Week 3: Holy F'ing Balls!

In a game that should have been more of a blowout than the unreal squeaker that it was we found out why the fuss about Favre. Few thoughts:

1. The Vikes are on the other side of those games all the time. Losing to the Cardinals in 2004 on some last second play, that Monday night game at Lambeau when the ball goes off Antonio Freeman's shoulder and Cris Dishman stops playing despite no whistle - just to name a couple. Finally the ball bounces our way. Magic of Favre vs. even a blind squirrel finds a nut? I don't care. We won and it was exciting!

2. Favre was getting killed yesterday, our offensive line needs to step up particularly McKinnie who is, in my opinion, overrated. I don't hink he is gonna last 16.

3. Our defense is good.

4. Percy Harvin for rookie of the year. Wow.

5. Berrian needs to get his shiz together. He dropped at least 3 I can remember. Shortarming balls, letting them go through his hands. I don't like him returning punts either, I know Darius Reynaud (or "DRey" as Chilly calls him) was nicked up but. . .

Vikes/Pack Monday night? Highest ratings ever for a Monday night game? It will be fun.

Thoughts from The Cell

So, I had the chance to attend a Twins game at a second non-MN venue last night. Since they're threatening to not be dead yet, let's discuss briefly before they go and inexplicably drop 2 of 3 to Kansas City. Pre- end of season wrap-up, I guess.

- Wow, the White Sox have imploded. Fun to watch the last six weeks. I think Hawk Harrelson's drinking in the booth now. That team is totally mailing it in and has no identity, which will lead to some significant soulsearching and probably changes in the offseason. Fine by me. Let them rebuild and get out of the way for a year or two.

- Duensing? Maybe, I don't know. He could be the next Ted Lilly, I guess. I wasn't overly impressed with the raw stuff. What on earth will the rotation be next year?

- I'm glad, in retrospect, that I didn't jump feet first into jan's Cuddy-Hate-A-Thon early in the season. He's hitting everything right now and has stepped up in Morneau's absence.

- I'm not sure I want to make the playoffs, despite the nice late run. Plenty of reasons: 1. Yankees. Don't need to explain to you all, of course. 2. Baker, Pavano & Blackburn may be a nice law firm, but it's not a playoff starting rotation. 3. No Morneau. 4. Just another excuse for the front office to not spend the new stadium revenue in the offseason other than to extend Mauer.

Counters: 1. It'd be nice to send the Dome off on a playoff note. 2. It'd be nice for Span, Gomez, etc. to get some postseason experience as I'm hoping they're going to need it. 3. Not making the playoffs the last two years hasn't exactly spurred management to spend (I mean real money here, not admirably thrifty but hardly bold Joe Crede deals).

Guys with Strange Names from California Beat Our Humble Midwestern Gophers

Sorry to post this right on top of Jan's Vikes recap, this certainly deserves lower billing than that.

Anyway, I DVR'ed Saturday's tilt with Cal. Figured BG would post some Sleeping with The Enemy anecdotes re: watching same, but alas.

- Cosgrove can make some lockeroom adjustments, no? Three games in a row now his defense has been picked on in the first half only to basically dominate the second. If he could just gameplan the first half the way he makes adjustments for the second, they'd be in business.

- Jahvid Best - did he get tackled more than five yards past the line of scrimmage once?

- Decker - unbelievable catch for the first TD. May be my favorite Gopher footballer since Chip Lohmiller (wait, did I say that out loud? Darrell Thompson!! I meant Darrell Thompson, I swear!). Probably won't be able to pass Ricky Foggie, but that's a high, high standard, considering Foggie singlehandedly beat #2 Michigan in Ann Arbor when we were 11 years old.

- Gratified that they hung in there and actually had a chance in a big game like that. Justifies Brewster taking the chance on playing big name programs. If they'd lost 49-3 with USC coming next year, I'd be worried, but he just showed any recruiting target out there that Minnesota's on the rise, we can play with anyone, and maybe you noticed our new stadium? This does not look like a team capable of losing 55-0 to Iowa anymore. They have the ability to compete with anyone.

