SPIRIT VALLEY… For reasons unbeknownst to me, I am following the Minnesota Vikings/San Francisco Forty Niners pre-season tilt online through live box score. Most who know me know that my love for the NFL has waned substantially in just the past few years, and it’s not because I don’t like football anymore—it’s basically because I have tired of the NFL. I still love football, absolutely, though it is at this time third on my list behind hockey and baseball. I take in as many Gopher football games as I can in a season (no, I am not generally a sadistic person), and, of course, if the local Bulldogs get into the DII playoffs, as they usually do, I follow that very intensely.

But with the hapless Purple trailing the Niners 20-7 at halftime due to a miserable first-half performance, my attention to that is elsewhere. I am traveling and cannot get the game on TV where I am. And hey, I was in Alabama for the weekend. I have been there before, but I have got to tell you I saw dirt this morning that was orange! Yes, orange as orange soda! I’ve seen it before, but it still amazes me, and this was the most orange I’ve seen to date. It is actually more of a fine sand than actual dirt, but the coloration is crazy. I have it on my list to do some research to see what makes it that way. My guess would be the presence of a mineral of some sort. Metallic probably, with the ensuing mixture reacting to the presence of moisture or oxygen or both.  

Gee whiz, the Purple have made it 20-14 in the third. For the NFL, I have tired of the criminal element that seems to pervade the league. Even though its percentage of actual criminal players may be minor, relatively speaking, I have tired of seeing the negative stories of law-breaking players or otherwise boorish behavior coming from individuals who should know better. And no, I’m not a racist person, just in case you are attempting to draw that correlation. I just don’t like young men making scads of money acting like idiots. Have some class.

Neither do I care for the billionaire owners constantly having hat in hand to separate the public from its tax revenues for their private, for-profit places of business. If you want an interesting stadium story, check out the one that is unfolding right now in the Metroplex regarding the Vikings owners, the Wilf family, some East Coast legal matters they find themselves enmeshed in, and the quest of some irate fans to scuttle the stadium deal because of them. To me it’s just billionaires acting like, well, billionaires. Laws are just minor obstacles to too many of them. The Niners have just made it 27-14 just five seconds into the fourth quarter. The Vikes are about to go 0-3 in the pre-season. I am peering into the tea leaves right now and I am seeing... it’s a bit blurry, but it looks like the word “long,” as in season for the Purple. And for cryin’ out loud, there is a guy on San Fran with the same name as my granddaughter: Jewel. Hmmmm…

The Vikes might just be trying out some stuff (after all, it’s pre-season), but I am still not sold on Christian Ponder as QB, or Leslie Frazier as the head coach. Will we be hearing near season’s end, “Down goes Fraz-yuh, down goes Fraz-yuh!” Not sure, but something tells me I should be glad I’m NOT watching. As for one of the top three players in the world, Adrian “Yo” Peterson, the Norwegian kid, he could struggle this year. Sure, he is a horse, but without a solid passing game, teams will key on him and shut him down. When I was in Pop Warner football, the first thing we were taught was that the run sets up the pass and the pass sets up the run. As of now, the Vikes only have one of those factors. Could be a tough go of it…

FOR THE GOLDEN GOPHERS, now fully embracing a half century of football futility, look for another year of hope dashed by reality. No one is picking them for nuthin’. I have seen a couple of pre-season previews, and both had them picked for last in their division of the Big Ten, the money-grubbing conference that destroyed the WCHA as we knew it. The pre-season Sagarin rating, which is my favorite college football ranking system, has the Gophers ranked 66th. But hey, Bulldog fans, you can see former head coach Bob Nielson bring his new team, the Western Illinois Leathernecks, into TCF Stadium in Minneapolis on September 14, and as of now it is listed as an 11:00 a.m. start time.    

Nielson is a solid coach. He probably doesn’t have this team built to his normal standards as of yet, but in time he will. They will win a lot of games at best, and be ultra-competitive at worst. Nielson won’t have it any other way. The Bulldog program lost a pretty good football coach when he departed. Western competes in the championship subdivision of NCAA football and is in the Missouri Valley Conference. Give him some time and this program will be soaring upward….

JUST SIXTEEN DAYS until NHL camps open up, and I can’t wait! Colleges will be right behind them. I’ve already got some ducats lined up for pre-season tilts, and the prospect of a full 82-game schedule and the Olympic tourney have me foaming at the mouth for some hockey. I’m not quite sure what to make of the Minnesota Wild yet, though. Even after looking at my possible season-opening roster, I don’t see a Stanley Cup club, and in reality I believe they will struggle again to get one of the last playoff spots available. I’ll dig into it more right before camp opens up….

THE VIKES have gone final and dropped a 34-14 decision on the road to the Niners. And in a really misleading headline on the Yahoo NFL page, they have a picture of Ponder with a caption that reads “heading in the right direction”! Holy interceptions, Batman! Right direction to where? Ponder ends up with a 95.6 QB rating, but really, I don’t see this guy taking this team anywhere, in any direction. This guy needs a football GPS! PEACE