Welcome to Gopher Football Season

NFL training camps opened over the past 10-14 days, but for most of you out there, the football season didn't start until today. This morning, on his Twitter page, Coach Brewster posted this:

"Players did a great job on the Run Test! Everybody is hungry to practice for real this afternoon! It's a Great Day to be a Golden Gopher."

While it's a safe bet that Coach Brewster would proclaim any day to be a great day to be a Golden Gopher, you'd have to guess today is a big day for him. After a first season of severe (I checked the Thesaurus for words with a bit more punch than severe... I particularly liked caustic, oppressive, dour and punishing to describe Tim Brewster's first season at the helm) disappointment, and a second season of over-achieving (if you can call beating all of the teams you were supposed to beat, at least in hindsight), this third season will be very important for Brew.

The expectations and curiosities are enough even without mention that TCF Bank Stadium will be christened on September 12th against Air Force.

Jeff and I have been fond of saying that the Gophers could be a better football team this season that ends up with a worse record. And I still can see something like that happening. It's safe to say that the team should be improved, if for no other reason than that they are a year older and a year stronger.

But this incarnation of the Gophs sees a non-conference schedule like we have never seen before. We've had the odd California or Nebraska or Colorado sighting in the non-conference schedule over the past 3 decades, but can you remember a time when we faced 2 foes from BCS conferences? And all of this is on top of a Big10 schedule that pits us against the top 5 teams from last years standings and the conferences two best teams from a season ago in back-to-back weeks... on the road!

As far as individuals positions, Adam Weber is our starting quarterback, and outside of that all bets are off. I think this is a good move, both for Weber and the rest of the team. Weber needs some confidence after a bit of a down year last year, and the rest of the team just plain needs to be better, and competition will help.

As for us here at the blog, we'll do our best to be objective (please stop laughing), and we'll get crackin' on the podcasts within the coming weeks (which I'm sure at least 2 of you are excited about). Jeff has really carried the blog over the past several months while I've been slacking, and despite that fact that he's been planning a wedding (Congrats to Mr & Mrs Jeff who were married this past sultry Saturday), but I plan on getting back into the swing of things.

It's here folks, the most wonderful time of the year!

SKI-U-MAH!!!