#-1: Vikings (Last Week: 0). I was on the field the whole Game Sunday. The first half was eerily reminiscent of last year's out-of-nowhere upset loss to Buffalo, which, in retrospect, spun the team's season down to a sputtering 8-7-1 record. The first two Vikings drives they were stopped on 3rd and short, thus proving that, while Denver came into the day 3-6, they do have a stout defense. (It is what new Head Coach Vic Fangio was hired to do.) They punted at the end of both drives when I thought they should have gone for it. In the meantime, the Broncos' Offense, led by ... Rookie Brandon Allen (?), kept making throw after throw, and largely through his leadership, Denver was up, on the road, 20-0, and the Vikings were (rightly) booed off of the field.
And yet, somehow, unlike versus the Bills, these Vikes mounted a comeback. I don't know how it happened; I dismissed the first Touchdown as not indicative of something big. And I couldn't tell what adjustment was made except for upping the tempo on offense. But they did, and that somehow caught the Broncos' D off-guard. Moreover, except for one TD, Dalvin Cook and the running game were a complete non-factor. It was passing, and Kirk Cousins, and play-action that somehow did not work in the First Half, that got Minnesota four TDs. And still it took a goal line stand at the end of the Game, culminating in what a guy who served me a mini-Blizzard at the local Dairy Queen who saw the play on TV said was a bullet throw that hit the Denver receiver in the end zone off his helmet, to preserve a 27-23 victory.
This was a great win because it shows that the Vikings are able to improvise their way to victory. They are built on running the ball and defense, and neither showed up on Sunday, and yet they still managed to beat a poor Denver club. With that being said, an ascendant Vikes O is being neutralized by a D that turned in another poor performance. (In particular, Cornerback Xavier Rhodes is not looking good at all.) That side of the ball has to turn things around.
One more thing: I saw Stefon Diggs throw his helmet after a stalled Vikings drive early in the Third Quarter. I believe he caught his scintillating Touchdown pass the next drive. Afterward he was exhorting the stadium to make some noise. If Diggs was on the other team, I'd think him both a diva and an asshole. But since he's on the Vikings, I truly think that he is a sparkplug whose emotions need to fuel this team.
This is their bye week. I think this is the last week for the NFL, and if so, I don't remember if Minnesota has ever had their bye week be the last one. Visits Seattle in two weeks.
#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -3). The bounce-back from the club's season-opening loss at home to Missouri St. (a team who, I have read, reached the Sweet 16 as the Cinderella last year) is not going unnoticed here. Beating Vermont and Wisconsin-Milwaukee isn't notable. But beating 19th-ranked Arizona St., a Game in which Destiny Pitts reached the 1,000-Point mark, is very notable. That being said, they are getting fat on home cookin', and that will continue with a Saturday afternoon match vs. Montana St.
#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). A 2-2 screening week. Of all things, people were saying that the losses to Washington and Houston (both at home, both blowouts) were due to, get this, the absence of Andrew Wiggins, who has left the team due to a family matter. He was around and led the squad in Points and Assists in beating San Antonio Wednesday. But he was not around for a good ten-Point win last/Monday night in Utah. Karl-Anthony Towns led the way instead, and it's kind of surprising to think that Wiggins has had more of a hand in the Timberwolves' relative good start than KAT.
The Jazz return the home-and-home favor tomorrow/Wednesday night. After hosting an improved Phoenix club Saturday, they have a tilt versus the Hawks in Atlanta Monday.
#-4: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -1). Sure, they swept Michigan at home Saturday. But on Thursday they lost, also at Maturi, to Wisconsin in four Sets. That gave the Badgers the season sweep and, most likely, the Big Ten regular season title. Well, I see who is the alpha dog this year, and it sure as shit ain't the Golden Goofers.
Finish the home sked this weekend. Nebraska and Iowa, back-to-back.
#-5: Wild (Last Week: -4). Holy shit -- the Mild are the worst team in the National Hockey League right now. I noticed that their pattern of slow starts in Games continued in the 1-2 screening week, but they managed to defeat Arizona 3-2 and got a loser Point in the 4-3 loss to Carolina (both Games at home). Guess they had more regulation defeats like the 3-1 one in Los Angeles than I thought. So I should put the Mild at the bottom ... except that this has been an exceptionally shitty week for local sports teams. Four of them lost Friday, and all the ones whose players have penises lost Saturday while the two squads whose players have vaginas won. These hockeyers at least won one Game, so they're not in the shit. At least not for this week.
They stay in a Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule: Respectively, at Buffalo, home to Colorado, in Boston.
