Thursday, November 15, 2007

To Open Their New Stadium, The Gophers Will Face ..

Nebraska? No. Notre Dame? Nope. North Dakota State? We want to win the first game at TCF Bank Stadium, don't we?

While Tim Brewster has talked a lot about improving the Minnesota schedule, and rightfully so, the Gophers will face Air Force to open TCF Bank Stadium in the second game of the 2009 season. I'm not going to complain about this because opening against Air Force brings a little charm along with it. As was mentioned at the Star Tribune's Gophers blog in a post by Chip Scoggins, the Air Force tilt will likely provide for a kick-ass flyover to begin a new, outdoor era in Minnesota football.

And while it would have been nice to open the new stadium against Notre Dame or Nebraska, or someone with a higher profile, the Gophers could have done worse than Air Force. I'm thinking Florida Atlantic, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, etc.

What are your thoughts? Who would you like to have seen open the new stadium?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really like Air Force as an opening opponent. The only thing I'm concerned about is that they have a quick offense that loves to run the option, which I don't think matches up great against our defense. But hopefully by 2009 we'll at be at least a LITTLE bit quicker on defense....The gophers of this year would certainly lose to them.

Anonymous said...

I don't really like Air Force as an opponent. Sure, a flyover will be cool, but I would have liked to have seen the Gophers land a team with some name recognition to bring in a bigger audience for the stadium opener.

Unknown said...

Meh, it's not great, but like you said it could be worse. Why didn't they just move Cal back one week? I guess Air Force might be easier to beat than Cal.

And ver, our defense does not match up well with ANY offense. Also, I thought Air Force ran some sort of wishbone?

Thelandryhat.com said...

You might as well just open the stadium against some division 2 team because I don't see how weirdo Brewster is going to recruit good players when he has pep talks using statements like "Let's choke their asses out" and "do you feel the knife in your guts?"

This guy is better suited, as I have said, as a WWE wrestling manager. He reminds me of Bobbie the weasel heenan

Anonymous said...

They should open with someone easy....like Appalachian State.

Anonymous said...

I think this is a nice opener. A team that is certainly beatable, but carries with it more respect and tradition than say, someone from the MAC or Sun Belt. A perfect mix of winnability and significance. The flyover, if it happens, will be a nice touch too.

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