Based on offensive and defensive starting lineups, key reserves, and special teams, the Gophers will easily have a double digit total of players participating in their first college game on the road Saturday at Bowling Green.  The Falcons upset No. 25 ranked Pittsburgh last weekend.

Adam Weber, the Gophers’ redshirt sophomore quarterback, is already a team captain, leader and someone who experienced his first road start a year ago in a loss at Florida Atlantic.  He was asked by Sports Headliners last week about the road experience.

“It’s your first time getting away from your comfort zone,” he said.  “We’ve been in Minnesota for the first month practicing against ourselves and you get in that first road game and it’s going to be interesting because you’re in unfamiliar territory.  You’re in your other school’s place.  It’s that first time where you really have to overcome a lot of things. …”

Is it a jitters situation for someone who has never played before?  “It can be,” Weber said.  “… I know for me it was.  It was surreal.  It took awhile to get used to things.  Being such a young team (the Gophers have only 12 seniors), we’re going to have to calm down probably a lot of guys out there.  But they’ve played football before and the game doesn’t change from high school to here.  It’s all the same thing.  It’s just a little faster, a little bigger, and they’ll quickly adjust.”

Weber’s father, Bobby, played defensive back for the Gophers in the 1970s.  Weber said his dad helped him learn to focus and reminded him football is just a game.

“My dad loves football and I see it in him every single day,” Weber said.  “And I think that helps because seeing someone love a sport that much. …Sometimes you go out to practice and you’re hurting a little bit, and you don’t want to put on the pads, and you think I know my dad or some of those old timers would give up anything to come back out there and do it again.  It keeps things in check for me.”

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The Bowling Green team the Gophers play on Saturday (6:30 p.m. start, ESPN U) is coached by Gregg Brandon.  He’s in his sixth season after succeeding Urban Meyer who left for Utah and is now head coach at Florida.  The Falcons, who lost 63-7 to Tulsa in the GMAC Bowl last January, return eight starters on offense and defense, and are favorites to win the Mid-American Conference East Division championship.  Bowling Green, 8-5 last season including the bowl loss, beat an underachieving team in Pittsburgh last Saturday.

Former Minneapolis Patrick Henry High School football coach Don Swanson hosted his 53^rd Coaches and Captains Crying Towel banquet last week.  The event is for Minneapolis football schools and Swanson good-naturedly provides crying towels so coaches can down play their chances for the coming season.  Don Swanson Awards and the Vikings are sponsors. Swanson was pleased to see players from various schools become acquainted and express appreciation for the event.

The two MIAC players who received the most preseason national football publicity are Saint John’s senior defensive lineman Nick Gunderson and Augsburg College senior wide receiver Royce Winford.  Both were named to multiple All-American teams.

Former Gopher football coach Glen Mason, now a color commentator for the Big Ten Network, picks Ohio State to beat USC in Los Angeles on September 13 if Buckeye running back Chris Wells has recovered from his right foot injury.

Gopher athletic director Joel Maturi said there isn’t enough support among Big Ten Conference athletic directors to add a ninth league football game.  Because there are 11 teams in the conference, one team every season would play eight league games, while the others played nine.

Maturi said a more recent generation of FieldTurf than what is used at the Metrodome will be the playing surface in the Gophers’ new TCF Bank Stadium opening next year.

Gopher football coach Tim Brewster describes true freshman Troy Stoudermire from Dallas as “dynamic” and not only will continue to use him on kickoff returns but possibly punt returns.

Wisconsin transfer Kim Royston, the former Cretin-Derham Hall player, has been given the weekly Teammate award by the Gophers.  Royston, a defensive back who has to sit out this season before being eligible in 2009, has shown an “unbelievable’” attitude in practice, Brewster said.

He also said the Gophers will use true freshmen running backs Shady Salamon, also from Cretin-Derham Hall, and DeLeon Eskridge from San Francisco, in the Bowling Green game.  Neither played against Northern Illinois in the opening game.

Speculation is persistent that within two years or less, Minneapolis-St. Paul will have one major daily newspaper, not two.

WCCO Radio’s Steve Thomson created a spoof called the “Batista award,” according to talk show partner Eric Nelson.  “Minnesota’s infamous signing of Tony Batista a couple years ago fostered the award,” Nelson wrote in an e-mail to Sports Headliners.  “As you know, Batista is one of many coupon-clipping deals that have not worked out.  Others include Sidney Ponson, Tony Clark, Ramon Martinez, Livian Hernandez, Craig Monroe, Mike Lamb, Adam Everett and Bret Boone. Steve and WCCO studio coordinator Craig ‘Hammer’ Schroepfer chose Craig Monroe as this year’s Batitsta award winner.  My selection is Mike Lamb.”

The Twins are eight games below .500 on the road this season, 31-39.  In 2006 when they won the Central Division with a 96-66 record, their road record was 42-39.

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Former Gopher football coach Lou Holtz likes to say the Lord gave us two eyes in the front of our head so we can see where we’re going instead of where we’ve been. That’s a good approach for inexperienced Minnesota Twins players as they compete during the final four weeks of the season for a Central Division championship.

Here’s the point: the team relies on 14 players with less than two full seasons of major league experience.  That’s a lot of on-the-job training for a ball club trying to win a championship, or at least qualify for the playoffs.

Twins starting pitchers Scott Baker, 26, Nick Blackburn, 26, Kevin Slowey, 24, and Glen Perkins, 23, are all in their first full seasons of being in the rotation month after month.  Francisco Liriano, 24, the fifth starter, pitched most of the 2006 season for the Twins but didn’t finish it because of his famous left elbow injury.

Left fielder Delmon Young, 22, had one full season in the majors with Tampa Bay before coming here.  Center fielder Carlos Gomez, 22, played in 58 games last year for the New York Mets prior to the trade that made him a Twin.  Right fielder Denard Span, 24, is a rookie.  So, too, is designated hitter Randy Ruiz, who is 30 and almost a minor league lifer.

Second baseman Alexi Casilla, 24, played parts of the last two seasons with the Twins and also in the minor leagues. Third baseman Brian Buscher, 27, played briefly with the Twins last year, his first in the majors. Utility infielder Matt Tolbert, 26, is a rookie.

Even designated hitter Jason Kubel, 26, and infielder Brendan Harris, 28, can only claim a full season each of prior experience, although both have been in and out of the major leagues over the last few years.

The Twins have been surprising most everyone with their record all season and pursuit of first place in the Central Division.  But inexperience could be a problem for this team in the remaining weeks including the much anticipated home series against a more proven White Sox team at the Metrodome September 23-25.

The Twins are a half game behind first place Chicago.  They have lost six of their last 10 games and start a three game series in Toronto tomorrow (Tuesday) night before coming home for the first time since August 20 to play a weekend series with Detroit.

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