Welcome aboard
Boat-rowin’ Gophers among the fresh faces joining the titans of college football
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -Minnesota last reached 9-0 in 1904, when it opened with a 107-0 win over Twin Cities Central High, yet another reminder that the next time somebody tells you life was better and smarter in some previous generation, you can tell them that’s, as the great observer used to put it, horsepucky.
Now here’s a midNovember with relevant gophers, long among the cuter rodents even if these particular Gophers don’t tend to store food in cheek pouches. P.J. Fleck’s Minnesota epitomizes something college football often lacks, given its hoarding kingdoms, yet suddenly boasts in abundance: freshness. Suddenly, it has Minnesota, an elevated LSU, an admirable Appalachian State, a likable Baylor and -- can that be? -- one Lovie Smith riding across a field atop a mass of young shoulders.
“There are no words for it,” Fleck said of the stadium atmosphere Saturday.
“I cannot even put it into words,” Minnesota wide receiver Rashod Bateman said after seven catches for 203 yards against Penn State, then No. 4 in the College Football Playoff rankings.
“I just got up and saw my teammates and fans going crazy,” Minnesota defensive back Jordan Howden said after his interception clinched both the 31-26 win and brought masses out of the stands and onto the field to exult.
And while noting Howden, let’s not forget the oftforgotten: the importance in American culture of the desperate, chasing, straining tackle that prevents an apparent touchdown from becoming a real touchdown. Howden achieved that, too, with supporting help from Antoine Winfield Jr., when Penn State wide receiver Jahan Dotson roamed free across the Minneapolis prairie for 49 yards to the Minnesota 11-yard line with the clock passing the twominute mark and the hopeful day fixing to crumble.
Suddenly, it matters coast to coast that the Gophers (9-0) will play Saturday at No. 18 Iowa (6-3) for the Floyd of Rosedale, that trophy with the voluminous background. It is, of course, a replica of a late hog whose brother appeared in the Will Rogers movie “State Fair.” This reminds us we are a lunatic people, as does studying our nation’s most important chart: turnover margin rankings.
Fleck, sometimes poohpoohed as with any original, emphasizes turnover margin in day-to-day coaching in ways you might dub eccentric, but, oh, no, wait, look. In 2013, Fleck’s Western Michigan ranked 104th, and by 2016, it ranked first (tied with Washington). In 2017, Fleck’s Minnesota ranked 64th, then dipped to 89th in 2018, then rose to its present 13th.
Suddenly, the nation has LSU rather than Alabama at which to fix its SEC gaze, which means it has LSU’s vividly human faces. If you cannot revel in Coach Ed Orgeron’s joy at getting to go to 7-Eleven for one of those gross energy drinks without having LSU fans implore him to beat Alabama, then you are an Alabama fan, a prude or both. For one thing, it might mean Orgeron goes to 7-Eleven for his own drinks rather than sending some cheerless underling.
“I enjoyed it a lot, to be honest with you,” he said of LSU’s riveting, 46-41 festival of state-of-the-art offense at Alabama, and his considerable face did beam.
If you cannot feel glad for quarterback Joe Burrow and his rise after Dwayne Haskins pipped him for the Ohio State job and who says, “I enjoy getting hit sometimes; makes me feel like a real football player instead of a quarterback,” then you should. If you cannot admire 5-foot-8 running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who stood amid reporters in an end zone Saturday night and said, “Everybody in this corner right now is probably taller than me,” then you should have no friends.
“He’s going to, you know, play a long time,” Burrow said of Edwards-Helaire, and do remember one play most. LSU faced third and 10 from the Alabama 36-yard line with the score 33-27, and about to be creamed, Burrow loosed a little semi-prayer of a four-yard pass rightward to Edwards-Helaire. The latter reached down for a hard catch, then pushed and dragged and churned through defenders for the last seven yards to the marker and just beyond.
You might even call him the Appalachian State of backs.
Appalachian State (8-1) has beaten North Carolina, Coastal Carolina and now South Carolina, meaning East Carolina and Western Carolina must be relieved they’re not on the schedule. The Mountaineers just became the first team since 1999, per Bryan Ives of the ACC Network, to win on the road against an ACC team and an SEC team in the same season. The way the Mountaineers held off the Gamecocks told much.
Trailing 20-9, South Carolina scored with 2:58 left to make it 20-15. Appalachian State punted from its end zone. South Carolina started from near midfield. It sputtered to fourth and 18. It converted that. Then it sputtered to fourth and 15. It converted that, too. It stood nine yards from rescue. The Mountaineers held it off. That is so very much not easy.
“The poise on the last drive,” Coach Eliah Drinkwitz said, and were Appalachian State not established as the football hotbed that -- you might have heard -- once won at Michigan, you might liken it to John Mayers.
Mayers would be the 5-foot10, 184-pound Baylor kicker with concrete innards. On Sept. 28, Baylor’s fourth win of its unbroken nine hinged on Mayers’s 38-yard field goal with just 21 seconds to doom. That kick still stood as his longest when Matt Rhule, the masterful Baylor coach, sent Mayers out with 41 seconds left at TCU to try from 51, TCU leading by a haunting three.
The score stood 9-6, in violation of a slew of Big 12 bylaws. (It’s a wonder nobody called 911.) Mayers, from Flower Mound, Tex., 37 miles up the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, hit it. Baylor won in overtime for the second time this year, stands 9-0 with Oklahoma inbound and justifies this comment from Rhule: “I hope people feel like that, ‘If I spend my money to get a ticket to a Baylor game, I’m going to get an honest effort,’ and that’s what we are.”