My  God.  Hello  and welcome  back  to  the  weekly  rundown presented  by  the  Minnesota  Daily. I'm  your  host,  Paul  Tawana, the  sports  editor  of  the  Minnesota  Daily. And  we  are  back  to  talking  football  today. And  to  do  that,  we  brought  back  one  of our  football  reporters,  Nick  Young. Make  sure  to  check  out  Nick's  work  and  you  can  pick  it  up at  pretty  much  any  university  building  on  campus. And  you  can  find  it  online  at Mendaily.com  How  are  you  doing  today,  Nick? You're  doing  great.  Let's  get  down  to  it. So  the  Gophers  end  their  non  conference  schedule. They  were  30,  start  the  year  there. Consecutive  non  conference  win  record  is  behind  them. And  the  next  time  they  might  play one  of  those  is  in  a  bowl  game. But  to  get  to  a  bowl  game, they're  going  to  have  to  take  on the  meat  of  their  schedule, which  is  the  Big  Ten  season. So  before  we  preview  Purdue  and  everything  that Purdue  will  offer  and  have  against  the  Gophers, I  want  to  do  a  little  bit  of  a  non  conference  takeaways. Just  the  big  picture  ideas  that  we  can look  at  that  made the  gophers  successful  in  non  conference. And  even  though  three  and  maybe  stuff  that held  them  back  a  little  bit that  they're  going  to  have  to  work  on. So  the  first  one  is  they've  been  trailing  in  pretty  much every  game  and  they've found  a  way  to  come  back  in  each  one. And  so  that's  a  valuable  skill to  have  that  you  can  fight  back. And  even  though  you  might  not  have  your  a  game, you're  able  to  kind  of  come  away  with  a  win. Is  that  something  that  they've  talked  about? Is  that  something  PJ. Fleck  has  highlighted  that  this  team has  been  doing  really  well  at? Absolutely.  You  can  look  at the  Gophers  start  the  season  two  ways. One,  they've  blown a  double  digit  lead  in  every  game  so  far, But  they've  also  come  back  in the  fourth  quarter  and  over  time to  win  all  those  games.  So  PJ. Fleck  has  talked  about  taking  out  the  positives being  three  and  that's  where  the  team  wanted  to  be. But  he  also  says  you  have to  consider  how  the  team  is  playing. Because  at  this  point  in  the  season, wins  and  losses  don't  necessarily  tell  the  whole  picture. You  have  to  look  at  how  the  team  has  been  playing, and  right  now  it's  been  pretty  inconsistent. But  they  are  definitely  satisfied  to  be  undefeated. Yeah.  Let's  start  with  one  of  those  inconsistent, inconsistent  inconsistencies. Sorry.  And  that's  running  the  ball. Some  drives  they  look  like  they're  lost. The  offense  of  line  can't  block  anyone. And  then  towards  the  end  of  the  game, sometimes  they've  got  it  going. It's  a  little,  it's  a  little  puzzling. And  considering  the  fact  that  most  of the  offensive  linemen  are  returning  from  last  year, a  lot  of  their  running  Backs  are  returning  last  year, healthy  running  backs  this  year. So  why  do  you  think their  run  offense  has  been  inconsistent? What  do  they  need  to  work  on  going  into  big  time  play? Well,  definitely  with  the  offensive  line. I  think  that's  the  main  thing  with  the  Running  Backs, You  know  what  you've  been  getting. But  Coach  Fleck  has  talked  about  that  even  though they  have  a  lot  of  promising talent  on  the  offensive  line, they  do  still  have  some  young  guys. And  even  though  those  young  guys  have  experience, they're  still  learning  looking  at the  right  side  of  the  offensive  line. Daniel  Falle  is  only  in his  third  or  fourth  year  of  actually  playing  football. And  then  Curtis  Dunlap  Junior, he  played  last  year  a  little  bit  as  a  freshman, but  this  is  his  first  time  getting  full  reps, playing  the  whole  game  and  starting. And  he's  still  learning  the  system  a  little  bit  too. And  that's  the  right  side  of  your  offensive  line, where  you  usually  want  to  be  running  