Minnesota Golden Gophers vs South Dakota Coyotes Football Recap

South Dakota 41, Minnesota 38

The Tim Brewster era is on very thin ice… and it isn’t even winter in Minneapolis.

It was alarming enough that in week one, the Minnesota Golden Gophers struggled to put away Middle Tennessee State, a team that was playing without its heralded starting quarterback, Dwight Dasher. Any competent Big Ten program should be able to whack a Sun Belt team deprived of its main offensive force. Yet, Minnesota barely nudged Middle Tennessee by a shaky 24-17 score. That game put the good people of the Twin Cities on edge, and in week two, the Gophers fell off that edge.

The 2010 home opener was a disaster for the Golden Gophers, whose embarrassing loss to FCS opponent South Dakota was primarily the product of a nonexistent defense. USD gashed the Minnesota defense all day and left a lot of Gopher holes in a humbled Big Ten team’s gleaming new ballyard, TCF Bank Stadium.  The Coyotes led for the last 52:35 on the way to a monumental upset that has stirred up the winds of intrigue in the great North.

Minnesota allowed 444 yards of total offense.  Coyotes quarterback Dante Warren completed 21 of 30 passes for 352 yards and three touchdowns, and ran the ball 10 times for 81 yards and two scores.

Warren exposed a young Minnesota defense that returned just two starters, neither of whom has played yet this season.

South Dakota scored its first touchdown on its second possession.  After taking over on the Minnesota 37-yard line due to a kick-catch interference penalty, South Dakota needed just two plays to take a 7-3 lead on Chris Ganious’ one-yard touchdown run.

Minnesota stalled on a fourth-down attempt on the ensuing possession, and Warren led the Coyotes on a 70-yard drive that ended on a 14-yard touchdown pass to Will Powell.

Adam Weber’s 49-yard touchdown strike to Troy Stoudermire brought Minnesota back within one possession, but the Coyotes took a 21-10 lead into halftime thanks to a 26-yard touchdown pass from Warren to Chris Ganious.

Halftime changed nothing, as Warren came out firing once again, hitting Powell for a 61-yard touchdown on the Coyotes’ third play of the second half to give South Dakota a 28-10 lead.

Gophers quarterback Adam Weber did the best he could, completing 21 of 31 passes for 258 yards and three scores, but the defense couldn’t stop Warren, who had touchdown runs of 25 and 26 yards in the second half to keep the Coyotes ahead.

This is such a damaging loss not just because it shows that the so-so performance against Middle Tennessee was not an aberration. This loss is awful because when Minnesota was making bowl games (just not upper-tier ones) in the Glen Mason era, U of M Athletic Director Joel Maturi – who was doing fundraising for the building of TCF Bank Stadium – felt that the program wasn’t making sufficient progress. Maturi sacked Mason in favor of Brewster before the 2007 campaign. Now, four years into the Brewster era, the Gophers show signs of regressing from the modest standards set by Mason. This is nothing less than a crisis for the Minnesota program. TCF Bank Stadium cost a pretty penny, and it needs to be filled with enthusiastic crowds. A loss to an FCS opponent will make it hard for Maturi to keep Brewster around much longer.

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