Saturday brings the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers to the Horseshoe in Columbus. Vegas has installed the Gophers as 27 point underdogs for the contest. Minnesota comes in with a 3-5 record having played Michigan tough 28-14 in one of those losses and Penn State in another handed to them in overtime by a bad officials call. Their last two games have been a disaster though losing 48-12 to Wisconsin and barely beating IAA North Dakota State at home, 10-9 last week.

You might recall last year UMinn participated in a track meet with the Bucks, rolling up 576 yards of offense and scoring 31 points only to lose 45-31 in the end. This team isn’t anywhere close to last year’s Minnesota team. Plus, their best player, TE Matt Speath, will be out due to injury for this game. Hmm. It’s played at Ohio State, against a team that can’t seem to generate offense (48th) nor seem to stop anyone on defense (66th,) that leads to a pretty grim prognosis for the Golden Gophers.

For the record, I still think this season we’ll see a close game where the weather, injuries, lack of focus make it tougher than it should be on paper to get the win. But it’s not going to be this week. The Bucks win this one going away 45-10.

Ohio State’s 2006 record: 8-0 Next up: Minnesota 10/28
Tune: Bang on the Drum All Day by Todd Rundgren
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