As the calendar reaches the last week of November and December looms around the corner with the upcoming shortest days of sunlight, I am going to do a bit of reflecting on a few state-wide and national sporting event happenings, rather than mentioning what’s going on around the area high schools.
First, how about those Minnesota Gophers? Two big-time one-sided upsets in three of their last Big 10 football games, blasting Purdue at home back on November 10 (final score of 41-10, if you just heard the score you would have surely thought that Purdue won by that margin) and then taking it to the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall in Madison last Saturday (November 14), 37-15.
The victory over Wisconsin was the first for the Gophers since 2003 and Minnesota’s first win at Camp Randall since 1994. That was an amazing accomplishment, finally winning back Paul Bunyan’s Axe. PJ Fleck’s young squad — he repeatedly says that the Gophers are the “youngest team in America” — will get to play in a Bowl game and extend their 2018 season with a chance to finish above .500 (they are 6-6 right now).
How about the Vikings holding off the Packers Sunday night? It was impressive after the defeat in Chicago the previous Sunday night. Adam Thielen had several spectacular — just amazing — catches as he finished with eight receptions for 125 yards, giving him a season-total of 93 catches (two more in 11 games than his 91 through 16 games in 2017) for 1,138 yards — which is 138 yards shy of his last year’s total of 1,276 yards. Not bad for an undrafted free agent out of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota who played his collegiate football at Mankato State.
And yes, I’ll admit Kirk Cousins was impressive. He completed 29-of-38 passes for 342 yards, including three touchdown passes and no interceptions. Cousins was not so good in the loss to the Bears.
I still like Case Keenum and he had a good game Sunday as the Broncos upset the mighty Pittsburgh Steelers. Keenum led Denver on a couple of clutch scoring drives and finished 15-of-28 for 197 yards and a pair of TD passes. For the season, Keenum has completed 62.6 percent of his passes and has thrown for 2,802 yards — an average of 7.2 yards per attempt. He has three games over 300 yards, including a high of 377.
In contrast, Cousins has completed 71.1 percent of his passes for 3,289 yards — an average of 7.4 yards per attempt. His stats are a bit better — but not three times better! We’ll see how the highly-paid Cousins does in the upcoming roads games at New England and Seattle. I still liked Keenum’s gutsy performances last year, helping the Vikings win 13 of 16 regular-season games and throwing the miraculous pass to Stefon Diggs for the game-winner in the playoff game against the Saints.
I don’t follow the Timberwolves much. But the whole Jimmy Butler fiasco was interesting. But apparently, the Wolves are doing fine without him and drawing big-time crowds. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s “general soreness” issues have healed up after moving east to Philadelphia.
With that said, I am looking forward to the upcoming high school sports season which will have its share of ups and downs like every season does. Be sure to stay positive as you watch your favorite teams compete and remember that the other team — the opponent — is prepared and wants to do its best, too. Enjoy the winter.
