ESPN's Bottom 10 and a quick preview of BG...

*Good news Gopher Fans! The Gophers have left the ranks of ESPN's Bottom 10.

A fixture on the list last year, as well part of the preseason Bottom 10, the Gophers got themselves off the schnide with a win over NIU, and brought themselves off of the list. Not only did the Gophers not make the Bottom 10, they didn't even show up in the Waiting List. NIU, coincidentally, DID make the Waiting List.


*Looks like the Gophers are slight underdogs this weekend to Bowling Green, clearly no surprise. I've seen a couple of different point spreads, anywhere from 4 to 5.5.

Bowling Green upset then No. 25 Pittsburgh last weekend, but make no mistake about this game... Pitt gave it away. Pitt had 4 turnovers, and Bowling Green was incredibly efficient in taking advantage of those turnovers. Bowling Green's offensive numbers were not impressive: 254 total yards and just 64 of those on the ground.

Let's not forget, however, that Bowling Green QB Tyler Sheehan absolutely torched the Gopher secondary in the opener last season for 388 yards through the air. And Bowling Green still had over 100 yards on the ground last year. Based on how our secondary fared last week against NIU, I would fully expect the Falcons to come out throwing again. Bowling Green will probably carry the strategy that they used on offense against Pitts into the game with Minnesota by showin multiple formations with 2 or 3 QB's under center in different situations.

Defensively it appears, based on last week's win over Pitt, that BG will try to get turnovers, and will be tough against the run. It looks as though they may be suseptible to the pass and they did give up just shy of 400 yards, including 263 through the air. It's tough to say how realistic all of this is because Pitt played a poor game, but they are expected to have a decent squad this year.

As with last year's game this looks to likely be a high scoring afair where the defenses will struggle to make stops.

I will avoid making a prediction on the score here, but I did predict before the season that the Gophers would have a tough time winning this game. I don't neccesarily see that changing, but if the Gophs can cut down on some of the mistakes from last week, especially in the defensive backfield, we should be able to run with BG.

If the Gophers are able to do that I think that we'll learn a lot about their potential this season.

With that said...

GO GOPHERS!!!