Marshall’s Foster Shultz (5) drilled a bullet into the C-E-C goal for an early 1-0 lead at Cloquet’s field last week. Photos by John Gilbert.

If you spent last weekend dodging television blackouts and limited telecasts to watch the first weekend of the NFL season, as well as some surprising major college football games, we get an official beginning of major fall sports in Duluth when the UMD Bulldogs open their home football schedule against Minnesota State Moorhead Saturday at 2 pm.

The Bulldogs opened with a rousing victory at Northern Michigan two weeks ago, then had last weekend off, turning the spotlight over to the NFL and the Gophers and a whole raft of big high school football games. 

Also, soccer continues to thrive, at the high school and college levels.

The Gophers have not been a major attraction in Northern Minnesota in recent years, but this season they have added one of our own — Koi Perich, the sensational two-way player from Esko, who has seen only limited use in the first couple of games, being focused on playing safety. 

As the state’s No. 1 recruit for this season, he got a chance to show a glimmer of what he can do with a deft interception and runback, as well as a kick return in the Gophers 48-0 laugher against Rhode Island. 

Hopefully, that will lead to more use for the flashy freshman.

The Vikings, meanwhile, made a spectacular debut at New York against the Giants. 
After winning all their exhibition games, but losing rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy for the season for meniscus surgery, Vikings faithful lost their exuberance. My thought was that Sam Darnold might start the season at QB to try and shed the “journeyman” stature he had acquired with a couple of other teams. 

Turns out, Darnold had a brilliant opening act by leading the Vikings to a blowout 28-6 victory, throwing two touchdown passes and some perfect long-bomb gainers to Justin Jefferson and the rest of the Vikings top-flight receiving corps.

He completed his first 12 passes in the game, finishing 19-24 for 208 yards for a 118.2 passer rating, and his ability to fling long and accurate passes, as well as running out of danger, was the highlight of the game. 

That, and the smothering Vikings defense. 

Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers, our “other” regional favorites, were being heralded as division favorites while heading off to Sao Paolo, Brazil, to open against the Philadelphia Eagles in one of those limited-TV outings. 

The Eagles won 34-29, and Jordan Love, the solid second-year quarterback, went limping off the field with a sprained knee. He will miss at least three weeks
That means the Vikings are back in contention, and the Packers have plummeted from that pinnacle in one game. 

There were some incredible games — starting with Kansas City hanging on by a thread to beat the Baltimore Ravens 27-20 last week, when Mahomes proved again that he is an amazing survivor, and Ravens QB Lamar Jackson matched him and might have won the game but when he connected with Isaiah Likely at the back of the end zone, the Ravens chance for a 2-point conversion at 27-26 was negated when the officials ended a lengthy review by declaring Likely’s two touched the end line, meaning no touchdown as the game ended.

Jackson was 26-41 for 273 yards and also ran for 122 yards, while Mahomes was 20-28 for 291 yards but only rushed for 3 yards. Quite the duel, and we may see it again at playoff time.

The other highlight game came when the Detroit Lions caught the Los Angeles Rams with 20 seconds to play, then won the coin toss for overtime, took the ball, and marched down the field to win the game on David Montgomery’s 1-yard charge to win the game without the Rams ever getting the ball.

In major college football, the shocker was when Northern Illinois stunned No. 5 Notre Dame 16-14 at South Bend, and Texas thrashed Michigan 31-12 at Ann Arbor. One of the more entertaining games was in Eugene, Ore., where the Oregon Ducks had to spend it all to outlast Boise State 37-34.

Collin Young (3) and Bent Schramm exchange congratulations after each scored to lift Cloquet-Esko-Carlton to a 2-1 lead over Marshall.

In the area soccer world, I was curious to see if Marshall’s boys could use its front-line skill to conquer Cloquet-Esko-Carlton’s depth and strength. It lived up to my theory, as Marshall took a 1-0 lead when Foster Shultz maneuvered through three or four Lumberjacks defenders and rifled a 30-yarder into the net for a 1-0 Marshall lead. Briar Mrozik had another good chance but hit the crossbar, and Benson Peterson was stopped at the goal by CEC goalkeeper Preston Strang, but then the Lumberjacks physical edge took over. Collin Young scored off a Jordan Sewell corner kick to tie it 1-1, and Ben Schramm made it 2-1 CEC at halftime. In the second half, Noah Hansen scored twice on feeds from Schramm, and Eli Heehn got another and the Lumberjacks won 5-1.

C-E-C goalkeeper Preston Strang stopped Marshall's Benson Peterson.

UMD — which doesn’t have men’s soccer — has a strong and optimistic gang which opened its women’s season against Northern Michigan, and learned a stern lesson from the speedy Wildcats. 

Northern scored five unanswered goals, two by Madison Bilbia and one each by Justina L’Esperance, Molly Pistorius and Hannah Kastama, for a 5-0 halftime lead. Stephanie Trujillo made it 6-0 before Maria Zanotti scored for UMD in a 6-1 loss. The Bulldogs came back two days later and lost 1-0 to Michigan Tech.

Northern Michigan's Molly Pistorius sped wide of UMD defender Aisley Allen and delivered a crossing pass for Madison Bilbia's second goal in the Wildcats 6-1 victory at UMD.

“We played Northern last year and they had just about their whole team back,” said UMD coach Greg Cane. “We don’t have the maturity to match their speed and skill at this point, but it’s only one game in the context of the whole season. We made some adjustments and played a much better second half, and continued to build on that against Tech.”

The football home opener at 2 pm at Malosky Stadium will be the annual Military Appreciation game, and give the Bulldogs the chance to show off their new depth and offensive potency against Moorhead.
A highlight of the weekend will be Friday’s Celebration of Life to honor former UMD hockey coach Mike Sertich at the DECC Arena, where Sertich coached for most of his 18 years at UMD. 

The event starts at noon, and should draw a huge crowd in appreciation for Sertich’s long-term service.

UMD goalkeeper Kaycee Chavez leaped in traffic for a save against Northern Michigan in the Bulldogs season-opener.