We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 211

The continuation of Minnesota's losing streak and the chance to end it against Rutgers.

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2022 Minnesota Game Poster: Rutgers

This week's game poster leaves contemporary music and returns to the classic — specifically, one of the most important albums ever made, Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath.

Goldy takes the place of the woman on the cover, cloaked in black against an ominous backdrop. In this case, instead of Mapledurham Watermill on the Thames, the building across the water is the U of M's boathouse on the Mississippi. I've tried to avoid leaning into boat-, rowing-, or P.J. Fleck-related imagery with my posters unless I really need to fill a space, but I was having difficulty finding another building to put into the background here. The boathouse is near enough to water and trees to work in this spot, and it's on campus.

I took some liberties with the trees in the background, making their wood darker and more foreboding, as well as adding a combination of darkness and light fog to mask some of the imperfections along the ground. Because of how high the trees go, I added a faint glow around "Golden Gophers" at the top so it could still be read.

Originally, I wanted to use a retro version of Goldy, as a more feral-looking gopher might look more frightening. But it just wasn't working, mainly because I couldn't find a way of using something that looked like the old logo without just being the old logo. So I inserted the modern Goldy and made him a bit paler. Note his ears poking through the hood.

I feel rather proud of this one. It took some effort and turned out well, it was a bit less straightforward than just putting Goldy in the place of a famous musician, and it put a lot of Black Sabbath songs into my head while I drew. These are all positive things.

We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 210

Where things stand after Minnesota's loss to Illinois and going into their game at Penn State.

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2022 Minnesota Game Poster: Penn State

For once, my Gophers game poster will take inspiration from a modern album — one that was released just this year, in fact: Big Thief's Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You.

First, I must say that I absolutely love Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. I love Big Thief, but I especially love this record. Indie-interested people have probably come across it at this point, since Big Thief is far from an underground group, but if anyone hasn't listened to it yet and is interested in an eclectic mix of folk, country, and polished, effects-heavy rock with dashes of electronica, I cannot recommend the album any more highly. I do not hesitate to call it a 10 out of 10.

Anyway: This week's poster was made just in a sketchbook with a pencil and eraser. I touched up the picture I took with my phone's very basic editing effects, but that was the extent of my post-production.

The original album cover featured a small bear sitting on a log, playing guitar around a fire with an owl, another bird (a sparrow?) and a Tyrannosaurus Rex (or some other therapod). I couldn't think of an appropriate party of four to put around this fire, but I did decide the special talent Goldy could show off was spinning his head. His counterpart, the Nittany Lion, stands in amazement, fury, or some other unclear emotion. You can't find much depth of feeling in that face.

This isn't a great work of art or anything, and I never felt great about how to center the two mascots around the fire, but in general I am happy with what I made here. It was a fairly quick, easy, and fun drawing. If you stretch a bit, you can say there's a tie-in between the album and the game: There's a White Out at Beaver Stadium on Saturday, and it's an all white poster. There's the title and the area around State College, too. Maybe call this Goldy Nittany Mountain I Believe in You. Or maybe don't.

Previous posters can be found by clicking the Art label at the bottom of this post.

Midweek Review: Minnesota 14-26 Illinois

1. Minnesota's chances for a special season are practically dead.

That's it, then.

The Gophers still can win the Big Ten West, but the two teams who now sit as the favorites are the two who hold tiebreakers over them. It will likely require a perfect back half of the season, and a lot of luck, for them to make it to Indianapolis. And if they somehow make it that far, they will face long odds to beat Ohio State or Michigan.

Might a 10-3 Minnesota, having miraculously won the West, with just one noteworthy win (Penn State), receive a Rose Bowl bid? Or, failing that, an invitation to the Cotton or Orange Bowl? Theoretically, sure. But I wouldn't count on it. And from here, it borders on inconceivable that such a scenario can come to be in the first place. With the problems they've shown, the hole the Gophers have created for themselves is too great to overcome.

This is a good team. Being merely good is an acceptable station for Minnesota in the aggregate, and we should never forget that. It remains frustrating that when there was so much potential for 2022 to be a dream, that dream has been all but extinguished at just the halfway mark. This team didn't have to be more than just good to achieve those goals. Now, their sights must be lower. A respectable final record, and wins over their rivals in November, are the only realistic goals left for which to play.

2022 Minnesota Game Poster: Illinois

After parodying a Bob Dylan album for the Purdue game, we're doing something more recent for this third poster of Minnesota's Big Ten schedule. However, since I am spiritually an old man, "more recent" means going all the way to 1970. Our basis: Curtis Mayfield's debut album, Curtis.

Goldy is dressed in Mayfield's gold pants and jacket, with a couple of beaded necklaces, a similarly beige shirt (but with Goldy's face on it rather than a paisley pattern), and of course a pair of sunglasses. He sits on a hill, staring off into the sunset. Behind him is Northrop Auditorium and a license plate that, instead of reading "CUTTY," says "GOLDY." The license plate is in the style of Minnesota plates from around 1970, a change from the yellow and black plate on the original cover. The date of this week's game, meanwhile, is in the top left corner where the Buddah Records emblem originally was.

The inspiration for this week's poster was... thinking Curtis is full of jams? Wanting an album with a prominent figure at its centerpiece, making for a convenient place to put Goldy? There was no specific reason to go this direction. It was just a convenient direction to take, with a great album to which to pay tribute. If you can find any connection here, it's that Mayfield is a prominent Chicago artist, and the Gophers are playing in the state of Illinois this weekend. (Never mind that Champaign is more than 2 hours away from Chicago.) It's just another fun project, one I'm glad I finished in time for the game.

Previous posters can be found by clicking the Art label at the bottom of this post.

We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 209

Minnesota's loss to Purdue and an early preview of Illinois.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Midweek Review: Purdue 20-10 Minnesota

If there was a theme to Minnesota's homecoming game against Purdue, it was wasted opportunities. On the field, the amount of points the Gophers left on the field made the difference in the final score. They ran into the first defense that could slow them down, made costly mistakes, and couldn't capitalize fully on the mistakes that the Boilermakers made.

Meanwhile, their top rivals spent Saturday looking even more listless. The Gophers should have become the commanding favorites in their division. Instead, they go into an idle week with plenty of questions about their limitations on offense, as well as more reason to doubt that they can reach the great potential their season appeared to have (and still might have). This was a game Minnesota should have won, and they couldn't play consistently enough to do it.

1. Minnesota never recovered from early red zone failures.

In the first half, Minnesota got within 30 yards of the goal line three times. They came away with three points. In any game, 18 squandered points bite, but against one of the Gophers' chief competitors in the West, when scoring opportunities were hard to come by, those three failures — and the one made field goal counts as a failure — might have cost them the game, and subsequently could have greater consequences down the line.

The Gophers' first opportunity came after one of their only explosive plays all day. From the 10-yard line, they ran for 3 yards, then lost all of those yards on a foiled 2nd down rushing attempt. Facing 3rd-and-goal, one of the hallmarks of the P.J. Fleck era made its return: the low-percentage fade in a high-leverage situation.

Tanner Morgan didn't pretend to consider any other target on this throw. Cory Trice lined up with inside leverage over Daniel Jackson at the snap, an alignment that theoretically may have increased the chances of a successful play. But Trice was backed off far enough to keep pace with Jackson, and Morgan's throw was never going to be completed.

The Gophers could have at least come away with something to make up for the bad 3rd down call. However, Matthew Trickett missed the 27-yard field goal.

It was Trickett's first missed kick of any kind this season. That's the kind of day it was.