.png&width=42&height=42&type=webp)
University of Minnesota Athletics
Bowl Blog: Moving Day
12/27/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Media types and fans of the PGA often refer to Saturdays at various tour stops as moving day’.
So with the Minnesota football team currently enjoying the sunshine in one of America’s most renown winter hot beds for golf it was only appropriate that the Golden Gopher football team experienced its own version of moving day’ Saturday as the squad continued it preparations for next week’s Insight Bowl matchup with Kansas.
After trudging through its opening workout on a soggy track at Corona Del Sol High School in southern Tempe and effectively rendering the field unplayable, Minnesota moved its practice headquarters a few miles north to Arizona State University for Saturday’s workout as the Gophers enjoyed the hospitality of the Sun Devils and their head coach Dennis Erickson at ASU’s immaculate facility.
“This is a tremendous complex and we got a lot of good work done today thanks to coach Erickson and Arizona State,” said Gophers’ head coach Tim Brewster following the two-hour practice. “We really appreciate Arizona State University allowing us to use their practice fields. We want to make sure our preparation is outstanding, that our preparation is complete and that we go out and play really hard on New Year’s Eve.”
In an effort to help make sure that the Gophers reach those goals, Minnesota’s equipment, training and film staffs all had to pull up stakes at Corona Del Sol for the move north.
According the equipment manager Ryan Grooms, his staff began packing up a the team’s practice gear Friday afternoon, then reconvened at 7 a.m. (MST) Saturday morning to move the balance of the equipment to ASU’s practice facility in order to have everything ready and in place when the team arrived just before 11 a.m. (MST) for its 11:15 a.m. practice.
Similarly, the Gophers training staff had plenty to move and set up. Like Grooms, assistant athletic trainer Chris Ashton viewed the move as a blessing in disguise.
“We were going to have to move up here at some point so it’s just a well that we got settled in now,” Ashton said. “Moving up to ASU today gives the guys a real chance to get settled into their surroundings and develop a routine since not much will change between now and game day.”
On the field, the Gophers battled through another physical two-hour practice in helmets, shoulder pads and shorts. And though the temperatures were only in the high 40s-low 50s, the sun shined brightly throughout the workout, making it feel like a crisp fall Minnesota afternoon.
After the practice, the Gophers took time out to host nearly 100 families from the Phoenix HopeKids organization at Coasters and Castles in Glendale for an afternoon of rides, games and old fashioned fun. A full report on the event along with video and a photo gallery will be posted on Gophersports.com later this evening.
Minnesota returns to the practice fields at Arizona State on Sunday at 11:15 a.m. as the countdown to the 2008 Insight Bowl rolls on. As always, we’ll have a complete report on the workout as well as all of the other happenings here in the Valley of the Sun late in the day.
- Garry Bowman, Director of Athletic Communications
