key during crunch time. The “D” shut down the Crimson Tide in the second half […] READ MORE


Matchup Preview: Crimson Tide Offense vs. Gopher Defense

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Gopher Football The new look Gopher defense hopes to change its fortune in the Music City Bowl against an Alabama offense that has been ravaged by injuries. Minnesota ‘D’ struggled for most of the year, finishing just 85th in the nation in total defense. Due to numerous injuries, Alabama’s offense has been even worse than […] READ MORE


Matchup Preview: Minnesota Offense vs. Alabama Defense

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Gopher Football The Minnesota Golden Gophers will appear in their 3rd straight bowl game when they face off against the Alabama Crimson Tide Friday morning in the Music City Bowl. Both teams finished 3-5 in their conference and 6-5 overall. Two years ago in this same bowl game, Minnesota dominated Arkansas en route to a […] READ MORE


An Early Look at Alabama

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Gopher Football The Minnesota Gophers will face off against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Music City Bowl on December 31st in Nashville, Tennessee. The first thing that jumped out at me when researching Alabama was the eerie similarities to the Gophers in the makeup and results of their schedule. Here is a quick glance […] READ MORE