Spring Game Thoughts

It felt good to be watching football last night, didn't it? It felt good to stand out in the cold rainy evening and drink beer and eat bratwurst. It felt good to sing the rouser and see a mall sea of maroon and gold.

And Steve, if you're reading this, that cookie, with just a slight hint of pocket lint, was delicious.

For me, on the field, the highlight of the night came at toward the end of the second quarter. Clint Brewster was under center, took the snap, dropped back to pass, got flushed out of the pocket to his left. It looked like he had nothing so he began running and it looked like he was taking off down-field. Then, running full speed strait ahead, he cocked his arm and fired an absolute bullet to an open man about 10 yards dead in front of him. It was a very difficult and absolutely impressive throw and showed exactly why Clint was so highly rated coming out of high school. I don't recall ever seeing a Gopher quarterback make that type of throw.

Having said that, Clint is quite a bit smaller than I thought. He's got the body of Brian Cupito, with a little bit less height. I forgot to keep my program from last night, but I believe he was listed as 5'11", 180lbs? Whereas Weber is 6'2", 220lbs. Clint clearly has all of the talent to be able to play at the Big10 level, but you have to wonder how his body would hold up to the pounding.

Overall last night, I thought the game was fairly sloppy. It's always hard to tell in the spring game if a good play is a good play, or if it was poor defense. I thought the defense looked pretty decent, and seemed active around the ball. The offense, overall, seemed fairly sloppy and out of sync.

It was great to be watching football again. Based on the reports out of spring practices it sounds like things have gone well, but it doesn't sound like that was translated to the field last night. I'll leave you with a quote from the Star Tribune and Adam Weber who summed it up well:

"It was a sloppy way to end spring ball," said Weber, who completed 10 of 14 passes for 65 yards with one touchdown pass and a 1-yard TD run. "We had 14 good practices, and it would have been nice if we would have come out here and done a little better. We would have liked to put on a better show for our fans, but we had a good spring ball."