Who do you schedule after you finish a season 1-11? Someone who was 2-10 and in a “lesser” conference. And that’s exactly what Minnesota Golden Gophers did when they put Northern Illinois on the schedule, and hopefully it will pay off. When you put together two teams that won 3 out of 21, anything can happen, I guess.

Minnesota will rely upon the arms and legs of Adam Weber, who started all of last season and set several Gopher records, despite the team’s overall futility. While he lead the team in rushing last year, many fans would hope that he wouldn’t necessarily have to do that this year, but sorry folks–he just may. Minnesota’s usual tradition of solid running backs just doesn’t look like it is going to materialize this year, unfortunately. The defense is young but hungry, and face a good running back from NIU in Justin Anderson, who averaged more than 100 ypg last year, and also a decent QB in Dan Nicholson. However, even with these two, the Huskies are a bit overmatched, especially in the sense that Minnesota coach Tim Brewster has the Minnesota faithful clearly behind him, and the momentum for the team to start out big is very probable.

Minnesota is an eight point favorite for the game, and this really will be a defensive struggle, as both teams have their strengths on offense and both teams have a lot of issues on defense still. However, even with these issues, the Golden Gophers starting at home, combining with the experience that Weber brings, I’m definitely going with the Gophers to equal last season’s win total. The tally: Minnesota 38, Northern Illinois 24.