behind. There  have  been  times  when the  offensive  line  has  looked  good. You  can  look  at  Rodney  Smith's  performance  in the  second  half  against  South  Dakota  State, that  last  fourth  quarter  drive  where  the  Gophers  scored, he  had  a  nice  drive  there. And  then  not  last  week in  Georgia  Southern  game  two  weeks  ago, he  had  over  5  yards  a carry  before  he  had  to  leave  with  the  injury. Yeah,  those  injuries  are  something  that  has plagued  the  backfield  a  little  bit, but  it  sounds  like  with  the  bye  week,  Smith  will  be  back. Ibrahim  sounds  like  he'll  be  back. And  then  Shannon  Brooks  who they  haven't  had  since  last  year. Sounds  like  he's  going  to  be  back. Have  they  discussed  who  they  believe  will  be  available, who's  going  to  get  the  majority  of  the  carries  at  all, or  is  it  do  we  think  it's  going  to  be  that  running  back by  committee  that  we've  seen  throughout the  start  of  the  year  so  far. Pj.  Fleck  has  talked  about wanting  to  get  all  his  running  Backs  involved, saying  how  they  all  bring  a little  something  to  the  table. So  I  think  as  the  season  goes  on, we're  going  to  continue  to  see  everybody that  full  compliment  of  Backs trying  to  work  as  many  of  them  in  as  possible, but  they  can  also  roll with  whoever  is  having  a  good  game. But  they  have  talked  a  lot about  Shannon  Brooks  coming  back. They  expect  him,  as  well  as  Ibrahim  and  Smith, to  be  available  for  this  game. So  it  looks  like  those  three  should  all  be  good  to  go. Yeah.  And  one  thing,  if  they  can  get  those  guys  go, and  then  the  two  headed receiving  monster  that  the  Golphers seem  to  have  at  the  start  of  the  year, Rashad  Bateman  and  Tyler  Johnson. That's  only  going  to  make  them  better. If  the  running  game  is  working, that's  gonna  open  up  some  holes. The  linebackers  will  come  in  on the  bite  on  the  play  action, and  those  guys  will  be  open  in  the  middle  of  the  field. And  that's  one  of  my  other  takeaways  is those  two  guys  how  well  they've  been  playing  Bateman, he  had  the  first  two  games  of  the  season  did  really  well. And  then  they  finally  got found  a  way  to  get  Tyler  Johnson  involved. And  you  saw  what  happened,  three  touchdowns. So  my  question  is, how  do  they  work  in  tandem  together? What  do  they  say  about  each  other? What  do  the  flecks  say  about  them  and  how  they Able  to  work  together  to  just  give  troubles  to  offenses. Well,  in  general,  it's  never  a  bad  thing to  have  a  lot  of  depth  at  the  skill  position. The  more  guys  you  have  who  can potentially  be  dangerous  with  the  ball, the  more  the  defense  has  to  worry  about. Right  now,  I  think  the  Gophers  and  Coach  Fleck  are really  happy  about  the  depth they  have  at  all  those  positions. They  feel  like  they  have  a  plan  where  they  can  get everybody  involved  and  everyone can  be  productive  in  the  offense. Opposing  defenses  can't  get  too comfortable  either  guarding  the  run  or  guarding  the  past because  there  are  people  in  both  facets  who can  have  big  games.  Ducti. Exactly.  So  those  will  all  be  keys  that  we'll be  looking  at  as  they  head  into  Big  Ten  play. And  their  first  opponent  is  Purdue, the  Purdue  Boiler  Makers. They  will  go  on  the  road  to West  Lafayette  this  week  to  play  Purdue. And  Purdue  got  a  little  bit of  a  rocky  start  to  their  season. They're  only  1.2  They  lost 31  to  34  on  the  road  to  Nevada  in their  opening  game  before heading  back  home  for  two  games  where they  won  the  first  of  them  against  Vanderbilt,  42,  24. And  then  lost  to  TCU  last  week,  34. 13.  