SQJ Taipei

I’m getting obsessed with college football.

And I happened to hear from a friend from way back… he works in athletic compliance at the University of Minnesota and bemoaned the lack of maroon and gold on my website.

I really appreciate Jim getting in touch with me and so I’ve decided to bring a little maroon and gold to the blog this football season and make an effort to follow a team that I remember best as being on the losing end of an 84-13 defeat at the hands of my beloved Huskers.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to root for Minnesota over Iowa on NOV 10.

The Golden Gophers have a new coach this year, Tim Brewster. I don’t know what he was doing before he got this job. One thing that makes this job easier is that the Golden Gophers open up with Bowling Green, Miami (OH) and Florida Atlantic. So that makes them 3-0 before playing Purdue in the Big 11 opener. That game could go either way. They play North Dakota State later in the year which should be a W except that they almost lost to NDSU last year.

I guess I’ll say that they’ll go 6-6 with losses to Iowa, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio State, and either Purdue or Illinois. I’m not sure if that gets them into a bowl game or not.

Players to watch? I’m just learning about this team… I’ll go with:

DE Willie VanDeSteeg

RB Amir Pinnix

Coming off the biggest bowl game collapse of all time and with a new coach and a D that was horrible last season… this season could be ugly. Especially if they lose to BG or Miami (OH). 3-9 is not out of the question. But 7-5 is reachable too… good luck Coach Brewster.