New Hampshire @ Minnesota Game Thread

[Mattymc727]

Pretty excited for this one. Not very often UNH gets to play in a BigTen stadium and prove our worthiness. Anyone making the trip?

[Laker]

The game is an eighty mile drive for me and Minnesota State doesn't play until six that night so I'm trying to make it to both games. If any UNH fans are going let me know and we can meet and greet.

[caribbeanhen]

I thought UNH opened with the Big 10 every year, just ask Northwestern right? good luck in taking out the Gulden Goofers

[Gil Dobie]

Good luck to UNH this weekend. The Gophers media was putting this down as a win a couple weeks ago. Now after they have had some time to research UNH and their relation to NDSU in the football world, they are a lot more cautious about a Gophers win.

[Gil Dobie]

Hockey relationship between UHN and UM in today's Strib.

Strib Link

Beware the opponent who thirsts for revenge. That's the Gophers' burden on Saturday, because New Hampshire comes to town with the memory of Minnesota's historic victory over the Wildcats, though nearly a decade old, still fresh in the minds of fans in New England.

What's that? Oh, that 5-1 beatdown was a hockey game, for the 2003 NCAA championship? Don't think that doesn't matter, because that game, indirectly, was the reason the two traditional hockey powers will play football for the first time this weekend.

"Relationships play a big role in scheduling," said Marc Ryan, the senior associate athletic director who finalized the contract for Saturday's game. "In this case, the relationship stems from hockey."

That explains a seemingly random Football Championship Subdivision opponent, from a school more than 1,000 miles away, showing up on Minnesota's schedule.

"Philosophically, we have tried to schedule our FCS game with regional schools, Midwest schools," Ryan said, such as games in recent years against North Dakota State, South Dakota and South Dakota State, or upcoming matchups against Western Illinois and Eastern Illinois. This week's opponent, Ryan said, was originally supposed to be Northern Iowa.

He reached a verbal agreement with the Panthers in the winter of 2007-08, but Northern Iowa athletic director Rick Hartzell abruptly resigned before the contract could be drawn up and the incoming administration wasn't aware that the date had been held. The Gophers needed a replacement school, and then-athletic director Joel Maturi called an old friend and colleague, New Hampshire AD Marty Scarano

[PantherRob82]

Wish I could make it. Had a blast at the Toledo game last year! Who do you guys play in '14?

[Gil Dobie]

Beer is no available at the stadium. If you want a beer, bring money......

On tap at Gophers football stadium: $7.25 beer at 8 tents

First, the good news: There will be three types of beer, plus red and white wines and eight alcohol tents.

Now, the not-so-good news: The beers will be $7.25 apiece, will be limited to two per trip and all sales will be cut off after halftime.

The University of Minnesota's two-year experiment of selling alcohol at the 50,800-seat TCF Bank Stadium begins Saturday when the football team plays its first home game, with a late morning kickoff against New Hampshire. After years of trying to have alcohol sales limited to the new stadium's premium-seating area, the school accepted a legislative compromise this summer to also sell beer and wine to all fans of legal age.

But it might not help reverse the trend of three straight years of declining attendance at the new stadium.

Strib Link

[henfan]

Go UNH!

[appfan2008]

the gophers better watch out... unh has a pretty good track record of beating fbs teams...

[Mattymc727]

Wish I could make it. Had a blast at the Toledo game last year! Who do you guys play in '14?

Not Sure. It was originally Boston College in 2014 but I guess UNH backed out. Its Central Michigan in 2013. I think UNH only likes to schedule FBS games for 1 year ahead.