- That said, that 3rd and 15 on Cal's drive to make it 28-21, you've got to make the stop. In my mind, that was the game. By the time Weber threw the pick, we weren't going to win, anyway, 'cause Cal had recovered their confidence by withstanding the storm in the 3rd quarter and scoring to go ahead again. We make that stop, though? Anything's possible.

- Need to win two of the next three (NW, Purdue, Wisco) before the brutal part of the schedule kicks in, and with the confidence they probably gained from competing against a Top 10 team, it's very doable.

- BG, your Who Needs It Most? Fan Allegiance Formula (TM) will be put to a severe test this week. Your other purple team just lost to the Greg Pauluses and if they drop one to the Gophs, it's probably a lost season.

Week 2: Avoiding the upset

Thoughts from yesterday:

1. When we were down 10-0 to start the game (watching an offense that was sputtering and a defense that was getting run on) I had no feelings of panic, anxiety, or frustration. 2nd week of feeling like we would come back and win this one handily which we did.

2. Favre - workman-like performance (23 of 25 or something like that.) Just effiecient.

3. AP - Can't say anything more about this guy. He hit guys yesterday and hit them hard. He wants to win and you can tell every run.

4. Defense - they go run on. Not sure what is going to with the Williams (particularly Pat) Wall.

5. Offense - it will come. We already miss Birk.

Good to be 2-0. If this was your father's Vikings football team (or your's for that matter) we would be 1-1.

Gamblor Week 3

Eventually, I will move this back to one of the side columns. Let's face it we aren't exactly churning out the posts, so I will amuse myself and hopefully at least one of you with a full post instead of just picks.

Mythical Bankroll $720

$25 GT +4 1/2 @ Miami. I am not a huge fan of this one but if I was really betting I would not lay off the Thursday game.

$50 Cal -14 @ Gophers. I know LH disagrees.

$50 UCLA -12 1/2 vs Kansas St. KSU lost to UL-LAF last week and beat UMass by 4 in week 1. UCLA won @ Tenn last week. I am guessing this line is telling me that Tenn sucks.

$50 Bowling Green -3 @ Marshall. Bowling Green choked away a big win last week and upset Troy in week one. All this stuff is priced into the line already, but I feel the need to write some justification.

$25 Middle Tennessee State +6 vs Maryland. MTSU won this one last year and Maryland has looked really bad this year.

$25 SMU (edit ty Jan) -6 @WSU I am on this one because WSU has had trouble finding a line they can cover the last 2 years.

$25 Teaser (move 'em 6, dbl juice) Moving PSU down to -23 1/2 (PSU 0-2 for me so far) and teasing up UL-LAF to +33 vs LSU.

Other Games:

N'western - 3 vs Syracuse. Is Syracuse trying to move into the Big Ten? This is their 3rd game against a Big Ten opponent.

Florida State +7 @ BYU. Everything screams BYU, but I think That Bobby Bowden's team will rise to the occasion. Everyone in a BCS conference has to be pulling for FSU in this one.

Tenn +29 1/2 vs Flor. I bet Florida takes it as high as they can, but 29 1/2 is a lot. Florida 38-10.

Parlay just for giggles: Iowa - 5.5 vs Arizona, ISU -3 @ Kent St and Georgia + 1 1/2 @ Arkansas

Iowa is not as bad as they looked in week 1 (I hope), ISU is not as bad as Iowa made them look and according to the extremely biased Georgia fans this one is already a W.

