Hartman: Brewster left cupboard very bare

There are three football teams ranked in the top 25 left on the Gophers' schedule -- Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Illinois -- with both Nebraska and Wisconsin in the top 10. So while you might not see another 58-0 defeat like Michigan handed the Gophers on Saturday, it may be difficult for the team to win more than one or two games the rest of this season.Before Saturday, Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson had completed just 49 percent of his passes and he had already thrown six interceptions, more than he had total in September and October last season. But against a porous Gophers pass defense, which has been a problem all year, Robinson completed his first 11 passes and wound up completing 15 of 19 for 169 yards and two touchdowns.

And then Michigan rushed for 363 yards against a run defense that had trouble stopping New Mexico State and North Dakota State.

Furthermore, the Gophers had to play with 18-year-old freshman quarterback Max Shortell starting before more than 111,000 fans in maybe the toughest stadium for a visiting team to play in. Shortell had a rough day, completing 11 of 22 passes, mostly against the Michigan reserves, for 104 yards and he was sacked three times.

It didn't help that the Gophers were penalized nine times for 74 yards, including a holding penalty when Marcus Jones returned a kick for a touchdown and another penalty when he made a long run.

Lacking talentStill it remains clear the biggest problem facing the Gophers is the lack of talent left by the previous coaching staff. Let's face the facts: Kill has said many times that it is going take a minimum of three years to make the Gophers competitive because of the lack of talent he inheritied.

Kill recruited 24 freshmen, and most of them are playing because of a lack of talent among the sophomores, juniors and seniors recruited by Tim Brewster.

Normally those freshmen would be redshirted -- held out as freshmen so they would have four years of competition plus their first year.

Hired because he sold athletic director Joel Maturi and vice president Kathryn Brown on his ability to bring in players, Brewster recruited a total of 85 players during his four seasons with the Gophers.

The Gophers have a roster of 105 players. Brewster recruits playing for Kill include 12 current starters, 14 playing but not starting, but the number that really hurts is the 23 recruited by Brewster who didn't come to school or left early. That was the main failure, a lack of ability to recruit players who not only could play but also could do the job academically and stay in school.

So the above tells the story why it is going to take Kill a minimum of three years to get the kind of squad that can be competitive.

Kleinsasser has had tough starts beforeJim Kleinsasser, who has been a Viking for 13 seasons, the longest of any player on the team, recalled some other bad starts for the Vikings, similar to the 0-3 this year, when they still made the playoffs and other years when they had good starts and didn't make the playoffs.

"We've had some rough starts. I believe it was in '99 that we started out 2-4, something like that, and we came back, charged back, and made the playoffs," said Kleinsasser.

"I've had 6-0, 5-0 starts where we didn't make the playoffs," Kleinssaser said. "It's a long season, and we have a lot of football ahead of us and I think we'll get it turned around."

Kleinsasser said he still believes the Vikings can win the division.

"We know what we can do, and we just have to put it all together for four quarters," he said. "It's just little things here and there, a mistake, balls here and there, those little things add up. We have to be critical of ourselves and have everyone be on task and get their job down.

"I think it's just ourselves not killing ourselves, not getting into third-and-longs. Either a penalty or a mistake on the play, you now we just have a few misfires at the wrong time.

"Well, we've got a good group of guys, and we're trying to just battle out there and do everything we can for the team."

• Jacki Lienesch, a recent hire in the Gophers football academic department, worked with Christian Ponder at Florida State and according to the Vikings first-round draft choice: "She pushed me really hard to do well in school. I really appreciated her. She really knows what she's doing and she takes academics seriously. A lot of the guys at Florida State respected her, and I thought she did a really good job. She was like having another mom out there."

Lienesch said Ponder was a very good student and had great leadership abilities.

• Former Gophers coach Tim Brewster will be doing sideline reporting for the Vikings game Sunday for FOX. Brewster worked the Texas-Iowa State game in Ames on Saturday night.

• According to pregame.com, the Vikings are the first 0-3 team to be favored in a road game against a team that had made the playoffs the previous year since 1986, which is as far back as reliable NFL point spreads are available.

• Kyle Lohse, who had his problems as a Twin, had his best season this year with the Cardinals, going 14-8 with a 3.39 ERA and 1.17 WHIP, all career lows. He started and took the loss in St. Louis' opening game of the NLDS Saturday.