Minnesota Gophers 2009 Football Schedule

Inaugural Season At New TCF Bank Stadium

Jun 30, 2009

The inaugural season at brand new, on-campus TCF Bank Stadium is one Coach Brewster and fans alike hope will also inaugurate a tradition of winning.

At 6:00 PM on Saturday, September 12th, 2009, a new chapter in the 127-year history of Minnesota Gopher football will begin. That's the scheduled kickoff versus Air Force, the Gophers' first home game in brand new TCF Bank Stadium, the long-awaited 50,000-seat on-campus venue. It will be the first game played on campus in 27 years, since November 1981.

Gophers' 27 Seasons at Metrodome Woeful

The following season—1982— the Gophers moved their games off-campus, to downtown Minneapolis' HHH Metrodome. Just over a mile away, it might have been a hundred. The 27 seasons at the dome saw Minnesota go through six head coaches, with an overall winning percentage of .370, never finishing better than a tie for 3rd in the conference (1986), and averaging 8th place in the 11-team Big Ten. Not only was it a long period of on-field woes (with a few exceptions), but football Saturdays were sorely missed on campus, both financially and spiritually.

The hiring of Coach Tim Brewster before the 2007 season marked an upswing in fan enthusiasm and hopes for the future. The new stadium was officially approved earlier that year, ground was broken for it before Brewster's first season, and by the end of his second he'd brought a winning record of 7-6 (with a short spell in the national rankings) and a bowl appearance back into the picture.

TCF Bank Stadium Final Piece of the Winning Puzzle?

Now, with the opening of TCF Bank Stadium, what fans hope is that the final piece of the puzzle is in place. The unspoken thoughts are that with the puzzle "complete,"— including that sparkling venue to not only excite fans but potential recruits as well— winning will once again become the norm at Minnesota, a team that was once a college football powerhouse.

The following is the Minnesota Gophers 2009 season schedule, including television coverage when it's been scheduled, and with a few times yet "to be announced" (TBA). Home games at TCF Bank Stadium are in caps:

Minnesota Gophers 2009 Football Schedule

At first glance fans will note none of the early-season, pre-conference play "gimme" games versus lesser opponents, a tradition that had become standard over the last couple of decades. The two conference teams the Gophers will not play in 2009 are Indiana and Michigan. Despite returning 17 starters (the most in the conference) from a "winning" team, a survey of predictors, handicappers and rankings voters has the 2009 Gophers finishing between 7th and 10th in the Big Ten.

As always, the place to follow all Minnesota Gophers sports action is GopherSports.com, the source of much of the information used in this article.

The copyright of the article Minnesota Gophers 2009 Football Schedule in College Football is owned by Dale Van Every. Permission to republish Minnesota Gophers 2009 Football Schedule in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.