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University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Fall 34-23 to Huskies
9/26/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Senior quarterback Adam Weber became just the ninth Big Ten quarterback in history to surpass 9,000 career passing yards and sophomore wide receiver MarQueis Gray tallied the first 100-yard receiving game of his career as the Minnesota football team fell 34-23 to Northern Illinois on Saturday night.
Weber, who increased his school record to 59 career touchdown passes, crossed the 9,000 yard mark on the first play of the second half when he hit Gray with an 11-yard completion and ended the game with 9,243 career passing yards - completing 31-of-44 passes for 373 yards with two touchdowns and an interception in the loss. The Gophers captain also passed Michigan's John Navarre (2000-03) and Purdue's Mark Herrmann (1977-80) to move into ninth place all-time in the Big Ten with 774 career completions.
Gray, meanwhile, posted a game high and career best 117 receiving yards on eight receptions including a 29-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter that slipped him over the 100 yard mark for the first time in his career. The sophomore's previous best came last week against USC when Gray had 98 receiving yards.
For Northern Illinois, an explosive running attack led by senior Chad Spann picked up all but 87 of the Huskies 378 total yards. Spann, responsible for over half of Northern Illinois' offensive production, tallied 223 yards on 15 carries including two touchdowns.
"It's hard to know what to say. We came out, and I thought that the kids were emotionally ready to play. We had to kick field goals and that was disappointing, but I think the main issue was that we didn't stop the run. We didn't stop [Chad] Spann," Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster said. "When you look at the stats we had the ball for 36 minutes. They had it for 24. We had to stop the run, and it's so disappointing that we didn't play better defensively. We also had a lot more opportunities on offense to score a lot more points. We had a lot of opportunities but we didn't come back. It was just honestly disappointing."
