The Minnesota Golden Gophers scored a couple of late touchdowns Saturday to make their 29-12 victory over Western Illinois seem comfortably secure. When it was over, after a brief amount of mingling on the turf at TCF Bank Stadium, both teams headed off toward their respective locker rooms. I had watched from the stands, and after the game I headed down toward the field to try to catch Western Illinois coach Bob Nielson before he got up the walkway.

As I made my way down the staircase to the bottom row of the stands, a Gopher fan who had hustled across in the front row nearly collided with me in his urgency to get to the railing above where the Western Illinois players were departing. I figured a Western Illinois player must be the son of a friend or something, and he was probably hurrying over to catch his attention. I was wrong.

“Hey, Western...Come back any time,” he shouted, with his voice dripping with sarcasm, at the whole Western team as they walked by. By his tone, you’d have thought the Gophers thoroughly wasted Western Illinois, and enjoyed humiliating them.

“I’ll bet you didn’t yell that when it was 12-7, in the third quarter,” I said to him, then walked away as he stopped in silence, possibly embarrassed that a witness had observed his blatant inhospitality.

It had been anything but a humiliating victory. I realize Gopher football fans are so starved for legitimate victories that they can’t resist jumping at the chance to gloat, no matter what the circumstances. But such arrogance is never attractive, even in sports, where rude outbursts from fans have replaced sportsmanship -- remember sportsmanship? So I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to respond to his insult.

Downstairs, Nielson was just as smooth as he always was after his UMD teams had played, and usually won. This Gopher game, in fact, was a rare loss for Nielson, who started his chance to coach at the Division I level with two victories before bringing his team to Minneapolis. He talked about how solid Minnesota was, and how proud he was of his players for giving such a strong effort, and for throwing a genuine scare into the Gophers. He had quarterback Trent Norvell and linebacker Kevin Kintzel with him in the interview room -- two of the key players who will lead the Fighting Leathernecks through the season.

For the University of Minnesota football team, Western Illinois was just another unknown “cream puff,” scheduled to bolster the Golden Gopher record in hopes of reaching a post-season bowl game. For Western Illinois, the game against the Gophers was a huge challenge, a chance to validate the Fighting Leathernecks intentions of upgrading to full-fledged Division I stature.

Minnesota won 29-12, if only the result matters. But Western Illinois caused a lot of silence among 42,000 Gopher fans at TCF Bank Stadium for most of three quarters by pretty much harnessing Minnesota from the outset. The Fighting Leathernecks took a 6-0 lead, when Norvell found the big Gopher defensive line impenetrable against the run, and crossed them up with a clutch, fourth-down touchdown pass over the middle to a wide open Mason Howington. Minnesota stormed back and went ahead 7-6 by halftime.

By halftime, starting Minnesota quarterback Phil Nelson had gone down with a bruised hamstring, and Mitch Leidner replaced him and played well, both running and passing the Gophers into the lead. Leidner’s play will force the Gophers to at least play both quarterbacks this weekend against San Jose State. At halftime, Gopher coach Jerry Kill went down with the third or fourth game-time epileptic seizure in the last three years, and he had to be carried off the field and hospitalized. We can’t know how much Western’s competitiveness, Nelson’s injury, or the threat of being the victim of a colossal upset contributed to his anxiety, but it was right out there in public view.

Meanwhile, back to the second half. In his praise for the Gophers, Nielson said, “Their defense was so tough they pretty much took away our running game and forced us to throw the ball.” That, I suggested, didn’t hurt Western, which had little success running the ball, while Norvell’s passing was clearly the best thing the Leathernecks had going. Despite a little coach-speak from Nielson, he acknowledged that he saw the chance to seize on Minnesota’s man-to-man coverage to spring a running back against a linebacker, and Norvell executed perfectly in the third quarter, firing a long, highlight-film pass down the middle of the field for a huge gain that put the Leathernecks in position to take the lead.

“The coaches did a great job of preparing us; all we had to do was execute,” said Norvell, who then connected for another highlight-film pass play to a leaping Lance Lenoir in the right edge of the end zone for a 12-7 lead. That one stunned the once-festive, sun-drenched Gopher fans into silence.

Despite the final score, the chance for the upset ultimately came down to a highly unusual play. It was still 12-7 when Leidner drove the Gophers on a solid march to get inside the 5 for what seemed an inevitable touchdown to wrest the lead. But Leidner, trying a sneak, had the ball jolted out of his arm at the 3. The ball popped out and flew into the end zone. Kintzel, at linebacker, caught it and made an instaneous decision. He went for it.

Kintzel didn’t see the Gopher wide receiver, who nailed him as he came out across the goal line, dropping him at the Western 1. With no room to operate, quarterback Norvell tried his best, but could gain nothing. Western punted, but the no-room effort went only 17 yards, and the Gophers were able to slam their way right back in for the go-ahead touichdown.

Two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter put the game away. There was no second-guessing with Nielson, however. After he said he was proud his team had played such a challenging game, I had to ask a hypothetical question, as a means of underscoring how close his team was to springing the upset. “I’m always praise any player who sees the chance for a 103-yard touchdown run and goes for it,” I said. “And hindsight is always easy, but hypothetically, if he (Kintzel) drops down and takes a knee in the end zone, you would have had the ball at the 20. With a 12-7 lead, that might have won the game for you.”

Nielson calmly said: “That’s what happens in football. I have no quarrel with what Kevin did. That was an amazing turn of events down there. When you’re looking up and picking that ball off, you don’t know how deep you are in the end zone, and you have to make a quick decision. We went into the game wanting to be aggressive, and to try to win the football game.”

My question was intended to praise Kintzel, not to accuse him of any misplay.

“We knew it would be a battle,” Kintzel said. “The coaches put us in the right spot to pull this off, and I know they’re counting on me to make big plays.  I thought I had an edge there but I can’t be dropping balls like that.”

Sure enough, Kinzel earlier had gone over to help a teammate on pass coverage, and when he leaped for the interception, the ball glanced off his hands and fell to the turf, with nothing but space between him and the end zone.

Still, if you’re a coach like Nielson, you want to have players who will take a chance, or two, on making a game-breaking play. In this case, Kintzel showed exactly that kind of aggressive confidence. He didn’t go all the way on either chance, and either one or both might have won the game. But surely neither cost Western Illinois the game.

Nielson praised Gopher coach Kill for resurrecting a Gopher program that was in ruins, and he said his hopes and prayers were with him for a speedy recovery from the seizure. It ruined what was otherwise a festive day at the stadium.

“What a great environment,” Nielson said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re playing before 42,000 fans or on a sandlot, it’s still the same game. But it was really a great opportunity for us to play in TCF Bank Stadium.”

Everybody enjoyed the exciting game with Goliath outlasting David. Except, maybe, the singular rude and classless Gopher fan among the 42,000 trying so desperately to insult the visitors afterward. It was just my bad luck to run into him after the game