#-6: Gopher football (Last Week: Positive Numbers). OK, so the perfect season is over, and likely a College Football Playoff spot. I saw barely a second of the 23-19 loss Saturday at Iowa, even though I got home by the time the Fourth Quarter started; I'm a pessimist -- you'd have to be if you're a Minnesota sports fan -- and the slow start the Gophers got out to did not make me think they could come back. They did, if I hear correctly. They came back from down 20-3 to make a game of it. But they just dug themselves too big of a hole down 13-0 at the end of the First Quarter. Also, Brock Walker missed a Field Goal and an Extra Point; he makes both and, obviously, it's tied at 23. Finally, a comeback that was on the table when Minnesota got the ball with 66 Seconds left went nowhere due to back-to-back Sacks, the second of which knocked out Quarterback Tanner Morgan. Backup Cole Kramer had to come in and lead Minnesota all the way to the end zone, but his first pass was incomplete and his second was intercepted. And the Hawkeyes thus keeps Floyd of Rosedale.
Again, there are still some things to play for. They beat Northwestern on the road Saturday and they set up a winner-take-division matchup against Wisconsin at Das Bank v.1.0. That should still be an easily-doable task for the Gophers.
#-7: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -6). I appreciate the tougher non-conference schedule, but it would also help if they win a Game or two. That didn't happen this past screening week. The U., being game about meeting teams at their place, lost to Butler by eight and Utah by four. Not successful at all, and this might be a season where Richard Pitino has to prove he has bona fides. But so far this program is scheduling better than SEC football teams.
This might be considered a lull week. Face Central Michigan Thursday and North Dakota Sunday, both at The Barn.
#-8: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!). Man, the more I research this and the more I think about it, the more I think I should shelve these grapplers at the bottom of the survey. Behold the once-great and -proud Golden Gopher wrestling program which, ranked 6th in the country, began their regular season not at the Sports Pavilion but at Williams Arena and got fucking upset by fucking Rider. Rider. Fucking Rider. I have no goddamn clue where Rider University is. (Just looked it up; Rider University is in Lawrence Township, N.J.) But the Broncs had lost to the U. in their two previous Duals before this 21-17 embarrassment Friday night.
You should look at Rider's athletic department for the way they saw this. The Match that turned this Dual upside-down was at 174 lbs. The Goofers' Devin Skatzka, ranked sixth in his weight class, got felled three Minutes into his Match with 27th-ranked Dean Sherry. That gave Rider a two-Point lead. The Broncs maintained an 18-17 edge going into the final Match, at Heavyweight, but instead of getting Gable Steveson to get the U. a tougher-than-acceptable victory, Head Coach Brandon Eggum turned to his older brother, Redshirt Senior Boddy, who dropped a 1-0 Decision to some dude named Ryan Cloud. And this historic win (
at least according to Rider AR) was complete.
Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
If these guys can't beat fucking Rider at home, they have no goddamn chance at Oklahoma St. Sunday afternoon. These guys are wallowing in irrelevance right now. But they might be getting company real soon. ...
#-9: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -2). I went to Friday's match versus Penn St., and, my God, woof. What I saw for their Game against Niagara earlier in the year continued to manifest itself in spades in this one, especially the dumb, dumb passing in the defensive zone. The Gophers could not clear the puck if their scholarships depended on it.
Somehow that didn't hurt the Goofers in the First Period, which ended scoreless. But what followed was, my fucking goodness, the worst ten Minutes I have ever seen a Gopher men's hockey team play. The Nittany Lions (which was ranked eighth at the time) racked up four Goals, back-to-back-to-back-to-back. That fourth tally was a quirky one, where the puck saucered in the air and a PSU player hacked it down and past the Goaltender. But the other three happened because of inexcusable defense: The Lions got the puck in their offensive zone and passed to a teammate right in front of the Gophers' net with no Gopher marking him. The first two Goals, in particular, the goalscorer was so by his lonesome he might as well have been radioactive.
That was the U. at its worst that weekend, but it didn't get much better. The Nittany Lions scored another four in the Third Period to quadruple the Goofs 8-2. Once the Lions scored that fifth Goal early in the third, a lot of the crowd -- in a half-full 3M -- got up and left, and some more took off after the sixth. I had never seen so many people leave during the middle of a Gopher men's hockey Game, and I had never seen the place so empty at the end of it. You know, I might have to take that back. The Goofers led Penn St. in the Saturday contest 3-1 but then gave up the next five Goals in an ensuing 6-3 doubling. Bob Motzo's teams in St. Cloud St. were known for having great regular seasons but pissing down their legs and bowing out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. I'm starting to worry that Motzko's MO is having inept defense. And while it's still early, I believe this past weekend sweep (at home no less) was so bad it undid all the good results and any improvement this program made so far this season. Motzko's mulligan came last year. Now I need to some fucking progress. Last weekend showed de-evolution, not progress.
And this came at the start of a six-Game homestand. And they host a Wisconsin club that might have found its footing this weekend, too.