Not  a  close  game. And  one  of  the  problems  that  they  had  in that  game  was  they  didn't have  their  quarterback  available. They're  starting  Quarterback  Elijah  Sindelar got  a  concussion  in  the  Vanderbilt  game, I  believe,  and  is  still  questionable  with  that. I  believe  as  early  as  Monday, they  were  still  wondering whether  he  was  going  to  be  ready. They  said  the  week  before, he  had  been  playing  really  well  and then  had  been  practicing  really  well. Looked  like  he  may  have  been  ready  for that  TCU  game  and  then  just  had  a  couple  setbacks. And  he's  important  to  their  offense. He  had  932  yards  and  nine  touchdowns  when  he  got  injured. Both  those  were  top  in  the  nation, so  he  can  sling  it  and  it's  a  big  loss. And  if  he  doesn't  play, they're  resorting  to  a  Redshirt  Freshman  Jack  Plummer, who  against  TCU,  had 181  yards  a  touchdown  in  two  interceptions. So  definitely  not  the  greatest  doubting, and  definitely  who  the  Gophers  would  rather  face. And  Jeff  Brohm,  the  head  coach  of  the  Boilermakers, said  he's  confident  in  plumber. But  I  think  you  have  to  say  you're happy  with  your  back up  quarterback  going  into  these  games. You  want  to  give  him  confidence.  So  I'm  not  sure  how much  we  can  take  in  from  that. So  what  has  Fleck  been  saying? What  has  Joe  Rossi,  the  defensive  coordinator, been  saying  about  what CindelRor  plumber  will  present  and  what  may be  the  difference  of  having  one  of  them  in  as opposed  to  the  other  will  have. Well,  they've  both  been  echoing the  sentiment  of  Jeff  Brohm  and  that they're  preparing  for  both  and  they feel  both  can  be  effective  quarterbacks. Cindelr  obviously  has  the  better  numbers, the  more  experience  in  the  system. Even  going  back  to  2017, Cindolar  was  splitting  time  with  David  Blough, who's  now  in  the  NFL  on  the  Lions, and  he's  been  a  pretty  good  quarterback in  the  Big  Ten  for  a  while  now, it  shouldn't  come  as  a  huge  surprise  that  he got  off  to  such  a  hot  start  this  season. But  Jack  Plummer  last  game, he  struggled  a  little  bit. He  didn't  get  much  help. His  receivers  dropped  a  few  balls  early. And  then  once  Purdue  fell  behind  and got  into  some  obvious  passing  situations, the  TCU  pass  rush  started  to  cause  him  problems. But  Purdue,  one  thing  that  Fleck  has  said, and  looking  at  the  tape  from  last  week, it  doesn't  look  like  they're  going  to change  their  offense  much  at all  no  matter  who's  behind,  behind  the  center. You  know,  their  rushing  attack hasn't  really  been  that  great. This  year  they  rank  129th, which  is  second  to  last,  and  FBS, so  they  want  to  throw  the  ball, they've  attempted  over  twice, as  many,  almost  twice  as  many  passes  as  rushing  attempts. This  year  they  were  pass  heavy  offense. So  no  matter  who's  behind  center, they're  going  to  try  to  run their  system  which  is  very  pass  heavy. Yeah.  And  you  can't  count  out  Jeff  Brohm. He  gets  a  lot of  credit  for  kind  of  revitalizing  that  program. They  were  worried  he  might  leave  and  go to  Louisville  in  the  off  season. They  were  really  excited  when  he decided  to  stay  and  re  up  them, so  you  can  never  count  him  out. But  let's  focus  a  little  bit  now  on  the  Purdue  defense, which  just  going  through the  point  totals  hasn't  been  great. Obviously  34  points  to  Nevada,  24  to  Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt's  not  a  great  team  in that  CC  and  then  TC,  obviously  34. So  they're  having  a  little  bit  of trouble  of  keeping  points  off  the  board. They're  rushing  defense  ranks  90th  in  the  nation. They're  allowing  almost  5  yards  to  carry. So  good  for  the  Gophers  who  maybe  have  been  struggling, maybe  they  can  get  something  going  against  them. Especially  in  that  TCU  game  where  they didn't  barely  threw  the  ball  at  all. I  think  they  only  had  like  70  passing  yards, but  they  had  370  on  the  ground. And  so  when  you're  when  you're  scoring  34  points and  you're  only  having  70  yards  over  the  air, they're  going  to  have  a  