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University of Minnesota Athletics
Gopher Game Day Blog - at Purdue
10/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
It's game day for Minnesota Golden Gopher Football. Follow along with us here on GopherSports.com as Minnesota plays an important Big Ten road game at Illinois. Garry Bowman and I (Andy Seeley) will give you some insight into the game, a bit of a running commentary and hopefully a look inside some of the things you might not get watching the game on television or listening on the radio. As always, feel free to send a note with a question or comment on the blog, send them to aseeley@umn.edu.
2:10 p.m. (EDT)
A tough spot on Decker's third down catch leaves the Gophers short of a first down at the Purdue 29. Minnesota goes for it but Weber cannot get the final few inches. A lot of folks in the press box thought that Decker got the first and that the booth should have buzzed down to review the play. Not a good break for the Maroon and Gold.
2:08 p.m. (EDT)
Weber is doing a nice job of keeping the chains moving despite the constant stream of penalties. The Gophers have now been flagged eight times for 60 yards. A touchdown here would be very big emotionally for both teams.
2:00 p.m. (EDT)
Another forced turnover by the Gopher defense keeps Purdue off the board. Tramaine Brock makes a huge hit on Kory Sheets and Nate Triplett pounces on the loose ball. The Gophers are now +3 on the day and have forced 23 turnovers this season.
1:40 p.m. (EDT)
Here's a note to pass along at halftime. The Gophers are +2 in turnover margin today, hopefully adding to their nation-leading turnover margin numbers by the end of the day. Those two Boilermaker turnovers have only resulted in three Minnesota points, unfortunately. The Gophers have scored 92 points off turnovers this season, compared to just 41 points off takeaways during all of 2007.
If you're not listening along on the radio, I was on the field to help with Coach Brewster's halftime interview. It was brief, but he did talk about the need to finish, offensively. Twice today, Minnesota has had to settle for field-goal attempts, with the first going wide left. On the second, the Gophers had first-and-goal inside the 10-yard line, but two penalties pushed them back enough that Monroe had to attempt a 41-yarder, which gave the Gophers their four-point halftime edge.
1:25 p.m. (EDT)
The Gophers will take a 10-6 lead into the locker room at halftime thanks to a 41-yard field goal by Joel Monroe. A couple of halftime notes for you...
- Brandon Green made his first career start in place of Ralph Spry and responded with a 71-yard reception on the Gophers' opening possession. It was the longest pass play of the season for the Gophers and equalled a career-long completion for quarterback Adam Weber.
- Purdue is doing a nice job of bracketing coverage around Eric Decker and have limited the All-America candidate to three receptions for 17 yards.
- Ben Kuznia has chipped in with three receptions for 33 yards. All three went for first downs giving him three of the Gophers' eight first downs in the first half.
- Adam Weber has hit on 9 of 17 passes for 177 yards, but has suffered a number of drops (at least four) by his receivers.
- Marcus Sherels returned to the Gophers' lineup after missing the Illinois game and has responded in a big way. He recorded his second interception of the season during the second quarter and hit intermission with four total tackles.
Again, our apologies for the internet access issues that have caused the blog to be a little less than what we normally do on a game day.
12:58 p.m. (EDT)
We've been having intermittent internet issues here at Ross-Ade Stadium, so the blog may be hit-and-miss today.
Purdue answered the Gopher touchdown with a long kickoff return and a field goal. The Boilermakers later added another three-pointer. With 11:51remaining in the first half, Minnesota 7 - Purdue 6.
12:06 p.m. (EDT)
Brandon Green just came up with a huge play in his first career start. On third-and-six from the Minnesota 24-yard line, QB Adam Weber was scrambling and found Green behind the coverage. Seventy-one yards later, Green had a first-and-goal for the Gophers at the 5-yard line. Two plays later, Weber ran for a TD, his third rushing TD of the season. 13:11 remaining in the first quarter, Minnesota 7 - Purdue 0.
By the way, the Gophers are 5-0 this season when scoring first.
12:01 p.m. (EDT)
The captains have reached midfield. Minnesota has won the toss and will receive the ball to start the game. The Gophers will be defending the north goal and heading into the breeze for the first quarter.
11:50 a.m. (EDT)
We're back after a while of the wireless internet access going down. Spent the time while we were unable to surf the web watching the Big Ten Network's feature story on the motivational technique and speech mannerisms of Gopher head coach Tim Brewster. It was a very entertaining and well-done piece. There was talk of "gettin' your chilli hot" as well as Brewster telling some of the Gophers before a game that if they "want to get some, you got to bring some." If you didn't get to see it, we're going to do some checking into how we might be able to get it up here on GopherSports.com.
The national anthem has been played and we're now under 10 minutes remaining until kickoff.
11:08 a.m. (EDT)
There are a number of great food combinations out there - peanut butter and jelly, burgers and fries, chicken and biscuits ... OK, you get the point. A combination I would not put up there with the great food combinations of all time would be doughnuts and dogs. Or doughnuts and BBQ. Dogs and BBQ isn't a bad combo, except for the fact that my stomach is on Central time. So, when I ate a while back, it was 9:15 or so, according to my stomach.
So, the finger-lick rating for the Purdue pre-game spread is going to suffer a little bit, based on the fact that those are not great combos for a time when my tummy was expecting breakfast. And, for the record, for you doughnut fans out there who are thinking "Doughnuts are breakfast food," I'll agree with you that they can (and should be) eaten at breakfast. But they should be eaten as a complimentary dish during breakfast, at best.
The pulled pork was decent. The hot dogs were just that - hot dogs. I couldn't mix the doughnuts with either, though. The Boilermakers do get a slight bump from having a Dove ice cream cooler with a nice selection of frozen novelties. So, the Finger-lick score for the Purdue press box spread is (drum-roll, please) ... a 6. The food was OK, but it just wasn't what my stomach was expecting.
10:58 a.m. (EDT)
The Gophers have arrived at the stadium (about an hour ago, actually). It's an overcast, gray, cool day here at Ross-Ade Stadium. Minnesota will be wearing its white-white uniform combo. One note to pass along, starting wide receiver Ralph Spry did not make the trip and will be replaced in the starting lineup by freshman Brandon Green.
