We're Baaaaaaaaaack!!

Hey y'all! What's up? How's it going? What's happening? Jer and I are back! Back, I tell you, back! Just like the Gophers football team we know and love (or at least are getting to know and love), we are back for the 2009 season. I know, I know, we're pretty excited about it too. It's August, it's hotter and stickier than the furthest reaches of hell (or at least it was last week. This week? Back to more milder temperatures. Again, I'm not from Minnesota and therefore am used to milder summers, but I still don't understand why people were and are all up in arms about our sort-of lack of summer: really? You enjoyed last week when it was 90+ with 90% humidity? It's fun for you to sweat as much as you breathe? You enjoy melting to your car seat or getting second degree burns from the seat belt or steering wheel? Thanks but I'll take all the 70's the summer wants to throw at us), and the Golden Gophers are hard at work, preparing for their opener against Syracuse September 5th.

We will be here every step of the way, and if that's not enough (and really, how could it be?), please make daily visits to the Daily Gopher, The Rivalry, Esq., Buck Bravo (although I think he's writing at The Daily Gopher now), and all of the other fine blogs on our blog roll to your right, as well as Adam Rittenburg's Big Ten blog on ESPN.com, and Gopher beatwriters Kent Youngblood of the Strib and Marcus Freeman of the Pioneer Press.

Gopher news of the day is that two-a-days start today, so check with Youngblood and Freeman for updates. Youngblood has a few thoughts today on the defensive backs, and like the rest of us, there isn't much to gleen other than we're hoping like hell Scony transfer Kim Royston can fill the shoes at safety of dismissed Tremaine Brock. Both Royston and returning starter Kyle Theret are good at stuffing the run, but yet aren't that big and are at the moment questionable in coverage. We hope these guys will be good, but honestly, would either be starting for the teams in the top half of the conference this year? Doubtful, but we'll see how much they've improved. He doesn't mention anything about cornerback, but after Big Play Tray Simmons, I think the other starting corner and nickel corner are just as big a question marks. Sure we don't play in the pass-happy Big 12 or Pac 10, but teams are still going to test the other guys early and often until they prove they can make plays. Of course a lot of this will depend on whether we can get a pass rush going to put some pressure on the opposing QB.

We'll dive into more Gopher and Big Ten related stuff in the days ahead. Jer and I are just excited that football season is close, the Gophs are intriguing, and the Dome is Dead!