Tim Brewster said his message to his team on Sunday was, "Let's focus on football." Funny thing to say, but the Gophers needed to hear it.
It's been a tough couple of weeks for the Gophers, with the death of Terry Hoese, the diagnosis of Connor Cosgrove's leukemia, and a couple of tough losses. That's a lot of punishment to absorb emotionally, and it can be awfully draining.
"Football is a very emotional sport, and when you have teammates that are hurting, it's really hard," Adam Weber said Tuesday. "You've got to make football fun. There's a lot of pressure put on us, from outside forces and within, but when critical situations, something as life-threatening as leukemia, happens, it puts things in perspective."
I sensed that Weber was disappointed by the Southern California loss for several reasons, and perhaps felt that he had let Connor Cosgrove down. The walk-on receiver texted the team from his hospital bed on Saturday, Brewster said, with a poignant message: "Shock the world. I love all you guys."
We tried, Weber said Tuesday. We tried our best.
"You see those stories of baseball players going into the hospital, and people saying, 'Hit a home run for me.' Well, sometimes that's asking a little too much," Weber said. "All we can do is play our best. We did on Saturday -- we played very hard for Connor."
But USC played better. No disgrace in that, Weber said -- in fact, he sees that effort as a good sign.
"If we bring that same focus every week, we can be a good football team," Weber said. "We need to do it for us."

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Someone inquired via email this weekend about a replacement for the cancelled Texas games in 2015 and 2016, which Brewster happened to address Sunday. In effect, he said that Minnesota's plan to find another high-profile game for those seasons has been put on hold while the Big Ten considers adding a ninth conference game. Should that happen -- and since commissioner Jim Delany is in favor, many around the league believe it's inevitable -- the Gophers won't need another game, Brewster said.
That leaves Minnesota with an uninspired non-conference schedule in those years; South Dakota State, Colorado State and Ohio are set for 2015, and Indiana State, Colorado State and New Mexico State are on the docket for 2016.

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Anthony Jacobs and Brock Vareen made their first starts of the season against USC, though neither was listed as the starter on last week's two-deep. This week's two-deep for Saturday's game against Northern Illinois has each back in the starting lineup again.

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Brewster reiterated that junior David Schwerman is challenging Eric Ellestad for kicking duties this week, in the wake of Ellestad's 2-for-5 record on field goals and a low kickoff that the coach said didn't allow the coverage team to set up. "What I want to do with (Ellestad) is try to lighten his load a little bit and let him relax, because he's a talented kicker," Brewster said. "That's what we're going to do this week, allow him to relax. He wants very badly to be our kicker and he wants to execute. He wasn't pleased with the way he kicked on Saturday, and rightfully so. He needs to improve. I think he will."