Zombie Bronko Nagurski vs. New Mexico State Aggies

Nagurski was born on November 3, 1908 near the small Canadian border town of Rainy River, just across from International Falls, Minnesota. His parents, Michael and Amelia Nagurski, were Ukrainian immigrants and farmers; Bronislau was one of four children. Surrounded by wilderness and enduring long, cold winters, the brawny young boy loved the outdoors and athletics. He ran four miles each day to and from school.

Week 2 Opponent: New Mexico State University Aggies

The Aggies play in the WAC and in 2010 they were 2-10 with a 1-7 conference record.  In case you didn't know, the WAC is the conference that Boise State is in.  They get to mow through the likes of these guys and then complain that they don't have a chance at the national title game because the NCAA is too stupid to put together a little tournament. NMSU's last bowl win was an impressive 20-13 win over the Utah State Aggies in 1960.  Hot Aggie on Aggie action right there.

In 2010, the Aggies were last in total offense (yards) and in their first game against Ohio they managed a whopping 6 rushing yards.  Six!  Their sophomore quarterback, Andrew Manley did manage to throw for 362. Plus he's Hawaiian even though he's whiter than I am.

Andrew Manley, Hawaiian

This week I decided to do some reconnaissance on our opponent by finding a blog that follows them.  This was probably a terrible week to come up with this idea because there can't be any blogs that follow this historically bad program, can there be?  Luckily Teddy Feinberg of the Lac Cruces Sun-News has a blog.

Teddy

Teddy gave us a few interesting tidbits in his blog to consider.  First, Senior WR Taveon Rogers apparently is an asset in the return game.  So much so that Tedder suggests that teams will kick away from him or squib kick.  As you can see in the 2010 video below, Rogers can be dangerous on the returns, so Jay Sawvel better have the coverage team prepared.

Apparently the NMSU offensive line sucked last week and they're looking at some big changes for the Minnesota game.  Snaps were an issue so, they're moving the dude that played center for them most of the last 3 seasons back.  Also a true freshman might see some time.  If there were ever a time for the Gopher defensive line to get some sacks, this could be it.  Teddy also points out weaknesses on the defensive line and the special teams (other than Taveon).  It would be great to see our offensive line grind this Aggie defensive line into a pulp.  Word on the street is that their sideline discipline blows too.


Zombie Bronko Rating

The line is floating around -20 points for the Gophers, so they're getting a lot of credit for last week's performance at the LA Coliseum.  On a scale of 1 to 5, this is a 1.25 Zombie Bronko opponent.  It would just take one angry, just crawled from his grave in International Falls, MN and shambled all of the way to TCF Bank Stadium Zombie Bronko Nagurski to beat the Aggies.  That and maybe a ZB arm reaching out from beneath the ground to trip up the running game and put on a pass rush. (All ZBs play both ways)  I assume to ZB, Hawaiian quarterbacks taste like pineapple. 

1/4 Zombie Bronko