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.”