JOTTINGS

• Who would have thought the Gophers football team would begin November ranked ahead of Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa?

• Gophers coach P.J. Fleck on Penn State counterpart James Franklin: "One of my best friends in the profession and also one of the coaches I respect the most in this profession, and I have a chance to visit with him every year, he is one of the best coaches in the country. One of the top five coaches in the country."

• Pro Football Focus works mainly on NFL stats, but it also ranks college performances and recently wrote that the Gophers wide receivers are the fourth-best group in the nation.

• The Vikings have won only once at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium, 35-15 in 1974 to finish the regular season at 10-4. The Vikings played in the Super Bowl a month later.

• The Twins drafted Pat Mahomes, the father of Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, in the sixth round of the MLB draft in 1988. The older Mahomes went 18-28 with a 5.82 ERA in 114 games over five years for the Twins before pitching for five other big-league teams.

• The Chiefs held their training camp at Wisconsin-River Falls from 1990 to 2009 before moving to Missouri Western State University. That meant they would scrimmage the Vikings, who were training in Mankato, often.

• Last season through eight games, the Packers were 3-4-1 and Aaron Rodgers had a QB rating of 98.9 and had taken 23 sacks. This year's Packers are 7-1 and Rodgers has a 106.7 rating and has taken 17 sacks.

• Packers running back Aaron Jones was taken No. 182 overall in the 2017 draft and Vikings running back Dalvin Cook was taken 41st. Cook has 823 rushing yards and nine scores compared to Jones, who has 466 rushing yards and eight scores. Jones also has 355 receiving yards while Cook has 293.