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.