Brewster boycotts KFAN

Heard on the radio this morning that Tim Brewster has prevented any of his players or coaches from going on KFAN to talk to any of the radio personalities. I don't have a link to a news story or anything but they spent about half an hour on it. Apparently Dan Barreiro was specifically cited for his 'negativity.' How f'ing stupid is this? This is a D-1 football coach saying that nobody can talk to the biggest (and, really, only) sports-talk radio station around these parts. Grow up, Tim. Would Pete Carroll do this? "Hey, nobody talk to that KFAN, they've been critcal of our program and don't cover us enough on their station." Great way to expose your players and coaches to what it's like to be an adult and a professional. I'm sure Maturi really wants negative publicity around the football program right now too.

Morneau done for the year...

...does that mean we should quit watching? Is anyone on this blog still watching? 5.5 back with 7 head to head games yet to be played...Cuddy at 1st, platoon at 3rd (Crede also out for the year), Harris DHing... what's not to love?

I still believe

The Purple

Your Minnesota Vikings are off to a solid start after trouncing the Browns yesterday. Few notes:

1. This had the feeling of a game that, in years past, would have been a lot closer in the second half. I guess the Browns are that bad but with TJac at the helm, I'm not sure we would have walked away with this one.

2. AP. I want to be his BFF.

3. Defense - Where was that pass rush? Why didn't we just crush the run? I think our defense is going to be great but would have liked to see a few more big plays out of them.

4. Special teams - how f'ing hard is it to not give up a return every goddam game? Up until that play, speical teams had my game ball.

5. Harvin - he is the steal of the draft in my opinion. Playmaker. Gonna make rookie mistakes but he's a weapon and a half.

6. Favre - No mistakes and didn't have to chuck it to win it. He took a couple sacks that were good to take instead of trying to do too much as in years past.

Gamblor week 2

I got my arse handed to me last week. I will not go into detail as I recaped the bad weekend in the comments section of the previous picks. One might ask how do you make your picks Gamblor? The answer is pure gut coupled with no research.

Week 2 picks (Mythical Bankroll $775):

$50 N'Western -20 vs E Mich. Is Eastern Michigan much better than Towson St? Probably not.

$25 W Mich +1 1/2 vs Indiana. I watched a little bit of the Indiana / Eastern Kentucky game, Indiana was not impressive. However I am not entrusting more than $25 of my mythical money with West Mich.

$50 Teaser (move it 6, double juice) Florida -30 vs Troy and PSU -22 1/2 vs Syracuse . I got burned last week on the big spreads, so this week I will tease them down and see if I have any luck.

$50 Duke +1 vs Army There was bowl talk before the year started for Duke. Betting they don't lose two they should win.

$25 NC -4 vs UConn. Lower money wagers and more games this week.

Other notes:

It is a much tougher week for the Big Ten. Notable games: OSU vs USC, Wisco vs Fresno, AF vs Minn, Iowa vs Iowa St (I would not touch this one with a ten foot pole ISU plays Iowa tough every year), Purdue vs Oregon and Michigan vs ND.

MCA said he likes Mich +3 1/2.

USC -6 1/2 I like USC but it seems like a suckers bet.

Nebraska -21 1/2 vs Arkansas St. You know I like the big spreads. Keeping an eye on this one as Iowa plays Ark St later in the year.

Oregon -12 vs Purdue Long travel and a late night game for Purdue. Oregon minus Blount, the punch throwing RB.

The Big Ten: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It is getting very hard to make an argument in favor of the Big Ten being on par with the other conferences. I have heard arguments that the Big Ten's pitiful bowl record is because the have consistently placed two teams in the BCS games which moves every one in the conference into a tougher bowl game than they earned. I liked that one. Instead of Michigan State vs Georgia last year it would have been Ohio State. The argument makes sense to me. Then there is the constant drubbing of OSU in big games. Repeatedly I hear "Well at least they made it there" and "OSU is just one team in the Big Ten." I myself have said it is cyclical, every conference has some down years. People used to refer to the Big Twelve as the Big Two until Texas brought in Mack Brown and Oklahoma hired Stoops. The Pac 10 was way down before USC came back into prominence. The ACC was supposed to be a super conference after raiding the Big East of the top teams. Enough already! Until the Big Ten wins some meaningful out of conference games the critism is justified.

