The new TCF Stadium weekend was a success for the Golden Gophers. The Vikings won the following Sunday and the Twins remained true to their season. They won one and they lost one. Still playing .500 ball when they needed to win a few more games to put pressure on the Detroit Tigers when they come to town.

Our Gopher football team beat a fair-to-middling team in the Air Force Academy. Our team was lucky when Nate Triplett recovered an Air Force fumble and carried it 55 yards to finally put the Gophers in front. The team doesn’t look like worldbeaters, but it has played two games and it has won two games. You can’t do any better than that.

Coach Tim Brewster, while learning on the job had a disastrous first year, a Glen Mason-type second year achieving a minor bowl, now has his new stadium. He needs to take the next step and reach the upper division of the Big Ten. Perhaps getting his picture on a Wheaties box. The new stadium looks and sounds terrific and if the team is anywhere near as good as the place they play in, it would be very welcome by all Gopher fans and alumni.

The Minnesota Vikings won as expected, defeating a team with an unproven quarterback and a dismal 2008 record. They did it in a workman-like fashion once they decided to get serious. Adrian Peterson again showed why he is the best running back in the NFL. The defense played well and except for a special team lapse, showed the result of successful free agent signings and good draft days.

One example of overall team improvement is that they terminated Bobby Wade, who is at least an average NFL wide receiver. This, even after Wade had agreed to half his salary for this season.

While Adrian Peterson stole the show this weekend, speculation was rampant among the media concerning Brett Favre. Would he fit in with the Vikings? Was his arm really OK? And the biggest question of all. Can this near 40-year-old still perform at a high level? The Cleveland game seemed to be a perfect test for Favre. How would he do? Well, he appeared to know the system. He accepted sacks instead of trying to make something out of nothing, which had been a failure of Favre in the past. He was under somewhat stressful conditions when the Vikings trailed late in the first half and he reacted well. Perhaps it is being overly critical to question a future Hall of Famer of Favre’s abilities. But Favre had given us reasons to wonder.

In thinking about his quarterback skills it occurred to me that given all the hype, maybe we are expecting too much of the old quarterback. I do think that with this year’s Viking team Brett Favre doesn’t have to be Superman. He just has to be the competent skipper of the good ship Vikings. Perhaps the Vikings don’t need more than 70 percent of the Favre of 10 years ago. During the Cleveland game he appeared to be a competent, capable quarterback. More of a Bart Starr than Johnny Unitas. That may be enough. The Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks in recent years have been very good technicians with an occasional flair, throwing a come-from-behind touchdown for example.

It appears that Favre will get us to the postseason and perhaps we won’t know until crunch time if he still has the ability to win the big one under duress. It will certainly be interesting to find out this coming winter.