everybody knows my name

Evidently, Hüsker Dü.

It's impossible for Nebraska's offensive to surprise anyone, with all the yapping you Husker fans do. We already know that you have a Heisman-quality quarterback and the best WR in the Big Ten!

This is a reach. If they're unproven, then the only thing you have to hang your hat on is that you think your backups are good. I could play that game too, but what's the point? Both teams have backup QBs who the coaches thought enough of to recruit them and offer them scholarships, but who haven't proved a thing on the field.

Every defense has better games and worse games. But when you give up 42, 48, 30, 53, 31, and 55 points in consecutive games, it's a trend. Husker fans seem to think that hanging 53 on the Gophers last year was something great, but two weeks later Illinois scored 55 on us. Illinois! No wonder Robb Smith got fired. Then they gave up 10, 24, 15, and 10 in the remaining four games. That's a trend, too.

What you need to do then, is provide your own analysis that shows more knowledge of both teams than mine did.

We had a very, very bad defensive coordinator. We lost major blowouts to Maryland, Nebraska, and Illinois.

Offense QB: edge Nebraska - no question your guy is a weapon, while our guy (Morgan) is functional. Neither team has great depth. OL: edge Minnesota - we were okay for half of 2018, then tremendous when Faalele started playing. Between the two teams I think the three best OL (Connor Olson, Blaise Andries, Daniel Faalale) are all Gophers. RB: edge Minnesota - Ibrahim exceeded 1000 yards as a freshman, then there's Rodney Smith and Shannon Brooks - those three are all killers. TE: even WR: edge Minnesota - I like Spielman a lot, but he's only one guy. You're going to miss Stanley Morgan a lot. Tyler Johnson is better than Spielman, Rashod Bateman is better than Johnson was at the same point in his career, and Demetrius Douglas and Chris Autman-Bell both have great potential. Defense DL: edge Nebraska - but only slightly. You have better talent overall, while we have the best individual player in Coughlin. LB: edge Minnesota - our boys are going to excel this year. Thomas Barber and Kamal Martin are experienced and both will probably see the field in the NFL, and Thomas Rush looks like the next big thing. Your LB corps is pretty good, could be very good, but not equal to ours in 2019. CB: edge Minnesota - this wasn't a strength for either team last year, but we cleaned up our schemes and got much better in the last few games. Your CB performance needs to improve; ours already did. S: What you said is fair. Winfield is probably the best Safety in the B1G, but nobody knows it yet. The balance of this group favors Nebraska, but Winfield is a huge wildcard. edge Minnesota. Special Teams Correct me if I'm wrong, but your kicking game is nothing special and neither is ours. But we excelled last year in the return game.

When you say you have better team talent you're going by recruiting rankings, not performance on the field. I think if you stacked them up position-by-position, based on performance, Minnesota comes out on top. You do have a better QB, though.

Yeah, there's no question when you read it that the "but" is going to be that Nebraska is turning it around. I think that my Gophers are a step ahead of Nebraska in building something special, but we have to work extra hard to stay ahead, because Nebraska is (not this year but maybe next) going to turn the corner and be great soon.

MSN: Nebraska Sucks and Watch Out for Minnesota (or something like that) "Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska. The college football world is having a love affair with a team that went 4-8 last season and has massive question marks on defense coming into the season, but..." https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/college-football-2019-five-dangerous-teams-no-one-is-talking-about/ar-AAFJrar?ocid=ientp

I cannot.

It's almost always the kool aid talking, but that's okay. We just drink different colors of kool aid.

Needless to say, the goal is to do all things well. If we don't have a balanced attack this season that'll be a huge disappointment to up-and-coming sophomore receivers Rashod Bateman and Demetrius Douglass.

Of course we can't. You're Nebraska. Nobody can stop you.

Trying to be realistic here, not a pollyana...We won 7 last year with a bad DC and a young roster. Aside from Cashman and the Huff brothers, we have almost everyone back on offense and defense. Tyler Johnson is #1 or #2 WR in the conference, Rodney Smith is arguably top 3 among RBs. Carter Coughlin is a monster at DE, and our LBs are stellar. The OL is gargantuan and rapidly improving. If Antoine Winfield Jr can stay healthy he'll finally be recognized as the best safety in the B1G. I guess Annexstad's foot injury means we know who the QB will be. If we win fewer than 8 this season Fleck should be flogged. Nine is to be expected and more would be nice. After trying to tamp down expectations his first two seasons, Fleck is talking the team up now: "I haven't been this excited in a long time." He knows all this is true.

Well I like it, but I don't get quite that excited about it. Oh, you said organic. Never mind.

Bemidji is a nice town. Pretty close (120 miles) to where I live. Home of the Bemidji State Beavers D1 hockey program.

Three national championships in the '30s, two in the '40s, and one in the '60s. Our last Big Ten title was in '67. So you're pretty close.

That's inexcusable on Minnesota's part. We should have made that rivalry meaningful, but we couldn't. For many years starting in the '60s our administration was at war with the athletic department. We even had presidents who wanted to discontinue athletics altogether. There's no reason a huge school with gigantic resources should be a 98 lb weakling. Thankfully we have moved on from that dark period. But it's taken many years to get back to the point of expecting to win.

Beating Nebraska is nothing compared to winning the jug. Tragically we don't get to play for it every year anymore.

You don't need to concern yourself with someone else's trophy. Since 2013 Minnesota and Nebraska are 3-3 head to head, smug guy.

I am always around. If things go badly for the Gophers you can use my pride to light your cigars. But if the Gophers beat Nebraska, look out.

We didn't run on the Huggies last year because we fell behind early. Instead we passed, and I think we scored 22 straight on Nebraska, but our defense was a train wreck. Talented players with no idea what to do. So we fired our DC, promoted a new DC, and played better defense while running poor Purdue, Wisconsin, and Georgia Tech into the ground. But the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. We will see what actually happens on the field.

I guess we should thank the Huskiers for that. If we hadn't lost to Nebraska and Illinois in embarrassing fashion we wouldn't have fired our DC and finished strong like we did.