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Okay, it was a long shot anyway. The Minnesota Golden Gophers would have needed Ohio State to lose one more game down the stretch. Then they had to hope that the Rose Bowl committee would continue to favor tradition over justice by picking a two-loss Big Ten team over a one-loss team from some other conference. The latter is likely (they took a three-loss Illinois team last year, didn't they?); the former, quite unlikely.Still, how could you not root for them? On a day when Michigan's plus-size bowl streak came to an end, Minnesota's Rose Bowl drought is now guaranteed to continue. How long has it been since the Gophers played in Pasadena? Here's a clue: The last time the Gophers played in a Rose Bowl, it was the first time a nationally-broadcast college football game was shown in color. That would be January 1, 1962. Current Gopher coach Tim Brewster was just a little over a year old.
Then again, it's pretty obvious the Gophers are about a year away from contending for a title. Today Minnesota blitzed early and often, gambling that Northwestern's backup QB Mike Kafka wasn't quite ready for a big game. That proved to be a bad bet.
Kafka burned the Gophers over the top, hitting Jeremy Ebert for a touchdown on the sort of pass we used to call a "bomb." When Ted Roof's defense starting cheating backwards to take away the deep threat, Kafka started running. And running. And running some more. He rushed for 215 yards total, including four runs over 20 yards.
Of course, it wasn't all perfect for Kafka. He threw two interceptions, one of them a Pick Six. That's part of why this game was tied at 17 until late in the fourth. Minnesota's Adam Weber gift-wrapped an interception of his own, which Brendan Smith returned to put the Wildcats up 24-17. On the last play, the Gophers tried to go all Trinity versus Millsaps, but failed when Adam Weber fumbled. Too bad for them, but it gives me a chance to run this:
You can never see that enough.
There will be brighter days for the Gophers, of course. If they can stay solid down the stretch, they'll play on New Year's Day. It'll just be on the other side of the country from Pasadena. And Tim Brewster just may be the one to break the drought someday.
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