We Are Maroon and Gold

Aaron and Chandler discuss the Gophers' new football uniforms, the developing college basketball scandal, and the Sports Illustrated piece on the Mavericks. A few hours after we recorded, we got something concrete between a player and a coach. Things are therefore much more interesting, although a wise reader might view that report with some skepticism. Read more »

Chandler and Aaron rummage through various sports notes, including potential causes of poor football attendance numbers, and the doom coming for college basketball. Afterward, they reminisce about sports video games. Read more »

Chandler and Aaron recap the Super Bowl, Aaron runs through the NBA trade deadline, and consider the issues we overlook when we watch sports. As mentioned, you can donate to the University of Minnesota Marching Band's fundraiser at crowdfund.umn.edu/PrideofMN. Read more »

Chandler and Aaron talk about the Super Bowl festivities around Minneapolis, sift through the sports news pile, and draft our favorite ancillary athletes. We had a lot of fun recording this one. Read more »

Chandler talks with his friend Aaron about various notes from the sporting world (mainly dealing with the Gophers), and then they digest the end of the Vikings' season and what it means to them. Read more »

Chandler once again welcomes his friend Aaron into the studio, but this time, there is no sports talk. Instead, they discuss the 52 albums Chandler listened to in 2017, which of course have already been posted to Ski-U-Blog and can be found here, here, and here. As said before, I am figuring out when I would like to record the podcast now that the new semester has started. The posting schedule, therefore, might be inconsistent for the next few weeks. Read more »

Chandler comes back from winter break to talk football with his friend Aaron. In this episode, they go over their favorite games from bowl season, take a detour to discuss the quarterback draft class, and then discuss what we want in a college football playoff system. A few notes: At around 24 minutes, I say that Baker Mayfield "drunkenly punched a police officer last summer, or something like that." The story was in fact far closer to "something like that." Mayfield was drunk in Fayetteville, Arkansas and ran away from some officers, who then tackled him. Mayfield was charged with public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and fleeing and resisting arrest; and he pleaded guilty to all three charges. However, Mayfield did not punch any officers. I must have mixed up his story with another person's. After we mentioned that the men's hockey team was still on track to make the NCAA Tournament, they promptly got swept by Michigan. At home. The Gophers are now 13th in the USCHO poll and tied with Michigan for 15th in PairWise, which means they are on the bubble unless they turn things around. I don't have a ton of confidence that they will. At the end, we say we are going to talk about my rankings of albums I listened to in 2017. Instead, things end abruptly, as the studio in which we were recording would not allow us to go more than 90 minutes. (We started recording a little before we started talking, and I always edit the podcast for concision.) That conversation did occur, but it will be released next week. The next episode should be released next Tuesday, but as the semester begins, I want to figure out my schedule and what time works best for me to record the podcast, so do not count on Tuesday as being the regular day. Read more »

In the first episode recording with the name We Are Maroon and Gold (but his 14th episode podcasting), Chandler discusses regime changes at other programs, compares the Gophers' preseason expectations to how they actually did, and then runs through the interesting parts of bowl season. As said, the podcast will go on a break while school is out of session. Explaining the name change: On the exact same day that Ski-U-Pod launched, the SB Nation site The Daily Gopher launched a podcast of their own, the Ski-U-Pahdcast. The Daily Gopher is automatically bigger than this by its association to SB Nation, and it's not like either side stole the other's idea, so in order to avoid any possible (however unlikely) conflict in the future, Ski-U-Pod would have to be renamed. It could have been done earlier, but I decided to just roll with the original name until the end of the season because I didn't think it would hurt anything. (It in fact didn't.) The new name comes from "Minnesota March," probably the third-most important school song after the "Rouser" and "Hail Minnesota." The words "We are Maroon and Gold" are not actually lyrics in the song, but rather yelled between lines: Rah! rah! Ski-U-Mah. Rah! Rah! Rah! March on, March on to Victory, Loyal sons of the Varsity. Fight on, fight on for Minnesota, For the glory of the Old Maroon and Gold. [We are Maroon and Gold!] March on, March on to win the game, Down the field, fighting every play. We're with you team, fighting team! Hear our song, we cheer along To help you win a victory. I know "Minnesota March" by heart (if not the lyricist's capitalization choices), and it seems like more people know it than, say, "Our Minnesota" or "Minnesota Fight" (a frequent joke among my friends in the band is that nobody knows "Minnesota Fight"), I thought We Are Maroon and Gold would be an appropriate selection for the name of my podcast. Read more »