productive  day  rushing. And  that's  what  they  did,  it  was  6  yards  per  carry. And  then  the  first  two  games, they  weren't  that  bad  against  the  run, but  it  was  hard  to  stop  the  passing  game. They  allowed  378  yards  and  two  touchdowns  to Vanderbilt  and  295  yards  and  three  touchdowns  to  Nevada. And  their  pass  defense  ranks  102nd  in  the  nation in  passing  yards  allowed  some  holes  on  the  defense. What  have  the  office  players  been  saying  about, or  Flex  been  saying  about  what  they  need  to  do to  kind  of  capitalize  on  those  deficiencies? Well,  I  think  it  comes  back  to the  wealth  of  talent  the  Gophers  have, both  at  the  running  back  and  the  wide  receiver  position, that  they  feel  like  they  can  run  and  pass  effectively. Passing  certainly  has  been  really  good  so  far  this  year. Rushing  wise,  they  have  some  areas  to  improve, but  they  feel  like  getting  Shannon  Brooks  back and  getting  that  rotation  of  backs  going. They  think  they  can  improve  on  that  as the  big  ten  pulls  along  here. Which  is  something  they'll  have  to  do because  like  I  said  before, they've  blown  double  digit  leads  in every  game  and  ended  up  falling  behind. You  have  to  have  a  running  attack  that  can  control the  ball  a  little  bit  and  prevent teams  from  getting  back  in  the  game. Yeah.  And  the  Gophers  would  put  up  28  points, 38  points,  and  35  points. So  they  can  put  it  up  there  when  they're  playing  well. And  it  sounds  like  Produce  is gonna  give  them  an  opportunity  to  do  that. So  if  Produce  is  going  to  be  in  this  game, it  looks  like  it  might  kind  of  be  a  shootout. Might  kind  of  come  down to  the  Quarterbacks  if  Cinelar  can go  and  if  Tanner  Morgan can  kind  of  continue  to  put  up  production, which  he  has  so  far  this  year. And  the  thing  that  the  gophers are  going  to  have  to  worry  about  on defense  is  Purdue  pass  catcher  Rondale  Moore. The  wide  receiver  won  a  ton of  awards.  He's  only  a  sophomore. In  his  freshman  year  he  won, he  was  on  the  first  team  all  American  team. He  was  the  Big  Ten  wide  receiver  of  the  year. I  believe  he  set  some  program  records. He  had  1,258  yards  and  12  touchdowns  last  year. This  season  most  of his  production  did  come  with  Sindelar. He  didn't  have  that  great  of  a  game  with  Plumber, but  Plumber  didn't  have  a  great  game all  around  for  the  season. He's  got  27  receptions, 369  yards,  and  two  touchdowns. He's  a  threat,  might, might  be  better  than  the  two  headed  monster  that the  Gophers  have  in  Tyler  Johnson  and  Racha  Bateman. What  is  Rossi?  What  have  the  cornerbacks  highlighted when  they're  talking  about  how  to  stop  Rondale  Moore? Yeah,  Rondale  Moore  is  a  huge  challenge. You  definitely  have  to  watch  out  when number  four  Purdue  has  the  ball. So  those  records  he  set  last  year over  2,200  yards  all  purpose. That  was  a  program  record. The  first  consensus  all  American  in Big  Ten  history  as  a  freshman,  first  freshman. To  accomplish  that,  the  Gophers, Rossi  and  the  Defensive  Backs  have  talked about  trying  to  contain  him  when  he's  in  space. He's  a  really  tough  guy to  stop  when  he  has  the  ball  in  his  hands. He  can  break  tackles, he  has  a  lot  of  speed, he  can  make  defenders  miss  really. Once  he  gets  the  ball  in  his  hands  heading  down  field, he  can  make  one  cut  and  take the  ball  to  the  end  zone  from  anywhere. That's  the  main  thing  they're  focusing  on. Coach  Flex  said  that  it's  really  hard  to limit  his  touches  because  they get  him  going  in  so  many  ways. In  addition  to  passing  the  ball, they'll  get  him  going  on  reverses  and  jet  sweeps. He'll  return  kicks,  so  he's  going to  have  the  ball  in  his  hands  at  some  point. Had  a  pretty  good  game  against  the  Gophers  last  year. Had  eight  catches,  only  76  