Image courtesy ladiesdotdotdot.wordpress.com

For the second straight year, Ohio State will take on Minnesota in Columbus, this time in late October rather than late September. Sort of a raw deal for the Gophers, playing twice in Columbus before welcoming the Buckeyes to the new stadium, eh? Last year's game against Minnesota was deceptively close; the Buckeyes ran out to a 34-6 lead before surrendering two fourth quarter touchdowns and a 2-point conversion. Final score: 34-21. Minnesota would then be one of only three teams all season to score more than 20 points on the Buckeyes, joining the rarefied company of Texas and USC, albeit in a losing effort. More on the Gophers, interesting stats, and a prediction after the jump.

Minnesota's offseason has been a little hectic. After the offense finished a distant last in the conference in rushing yardage, offensive coordinator and spread guru Mike Dunbar took his ball and went home. Jedd Fisch took over after a supposedly exhaustive search, apparently ready to install the dreaded "pro-style" offense of five step drop-backs and off tackle rights.  But what's this?

He really has no experience with the spread offense.  I know there has been a lot of talk about becoming a power running team.  But at no point has Brewster said they are abandoning the spread.  They are just adding some power attitude and power formations.  Now they hire an offensive coordinator who has been in the NFL.  I'm sure he has a great offensive mind and this isn't going to be beyond his grasp.  But if our OC is learning while he's teaching I'm just skeptical how effective he'll be early on.

There are two ways this can go - Minnesota can develop a bit of a hybrid offense like the one LSU is already running, one that "incorporates the spread" while still sporting a solid between-the-tackles running game. Or, alternatively, Jedd could be a Fisch out of water (ed. note: hurr hurr I am witty and witty is me) and we could have a bit of an Auburn-style disconnect between what the OC wants and what the rest of the staff wants, only in reverse. This time, it's Fisch commited to the "power running" game, with Brewster adamant that the Gophers "spread it out". There is also a risk that the offense becomes a tad predictable - when it deploys a 4-wide set, you know it's passing, and when it comes out in a two-tights and a fullback, you know it's running. That sort of thing. Regardless, The Daily Gopher likes the hire, so I, not knowing jack about Minnesota football and respecting their opinion, tentatively approve of it as well.

Golden Gophers you should care about:

Without a doubt, Eric Decker. As a junior, he led the Big Ten in both receptions and receiving yards, and the only BXI player to catch more touchdowns was the dearly departed Brian Robiskie. Dude's a player. Dude's also a baseball player. Very few teams torch Ohio State through the air, but when they do, it's because they have athletes like Eric Decker lining up at flanker. While Minnesota's rushing offense was dire last year, DeLeon Eskridge performed admirably for a true freshman with little-to-no blocking to work with. He racked up 678 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground after assuming the starting role in the third game of the season. Senior Traye Simmons notched four picks last year at CB, so chances are quite good Tressel will be spending most of the game throwing away from him.

Interesting / Relevant Statistics and facts: (numbers garnered from College Football Stats and the NCAA Statistics Website)

- While not as astronomically bad as the 2007 defensive unit, Minnesota still finished next-to-last in the conference in total defense. Fortunately for them, they return 12 of their top 15 tacklers.

- 3 teams all year held Minnesota without a passing touchdown - Michigan, Indiana, and Iowa (!)? For the record, that's two of the conference's "meh" secondaries to go with its second best overall defense. Bizarre.

- With such a bad rushing attack, Minnesota also never attempted fewer than 24 passes in a game in '08.

- That awful Minnesota rushing offense is a repository of lulz. They were held to fewer than 100 yards rushing by seven teams, including a lolocaust 44-attempts-for-59-yards in their game against Indiana, the league's second worst rush defense.

- You would think that such a horrible rushing offense would be offset by a relatively competent passing attack, and it was. Sort of. Minnesota had the league's 4th best aerial attack, but there's a caveat: Adam Weber passed for a mediocre 6.7 yards per attempt, compared to Juice Williams' 8.3 and Daryl Clark's 8.1

My prediction: While I essentially used that spate of stats to find all the bad things one could possibly say about Minnesota, really, I actually think this will be a fairly competitive game. Minnesota's defense literally has to improve, and if that offense can find a way to achieve balance and the staff's differing philosophies jell well, it'll be a fairly dangerous unit, with or without Eric Decker. The key for the Gophers will be their offensive line. Last year, it was god-awful; arguably the third worst unit in the Big Ten behind Michigan's and Purdue's, but Brewster has made changes. To go with the aforementioned new OC, he has brought in.... drumroll please.... Alabama Director of Player Personnel Tim Davis! Uh... Tim Davis, everybody! Seriously though, Davis has at least one thing on his resumé going for him: from 2002-2004, he served as the offensive line coach at Southern Cal, presiding over two lines that paved the way to two straight mythical national championships (one of which was awarded by the AP). While he has decidedly less talent to work with at Minnesota, you can't argue with those credentials. Anyway, onto that whole game thing. Again, Minnesota will hang tough for a half or so. But by this time, the Ohio State offense will finally be finding its late-season groove, and a big day for both Daniel Herron and Terrelle Pryor on the ground will yield a 31-16 win heading into what will hopefully be a breather against New Mexico State.

A Gopher's Thoughts:

To give a bit more of a balanced perspective to these previews, I'm going to ask a few questions of one of the opponent's SBN bloggers, if they have one on this fine network. Gopher Nation from The Daily Gopher was kind enough to answer my questions about his team: 

What Minnesota players should fans of opposing teams be wary of? - The obvious pick here is All-American candidate, Eric Decker.  Assuming a healthy season Decker will claim a handful of Minnesota receiving records and is working his way up the Big Ten record books for receptions and yards.  And while Decker is the the weapon that can open up the rest of the offense it should also be noted that Adam Weber is the most underrated QB in the Big Ten.  Entering his junior season he will likely break Minnesota records for yards, completions and TDs then have his senior year to add to his totals.  This combo is dangerous and since the Golden Gophers are usually a blip on the Buckeye radar many OSU fans may not realize just how good these guys are.

What do you honestly think Minnesota's record will be at the end of the regular season? - that is tough to say because the 2009 schedule does very few favors for the Gophers.  We don't get to face Indiana; we have road games at OSU, PSU and Iowa; and we have a couple losable non-conference games with Air Force and Cal.  And that's not even mentioning @ Northwestern, home for Mich St and home for Wisconsin.  In 2008 we improved by 6 wins and finished 7-5.  But another 7-5 season would probably be a step forward when considering the schedule. 

My honest opinion?  I think the best we could hope for is 8-4, but I'll stick with a 7-5 record as my prediction here.

Give us a prediction for the game against Ohio State. - Name the only two teams to score more than 20 points on Ohio State last year.  If you guessed Texas and Minnesota then you are absolutely correct. (ed. note - I like this line of thought. The USC game never actually happened.) And don't give me the "they scored against our third string" excuse because that simply was not true.  With that said, I have no dreams of predicting a Gopher victory.  I do believe that OSU will be slightly less potent than they were a year ago and I believe the Gophers will be a notch or two better than we were in 2008.  But the talent gap is far to great to overcome barring the perfect storm (OSU overlooks the Gophers, we execute perfectly and escape with a win).  It's been done before, but let's be realistic here.  I think Ohio State wins but since I'm a homer I'm going to say the Gophers keep it relatively competitive.  21-30 for the bad guys with stickers on their helmets.

So... basically the same game as last year, then? Sounds spiffy to me. What do you guys think?