The Good: The Big Ten went 10-1 the opening weekend. They were favored in all 11 games.

The Bad: The "best" win in those 10 wins was either Syracuse (bottom half of the Big East), Western Micigan (top half of the MAC) or Navy by 4 by supposedly one of the top two teams in the Big Ten.

The Ugly: They scheduled 4 FCS schools and 4 MAC teams. In the one marquee game Illinois, favored by 7, got smoked by Missouri 37-9. The 28 point difference is more than Iowa's (+1), OSU's (+4), Minn's (+3) Wisco's (+8) and Indiana's (+6) margin of victories combined.

The Really Ugly or my Iowa rant: For those of you who did not see the final two plays of the game, which I am guessing is most of you, Iowa blocked a 40 yard FG attempt with 7 seconds left. Instead of jumping on the ball, the players just stood around it. A UNI player recovered the ball. UNI got another chance to try a 41 yard FG with 1 second left. Iowa then blocked that FG to escape with the W.

For the life of me the only reasons I can think of that Iowa would not jump on that blocked FG is that they were afraid of a Leon Lett like situation not realizing that it was still a live ball or they thought that since it was first down the ball would go back to UNI even if they recovered it (which I do not to the best of my knowledge believe is not the case) so they were trying to let time expire. Even Ferentz was not sure of the rules. He stated "I also learned that the clocked stopped like it was an incomplete pass," he added. "I've never seen it before. But I've learned a little bit. Really, really unusual." Sounds like the coaches and special teams players should all do a little extra running this week and brush up on the rule book.

Re: This "Jeter for MVP" Nonsense

Allan Barra (insufferable contrarian) had an article up in the WSJ yesterday - Strib rebuttal linked at right. Please read, then feel free to leave comments at wsjonline as to how asinine it is. I've actually tried to, but my server apparently won't let me post in their format.

Both of Barra's specious arguments in favor of the vastly statistically inferior Jeter suffer from the fact that Jeter's primary competition is Joe Mauer. For one thing, if there's one guy in the entire Majors who can give Derek Jeter a run for his money in salt-of-the-earthy, All-American boy, I want my daughter to marry that guy-ness, it's Joe Mauer. His professionalism, ownership of his team, consistency and all around obviously solid character take a backseat to no one. Anyone who doesn't recognize this is obviously not getting outside the bubble of the A.L. East enough. The only difference is that Jeter's been America's shortstop for longer than Mauer's been America's catcher, and has had the blessing of being in the biggest baseball market in the world on a team filled with stars his entire career. As for the "Lifetime Achievement" concept Barra puts forth, his Martin Scorcese and "The Departed" analogy would work a lot better if Jeter's MVP competitor were the standard RF/DH/1B putting up big RBI and HR and other traditional counting stats. If you restricted all this to "Who's the MVP of the 2009 Yankees?" then he'd have a case. But those aren't the circumstances. Jeter's facing a Gold Glove catcher (the only position on the field that's more of a defensive premium than his) having arguably the best hitting season by a catcher ever. Had "The Godfather" been released the same year as "The Departed" Scorcese would still be waiting for his statuette.

I have not seen an argument yet, from any of the Jeter/Texeira pushers, that would lead me to think that their "value" is somehow even approaching Mauer's. It's obvious to anyone to who has actually watched the Twins on days other than when they visit the Bronx that, day to day, Mauer is the quintessence of whatever value might be. Every case made for Jeter/Texeira (can we stop calling him "Tex" please? The "x" is pronounced "sh" and he's from Maryland and Georgia Tech) inevitably reduces to "but the Yankees are great!"

Someone make a case for Cabrera. He should finish second in this thing.

The Great Minnesota Get Together

They say that the Minnesota State Fair is the grandest of them all and, after our trip there today, I say they are right! Renowned as the biggest state fair in the country with some estimations running 1.7 trillion people (or maybe "million") passing through the turnstiles last year alone. Whatever the number, it just continues to be great (despite the fact that Kelly Clarkson is apparently too good for us.)

