OBSERVATIONS ON THE BROWN JUG VICTORY, 31-10!

1-Hallelujah! Our first game with over 200 yards rushing!!! Actually, we had 300 yards net rushing. We had 4 rushing touchdowns, 16 rushing first downs and NO FUMBLES (including no fumbles that we recovered). Askew with 2 rushing TDS, Askew and Bell with one each.

2-It is good to see Gonzalez get a chance. He can make some big plays and keep the defense guessing. He also misses some easy plays because of the lack of playing experience. He deserves a chance because of Navarre's inconsistency in hitting the open receiver and forcing interceptions. Plus, Navarre has zero mobility. I hope we can recruit Banks; it is obvious we need this type of mobility in our offense to be a championship caliber team.

3-We finished with 26 first downs and 423 total yards in 82 offensive plays (5.2 yards per play). We were 8 of 16 on 3rd down. We had better than 11 minutes advantage in time of possession.

4-Our running game looks better mainly due to Perry-91 yards; Askew had 81 yards. I hope his knee injury isn't too serious; we really need two strong backs. Cross and Underwood also looked good with 27 and 26 yards. Our field position also set up some great reverses by Bell and Walker.

5-Kudos to the defense! We really did another great job! We held Minnesota to 12 first downs and forced them into 10 punts (we only punted 4 times). Minnesota's 3rd down conversions were only 5 of 15, and they only had 290 net yards (150 net rushing). No one defender stood out, but it was just good, solid team defense. Redmon only had 57 yards; Ron Johnson only had 4 catches. Of course, our best defense was establishing a running game with an 11 minute time of possession advantage; something that we didn't do against the Spartans. It really hurts not playing with both Curry brothers and Brackins, but our defense is "hanging in there." Only 2 sacks today after 12 last week.

6-Wow! Seymour had five catches at half and he could've had a TD if Gonzalez had given him the ball on that last drive of the half where he was wide open. Is it my imagination or does Seymour seem to slip a lot? Could the equipment manager, Jon Falk, please work on his shoes?

7-Walker only had only four catches for 60 yards, but he should have had more. Navarre has simply not put the ball in his hands when he has been open. He either threw behind him, overthrew or underthew him. Navarre really had a bad day; he was 12 of 22 for 144 yards, but no TDs and one pick that gave Minnesota life in the first half.

8-Howard ran back two great kickoffs, and the last one helped to start us off with the field position to get us a two score lead. Howard also did a decent job today on coverage.

9--What a block by Butler!!! Thus far, this is the play that has kept us in the lead. Kudos to Tyrece!!! Except for the blocked field goal, our special teams really did a great job today on kickoffs, kickoff returns, punts (Epstein's average was 47 yards) and punt returns.

10--That Jack Brewer was a pretty impressive defender for the Gophers; he had 18 tackles, 13 solos. Phil Archer had 13 tackles. Minnesota had 10 penalties for 94 yards. Team discipline? We have now beat Minnesota 30 of our last 32 meetings!!!

11-I'm confident we'll beat Wisconsin although they'll have two weeks to prepare for us as well as heal up. It will be a low scoring defensive game though. Hopefully, Navarre will have a solid game in his return to his home state. The Buckeyes will lose to Illinois next week, and hopefully we'll beat them. I have my doubts though especially about Navarre's ability to execute in big games. We'll either finish 9-2 or 8-3 and be in the Fiesta Bowl as Big Ten Champs (possibly tied with Illinois) or in the Florida Citrus Bowl as Big Ten runner-up (if Illinois wins out and we lose once more).