Well, all of those experts who selected the Gophers to go 0-8 during the conference season and 3-9 for the season will have to make another guess.
Sid Hartman: Gophers show they will surprise experts
All of those experts who selected the Gophers to go 0-8 during the conference season and 3-9 for the season will have to make another guess.

A 24-point underdog, they went to Southern California, gave up 19 points to the No. 25 Trojans in the first half and then stopped them without a score in the second half. USC held on to win 19-17.
Jerry Kill said he didn't know what kind of a team he had until they played this game. Well, the new Gophers coach found out he had a team that could come back in the second half and play as well as they did in one of the toughest stadiums in the country for opponents to play in. The Trojans, who led 19-3 at halftime, seldom lose at Los Angeles Coliseum.
Kill and his coaching staff should be praised for the great job they did in adjusting their defense at halftime. The great passing combination of Matt Barkley and Robert Woods didn't get into the end zone in the second half after combining for 163 yards and three touchdowns in the first.
The Gophers defense also did a great job stopping the Trojans running game to 67 yards on 28 carries and twice stopped them in fourth-down situations.
The Gophers clicked in the second half, scoring 14 points despite the fact that MarQueis Gray had to leave the game because of an injury. In his place, highly recruited true freshman Max Shortell completed seven of 13 passes for 98 yards and one touchdown.
Unfortunately, Shortell threw an interception with time running out and the Gophers in a position to march in for a winning field goal, which seemed like a good possibility the way they were moving the ball at the time.
But for a true freshman to step and do the job and show the poise he did before a very noisy and rabid opposition crowd that made it hard to call plays, it was amazing.
I have seen very few Gophers freshmen go in and do the job passing Shortell did. He also showed he could make plays with his feet, scrambling for 8 yards and a first down on third-and-8 for his very first college play.
There was no doubt that this Gophers team, playing before this Hollywood atmosphere, was nervous to start as shown by a false-start penalty on the very first offensive play of the game.
Gray also appeared not to be his poised self to start, as he had trouble moving the Gophers offense with either his arm or his feet. He finished with decent numbers, going 7-for-12 for 94 yards passing while carrying 16 times for 47 yards until he was injured. But in the second half, the Gophers played like they did in the winning the final two games of last season.
Now they return home for three games and a chance to get a lot better and surprise some of their conference foes.
Ponder shows his normal running ability Christian Ponder rushed eight times for 61 yards, an average of 7.6 yards per effort, in little more than one half of the action in the Vikings' 28-0 victory over Houston on Thursday. The Vikings closed the preseason 2-2.
Ponder, the first-round draft pick making his first preseason start, also completed 10 of 17 passes for 83 yards and one touchdown for a 91.1 quarterback rating.
"Obviously, there's still a lot to learn from and a lot to get better, but I think tonight went pretty well," he said afterward.
The Florida State product was asked if this was the normal amount of rushing fans can expect from him when he replaces Donovan McNabb at quarterback.
"I was [a running quarterback at Florida State], actually, found ways to get out of the pocket and run the ball and do some quarterback runs. That's kind of always been part of my game," Ponder said.
Ponder said he is pleased with the progress he has made in spite of the NFL lockout, which wiped out all offseason minicamps and prevented him from working with coaches over the summer.
"I came into this camp and had a lot to learn very quickly, and I stayed focused on what I was supposed to do," Ponder said. "I'm pretty pleased with myself in the first camp. ... I like everything that's on the table with the offense. I'm enjoying myself."
Ponder is convinced he will get better at reading defenses with more opportunities.
"I'll get better from it and adapt, but that's the goal from Day 1," he said.
He credited the veteran McNabb with helping him improve. "He has helped me; he's been great to me," Ponder said. "This is his 13th year in the league, and he's a proven vet. He doesn't have to help out a rookie, and he's right there helping me out every series and everything. It's really great."
Personally, I was hoping the Vikings would make this a rebuilding year and go with Ponder and Joe Webb as their quarterbacks, rather than bringing in a veteran quarterback the way they did with McNabb.
But did Ponder think he had the ability to be the starter right away, like several recent rookie quarterbacks such as Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Matthew Stafford, Sam Bradford and Cam Newton? "I don't know, that's a question that can't be answered," he said.
If you want my opinion, the answer would be yes. This guy has the potential to be great.
Jottings
• The Wilf family's contribution to a Vikings stadium in Arden Hills stands at $407 million plus the $30 million they added two months ago. There has not been any recent addition to that fund.
• Timberwolves CEO Rob Moor is convinced that Rick Adelman, the veteran NBA coach who handled the Rockets last year, is definitely interested in the Wolves job, or he wouldn't have made a second trip here. And Moor made it clear that for the right coach like Adelman, the Wolves will pay whatever is the going rate. The Wolves will have second interviews with more coaches on their list in the near future.
• Vikings coach Leslie Frazier spent Saturday in Austin, Texas, watching his son Corey start at safety for Rice at Texas. Corey Frazier is a former Eden Prairie High School standout who led the Owls in tackles last year.
• Twins President Dave St. Peter predicts crowds of 36,000 to 37,000 this September in Target Field. If the Twins were out of a race during their days in the Metrodome, the crowds would likely have been below 10,000.
• The 2012 Twins payroll might be some $20 million less than the $113 million it was this year. One reason for the trades of Delmon Young and Jim Thome in August was because the Twins were over their budget.
• The Twins would like to do what the Red Sox are doing at Fenway Park this winter, staging a doubleheader of college hockey games. On Jan. 7, UMass will play Vermont and Maine will play New Hampshire.
• Kevin Rogers, the Vikings quarterbacks coach under Brad Childress, has a son, Kevin Jr., who scouts for the Colts and watched the Vikings on Thursday. He had a long reunion with Donovan McNabb, who was recruited and coached at Syracuse by his father. The younger Rogers has known McNabb since he was 11 years old.
Minnesota lost a shootout for the 11th time in a row and has not scored on 28 consecutive shootout attempts.