Prepping for Iowa

Greetings.

So I was working at my desk yesterday when I get a call. it was a fan, I think. Angry. He wanted to know why -- and he was asking in a very aggressive, profane sort of way -- why I was too easy on the Gophers. For a while it felt like I was getting the audio-book version of some of the posts that used to get put at the bottom of my blog.

You Gophers fans are intense.

Have I been to easy on the team this season? Perhaps. Hope I've been fair without leaning too far one way or another. I thought I was pretty critical when they lost to Illinois, and again after last week's three-point victory over South Dakota State.

Anyway, my ear just stopped ringing.

So, now, Iowa. Another chance at a trophy game victory, which Brewster doesn't have. Another chance at Minnesota's first Big Ten victory in November since 2006. A win would also be Brewster's first against a ranked team.

What will it take? A lot.

So, what else?

--It will take an Adam Weber channeling the Michigan State game. Difficult, considering how much better Iowa's pass defense is.

--I don't think the gophers will be able to run the ball very well Saturday, but they have to try, and have to do it often enough to enable the play-pass.

--And, finally, the Gophers need the kind of special teams play they got earlier in the season and less of the version they got against South Dakota State and Illinois.

I was talking to John Butler, the team's linebackers and special teams coach.

"You change from doing something you've been doing for two and a half years," Butler said. "It's like changing your defense."

When you kick it to the middle, the other team has many more options on its return than if you kick it to one side. That's why the Gophers went back to directional kicking later in the SDSU game. When you kick directionally, hang time is less of an issue as well.

Anyway, to move on.

Defensively the Gophers have to stop the run and get creative in order to get to the quarterback.