Little known fact, 108 years ago to the day, then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt first uttered his famous phrase "speak softly and carry a big stick" (look it up) at on our very own Fairgrounds; several days later William McKinley was shot and "Teddy" became our 26th president. Today, we remembered this historical event by carrying a Thick Cut Bacon on-a-stick.

Our gastronomic tour included the following stops (in order):

1. Pronto Pup (not to be confused with a Corn Dog)
2. Bacon on-a-stick
3. Tom Thumb Mini Doughnuts (f'ing delicious)
4. Cheese Curds (as good as you remember)
5. Hotdish on a stick
6. Scottish egg on a stick
7. Cone of Sweet Martha's cookies with a glass of cold milk.

Yes, #5 and #6 proved to be the two worst back-to-back decisions since the Twins let Hunter then Santana leave town. Literally put a bad taste in our mouths but when you're at the Fair. . .

In between meals we went to the Midway and played various games, rigged to no end but fun nonetheless.

As for the people watching - not sure the last time you've been around that many Minnesotans in all of their Minnesota-glory but it ain't pretty. It's like a jort convention broke out at an Oak Ridge Boys concert. The increased number of people who are TFTW (Too Fat To Walk) and are now riding taxpayer-funded motorized scooters is noticeable.

Overall, it was great to get together with Minnesota!

Can you guess who is back? Gamblor!

I am giddy with anticipation for the games this weekend as evidenced by my recent re-subscription to the Big Ten Network. As you all know college football is my number one sport. Before I lay out my week one picks, I am going to stand on my soapbox and preach for a minute. Like I said it is my favorite sport, but gosh darn it I can not watch the preseason hype. The speculation of Florida running the table, the speculation that Tim Tebow will win the Heisman, the speculation that Notre Dame is going to make the BCS and that the same perennial 25 powers are ranked in the top 25 is all more than I can take. All the speculation is crap. What expert picked Mississippi over Florida last year? Or Oregon State over USC? No one, and that is what makes these upsets so much fun. Let's let the f'n season play out. Everything is so focused on where teams will be at the end of the year and not who is on the schedule next. In my mind it should be about the journey not the destination.

This is the rubber year for picks. I was up last year and down the first year. But 1 week at a time...
Week 1 picks, mythical bankroll $1000

$100 PSU -27 vs Akron I knew I was betting on PSU before I knew who they were playing or how many points they were giving. They play cupcakes every year and tend to run it up.

$50 Georgia +5 1/2 @ Ok St Ok St has blown against top level opponents. I'll take the points.

$50 Teaser LSU -11 1/2 and Gophers -1/2 (move the spreads 6 and pay double juice if I lose) LSU is a 17 1/2 point favorite @ Wash. Wash won 1 game last year against Idaho. LSU must be down or the travel factor is pulling the line down. Something seems fishy so I will tease them down. I like the Gophers @Syracuse but not by the 6 1/2. I'll tease it down and all they have to do is win.

Other games and comments:

• Illinois -7 vs Missouri Missouri must have lost a lot from last year.
• Tennessee -30 vs Western Kentucky I bet Kiffen is dick and therefore Tenn covers this one
• Notre Dame -14 vs Nevada My heart wants me to bet on Nevada
• WF -2 vs Baylor If I was going to have 4 bets WF would be my 4th.
• Ohio St - 21 1/2 vs Navy I am a sucker for the big favorites, I probably should be on OSU
• Wash St +17 vs Stanford Sure WSU won only1 game last year ( vs 1 win Wash), but should Stanford be favored by 17 over anyone?
• Boise St -4 vs Oregon Fantastic game! Who scheduled this one for 10:00 EST on a Thursday? I don't want to hear any west coast fans bitching that no one sees their games. This could easily be played on Saturday evening or afternoon.