yards  and  a  touchdown. That  was  not  very  far  out, but  still  a  threat  in  the  red  zone  too. So  all  around  he's  a  very  complete  receiver, and  he'll  definitely  be the  guy  that  the  Gophers  defense  is  skiing  in  on. Yeah,  and  special  teams  will  be  big  too, because  if  he  is  returning  those  punts, if  he's  returning  kicks,  the  gophers, I  know  there's  been  a  couple called  back  because  of  penalties, but  they  have  looked  like  maybe their  special  teams  are  a little  bit  susceptible  to  a  return  coming  back. So  it'll  be  interesting  to  see  if  they  kick  at  him, if  they  kick  away  from  him,  and  how  that  works. And  that's  going  to  be  one  of  the  big takeaways  of  the  game. Do  you  have  any  other  big  takeaways  that you  see  the  gophers  will  need  to do  to  capitalize  and get  out  of  West  Lafayette  with  a  win? Yeah,  there  are  a  couple  of  things  defensively. The  Gophers  are  going  to  have  to  do a  little  better  on  first  down. That's  been  a  struggle. They've  allowed  some  big  chunk  plays, so  they've  been  able  to  get  off  the  field  once. They've  forced  opponents  into  third  down  situations. Problem  has  been  on  those  early  downs is  when  opponents  have  really  hurt  the  gophers. Then  also  gophers. Offensively,  they've  been  pretty efficient  picking  up  third  downs. Saw  stat  this  morning  from Andy  Greeter  from  the  Pioneer  Press. Tanner  Morgan  on  third  down. He  has  the  second  highest  quarterback  ranking in  the  quarterback  rating  in  the  nation. I  think  that  those  are  going  to  be  some  of  the  keys  that the  Gophers  will  focus  on  keeping  up. Sure.  And  the  gopher  has  opened as  a  one  point  favorite  and  produce, so  they're  predicting  it's  going  to  be  a  close  game. It'll  be  interesting  to  watch.  It's  nice  to  have Gopher  football  back  after  the  week  off. I  know  they  needed  it,  but I'm  not  sure  we  needed  the  break. I'm  ready  to  get  back  going.  Keep  watching  them. And  thank  you,  Nick, for  being  on  this  podcast  today. And  we'll  look  forward  to  Nick's  work as  well  as  John  Miller's  work. The  other  football  reporter,  they'll  have the  analysis  coming  right  after  the  game. So  make  sure  to  watch Emenday.com  Make  sure  to  follow  me  on  Twitter. Paul  underscore  dowanic  and  make  sure  to  follow  Nick. Nick,  what's  your  Twitter  handle  and  young  Heim  day. Awesome.  Well,  thank  you,  Nick. Thank  you. In  other  news,  the volleyball  team  played  twice  last  week, beating  Clemson  and  Orl  Roberts  in straight  sets  to  win  the  Diet  Coke  Classic. The  women  head  into  the  Big  Ten  schedule  at  6.2  and play  Indiana  and  Purdue  at  home  in  Iowa  on  the  road. In  the  next  week,  the  women's  soccer  team dropped  a  pair  of  matches  over  the  weekend, falling  to  Rutgers  and  Maryland  by  the  same  score,  20. The  record  now  sits  at  17.2  and  they take  on  Penn  State  and  Ohio  State  at  home  this  weekend. The  cross  country  teams  are  finally  about  to return  to  action  after  a  three  week  hiatus. They  host  the  Roy  Greek  Invitation  on Saturday  at  Lesboltad  Golf  Course  in  St.  ⁇  Paul, make  sure  to  check  out  our  extensive coverage  of  the  meet  online Atmdaily.com  We  have  previews going  from  our  great  reporter, Brendan  O'brien,  and  we  will  have all  the  reaction  after  the  race  as  well. Winter  sports  are  beginning  to  b  up, and  the  first  one  to  get  going  in the  regular  season  is  the  women's  hockey  team  after  they won  a  pair  of  exhibition  games  against the  Toronto  Arrows  and  the  Minnesota  Whitecaps. They  are  now  at  home  and  will  be  playing Colgate  on  Friday  and  Saturday  night. That's  all  we  have  for  you  today. We'll  be  back  again  next  week  to  give  you the  weekly  rundown  on  all  things  Gopher  sports. Don't  forget  to  share,  subscribe  and  review. We'll  see  everyone  next  week.