When I was in high school and college, it was a regular ritual of fall for the Golden Gophers to get absolutely crushed by the nation’s top college football teams. Particularly memorable was the 84-13 defeat at home in 1983, which was part of a 16-0 run by Nebraska from 1963 to 2012.
Somehow, the Gophers are still in the lead in the series, 38-25-2, a lead to which they added last night by upsetting the #25 Cornhuskers 24-6 thanks to no less than nine (9) sacks by an aggressive, bruising defensive front seven and excellent coverage in the secondary.
In other sports news, I don’t pay much attention to baseball, but the historic performance by Shohei Ohtani merits a mention, considering that it was arguably the greatest baseball game by a single player in the history of the sport. He hit three home runs – including the first leadoff home run as a pitcher in the history of the major leagues – and struck out 10 batters and gave up only two hits while leading the Dodgers to a 5-1 victory over the Brewers to sweep the National League championship series.
We never got the chance to see Babe Ruth or Ted Williams play, but we can watch Shohei Ohtani in action, which may actually, incredibly, be to our advantage.