Tomorrow our Trojans face off against Minnesota in Minneapolis, and in the meanwhile, the fine folks from SB Nation's Minnesota Golden Gophers blog, The Daily Gopher, present us with five things we need to know about the state of the UM program.
Editor's Note: Here's our take over on the other side of the fence.
1. We have great history and tradition
Like really great. We've won 6 national titles! SIX! 18 conference championships AND-are you ready for this- we had a guy win the Heisman trophy once. Stick THAT in your hot dish! What has USC done compared to that? Oh wait...I just checked the Google...and yeah apparently the Trojans kick our ass in all of that. 11 national titles. 37 conference titles. 7 Heisman winners. Ok well now you're down to 6 Heisman winners, but still, that is kind of impressive. Well crap. I don't know what we do better than you in football. The only thing I can come up with is we play for way cooler rivalry trophies than you do, and we've been playing for them for longer: Paul Bunyan's Axe, The Floyd of Rosedale, and the Little Brown Jug. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
2. Our new stadium is as gorgeous as your Song Girls
OK that's not true. Nothing's more gorgeous than the Song Girls. They're hot. They make Angelina Jolie look like Lisa Lampanelli. But our new stadium IS pretty awesome. It's a cozy 50,000 seater where every seat feels close to the field (IF we ever get a team that people here wanted to come out and see- you know, like one who could beat South Dakota- it can be expanded to 80,000). It also has a great view of downtown Minneapolis, and it puts the Gophers back on campus for the first time since 1982. The only drawback from playing here and NOT in the gawd-awful Metrodome? No beer. And with the Tim Brewster Era Gophers we need all the beer we can get to help us through it.
3. We don't have one player who would start for USC
No really, not one. I say that more so that you'll hopefully feel bad if you don't blow us out because you really, really should. So if you don't, it's almost like losing. The only guy we have who might crack your two deep is sophomore MarQueis Gray. He's our backup QB, and could be good enough to start- it's just that our coaching staff refuses to bench incumbent starter Adam Weber so he's never had a chance. Think of Adam Weber like...Mike Van Raaphorst. But not as good. But with a better name (seriously what the hell kind of name is Van Raaphorst anyway?). So yeah, as I was saying, Weber plays no matter what because Coach Brew says he must, so we have to find other ways to use MarQueis. The same guy who was the #2 rated dual-threat QB coming out of high school in Indianapolis behind some guy named Terrelle Pryor. Brewster decided the dual threat ability would be as a wide receiver. He's 6'4 and 230 pounds with good hands, good speed, and a ton of athleticism, and he did have 9 catches for 91 yards and a TD last week. OF course that was against 1-AA South Dakota? Is your defense better than USD's? It is? Ok well then he may not be that tough for you, but seriously, he tore up a 1-AA defense.
4. We could have had your coach but we didn't want him
Didn't need him. That's right, before he was the your head coach at USC- and the coach for a year at Tennessee and the coach for that old bat Al Davis in Oakland- Lane Kiffin and his extremely hot wife wanted to be our next head coach. Yep back in 2007 young Lane really wanted to coach at Minnesota- even said it was his dream job. We smartly passed though because despite his coaching pedigree and the fact he ran one of the best offenses in the country for one of the most dominant programs of the past 20 years, he was just too young. So our athletic director said "Don't call us Lane, we'll call you" (and did the same to Charlie Strong, the D-coordinator for two national title teams at Florida and is now the head coach at Louisville) and instead hired a career position coach who despite connections at Texas with Mack Brown had never been a coordinator, let alone a head coach. Perfect! So we hired Tim Brewster, and all he's done in his four seasons since is an immaculate overall record of 15-25 (including 6-18 in the Big Ten), 0-9 in trophy games, has yet to win a game in November, beat a ranked opponent, AND we're 1-2 against 1-AA schools from the Dakotas. At home. But hey, he's been a great recruiter! (one top 25 class, and his other three have been rated 6th or worse in the conference).
5. Be thankful for what you have
Just remember that no matter what's happening with your program right now- the shaky start, the Reggie Bush debacle, the sanctions and bowl bans, that other Heisman trophy winning running back who killed people but got away with it- things could be worse: you could be Gophers fans. So please, if you're going to beat us, make sure it's a blowout. Because as much as a blowout would hurt, a close loss that shows promise would be worse because it might mean Tim Brewster sticks around a little longer. And we're not sure we can live with that. Please- you have the tradition, the better team, the better coach and you have the Song Girls- so don't go easy on us. We've got plenty of beer and a long list of coaching candidates to help us get over the impending loss. But if we win also remember- we don't have one player who could start for you.