When I was only 60, I never expected to spend any of my remaining New Years Days watching the Gophers win a bowl game. I had settled into expecting, in our good seasons, a "bowl game" played in a domed stadium in a northern city on the day after Christmas.
Tyler Johnson: 12 catches, 204 yards, 2 touchdowns--one, a 70-some yard catch-and-run for the winning score, the other a sensational leaping twisting one-handed grab at the back of the end zone. It's a good thing the players evidently don't suffer, as does this fan, from ISECS (Inferiority to Southeastern Conference Syndrome) or else they might have pitched it in after the interception on their first possession, or for sure after the kickoff return gave Auburn its first touchdown and a 7-point lead. But our guys just kept playing, and they were better than Auburn. The pyrotechnics in the passing game probably meant less for the victory than our running game: more than 200 yards on 45 rushes, Ibrahim alone gaining 140 yards on 20 carries. How many times did we run for a first down on 3rd-and-more-than-5? Besides setting up the passing game, our rushing kept their offense (and our defense) off the field. We had 75 snaps (not counting 4th down kicks) compared to just 53 for Auburn, and we had the ball for around 15 minutes more than they did.
I can't really disagree with those who sneered that the Gophers had this season only beaten one good team (Penn State), but it's two now, MOFOs!
During the Rose Bowl, one of the announcers, while talking about the low-key approach of Badger coach Paul Chryst, noted that there's more than one kind of winning personality for a head coach. He might have added, I thought, that the full spectrum is on display in the Gopher-Badger border battles. I imagine the different half-time talks, P.J. Fleck exhorting his team to row harder while "Coach Dad" says something like, "Boys, to win this game, we're gonna have to start blocking and tackling their guys. Ok, let's go." I think I prefer the latter approach, but that could be because I've endured the press conferences of the likes of Jim Wacker and Tim Brewster: their hearts might have been thumping and their corpuscles pumping but their players were stumbling and fumbling.
Speaking of the Rose Bowl: how can no one in a striped shirt see when a d-back, beaten on a hitch-and-go route, grabs the receiver's undershirt and tries to reel him in for a few seconds from his position 5 yards behind? It was so flagrant that Coach Dad raised his voice when there was no flag. It's not like I have a remedy to suggest, but the officials have too much power. The Gophers turned it over on downs once after a quarterback sneak came up an inch short. Like, yeah, there's no doubt the ball's forward progress was stopped beneath a ton of roiling humanity at the 38.26 yard line, not the 38.24 yard line, which would have been a first down.
The above is John Prine performing "Souvenirs," officially approved for a mild, sloppy January 2:
All the snow has turned to water
Christmas days have come and gone
Broken toys and faded colors,
Are all that's left to linger on. . . .
UPDATE: Just finished watching the Gopher men's basketball team lose in double overtime at Purdue. My epitaph should be, "He watched a lot of sports on TV."
The home team has now won 15 of 16 Big Ten Conference basketball games contested so far this season. Michigan State won at Northwestern, the only exception to the rule, "home team wins." Why? Judging by tonight's game, one could be forgiven for speculating that psychological aspects of officiating play a part. Especially at "crunch time"—a protracted period in a double overtime war of attrition—the visitors just can't get a call. I'm not alleging corruption, but what if there's something, as I say psychological, that makes an official subconsciously reluctant to disappoint 12,000 or more screaming fans? There has to be some explanation, and in basketball, unlike say baseball, where the home team gets to bat last, there is no inherent advantage to playing at home. It seems axiomatic that half the time the visitors have a better team.
Only three different players were awarded foul shots for the Gophers. One of them, Daniel Oturu, shot five. He made 12 of 23 field goal attempts in the game, and had 18 rebounds, but got just five free throws, the same number as Purdue's skinny 7-footer from the Netherlands who attempted 16 shots and got 9 rebounds. One theory of the case might be that Purdue was passive, which is what allowed Oturu to get off so many shots and collect so many rebounds while rarely being fouled. But that's not what I think I observed and it wouldn't help explain why the home team almost always wins.
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