Nebraska Tailgate Talk: Grilling some gopher and going for a win in Minnesota

Nebraska travels to Minneapolis, Minnesota on Friday night at 7:00 pm. The game will be televised on Fox. It's a short week for Big Red who will be sporting all whites for the game. Having exorcised the demons of the all red jerseys, I'm ok with it. The weather calls for 62 degrees and cloudy at kickoff with a small breeze of 4 mph. Huskers are currently favored by 6.5-9.0 points depending on where you look.

You can file last week's game under "what the hell just happened?" in my book. I mean I'm thrilled it was a Win and the Huskers are now 5-1 with a chance to become bowl eligible this week. However, I am still not thrilled with what happened in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, again. I did love the cumulative effect of a strong run game and the constant battering of the opponent (which also kept Maryland from trying to take Dylan Raiola's head off). I'm not a fan of the 3 interceptions which led to 17 points against us. I am a fan of 2-2 in the red zone. That's a good trend. And Dear NCAA, please implement a rule wherein if you have X amount of personal foul player misconduct penalties in a game, the next one results in that player being tossed. Yes, I'm talking about you #10 on Maryland's defense, Mr. Cheater McDirty.

That 50-yard run by Emmett Johnson will be making highlight reels for years. Congrats on your PFSN Offensive Player of the Week award! It reminded me of Tommie Frazier breaking free of so many Miami tacklers to reach the end zone. EJ certainly had a game stacking up 10 missed tackles off of his slippery surface according to OC Dana Holgorsen. That Heinrich Haarburg catch was underpraised. Husker Tight End Luke Lindenmeyer's tightrope touchdown was glorious. And it's so satisfying to watch Nyzaiah Hunter take those 50/50 balls and win them that it's almost made me forget the lazy attitude Isaiah Neyor played with last year. Tip of the cap to Huskers receiver Dane Key as well on his 1st game winning catch of his career. It's a cool thing to have great receivers. Notice the plural on that one.

Nebraska football needs to cook up some Golden Gophers

The elephant in the room is the firing of Penn State's head coach James Franklin. My two cents on the speculation of will they hire Rhule away question is - short answer, no. First of all, they are a place that fired a guy because he couldn't win big games against ranked teams. Um....no comment. They also fired a guy who was averaging 9.5 wins a season. Again, no comment. That's not a place where I would sprint to be first on interview day. Yes, it's his alma mater but how'd that work out for Scott Frost (NU), Luke Fickell (WI) or Billy Napier (FL). Tell ya what Penn State, I'll give you Mike Riley's phone number and we'll call it good. You can leave Rhule off your list. Keep your "it's not easy to find the campus, shady past, dirty mitts" off our coach. Will Rhule use it as leverage to better his deal? Magic 8-ball says "highly likely." Totally unrelated, is Penn State's offensive line coach any good?

This week's game involves a broken chair trophy. Not many people know that, still. It's also a game both coaches are using to highlight breast cancer awareness month so you will see pink accessories on both teams. Well done, coaches. Tip of the cap. That's where my niceness ends. Never been a fan of Gophers Head Coach PJ Fleck. I respect the skills, can't stand the guy. I'm sure it has to do a lot with the fact they have a 6-1 record against Big Red. Minnesota is coming off a late rally to beat Purdue and big losses against Ohio State (43-3), Rutgers (31/28) and UCLA (27-14) before they caught on fire. That's probably a bad reference for a California team, my bad. Gopher QB Drake Lindsey has a 60.1% completion rate, 9 TDs and 3 interceptions. Time for the Blackshirts to step up again.

Fortunately for Nebraska, this is not the normal Minnesota Gopher team that has a beast of an O and D Line and just grinds out rushing stats (currently ranked 115th) and chews clock like a herd of goats on grass. They will still slow down the game-clock but redshirt freshman QB Drake Lindsey likes to throw it too He's not a "mobile" QB like the Huskers have seen on rinse and repeat lately but, according to Mike'l Severe, he is good on the screen toss and the throws under 10 yards. He does tend to let it sail a bit in the long game and this is where our competitive DBs can make some hay. However, if Minnesota become frustrated in the pass game they try to run it like the old days. Their junior RB Darius Taylor is a little nicked up but can still tote the rock (55 attempts/205 yds). Freshman Fame Ijeboi has also about the same stats (48 att/225 yds).

Leading receivers to watch are #0 Le'Meke Brockington with 23 catches/253 yds, and #11 JaVon Tracy (16/253 yds) and tight end #86 Jason Geers (13/115). The Maryland game was physical and some of our defensive stars are a little banged up in the back end. The short week is not an advantage to our player health. Don't forget that DeShon Singleton, Dasan McCullough and Vincent Shavers Jr. all went down for a bit last week. Hartzog is still out. Since we are talking about the walking wounded, throw Jacory Barney and Elijah Pritchett in there too. I know they will play but they are not 100%.

I want to see the Huskers run the score up on Minnesota like freshman Husker Kenneth Williams ran up the field in Maryland to land into scholarship bounty. I worry about this being a trap game for Big Red but then I look at the mental fortitude it took to battle back and win the last two weeks and I can breathe, a little. I think the chances are low they lose focus. I want the Blackshirts to play with bad intentions and slobberknock the Gopher offense around the field like Elijah Juedy did to Aiden Chiles. I want Dylan Raiola to pick apart the stingy Gopher defense and most of all I want Emmett Johnson to make them wish they would have offered the currently #2 leading rusher in the nation a scholly.

Since you get to watch the game from home this week, my suggestion is to grill up a tasty burger for the game. Much like I want the Huskers to work the Gophers over the coals, it's the perfect weather to enjoy some evening grill time. Stuff a burger with a mixture of cream cheese, scallions and fresh garlic. Top it with some BBQ sauce and you really don't even need a bun.

Next week the Huskers are back at home and I'll be making up some tasty treats for the Halloween game. In the meantime, keep traveling to support your team Husker Nation (late shout out for the 10,000 in attendance in Maryland) and most of all, GO BIG RED!