Northwestern vs. Minnesota pregame notes

Northwestern plays Minnesota today in chilly Minneapolis. Here are some things to watch.

- Northwestern is wearing its slick all-white uniforms with white helmets. Minnesota is wearing yellow helmets, maroon jerseys and yellow shorts. They look terrible.

- TCF Bank Stadium is awesome. It's new and it's the perfect size for a medium-sized Big Ten fan base. It's only 50,000 seats (3,000 bigger than Welsh-Ryan) and it would be perfect for NU.

- It was chilly this morning, but it should warm up to the 50s later on. There's not a cloud in the sky, either.

- Somehow, this is probably the most important Big Ten game of the week. Both of these teams are contenders in the Big Ten West, and the slate of games in general is pretty terrible.

- Both of these teams are pretty bad at passing, pretty mediocre at running and pretty good at defense. Expect a really low-scoring game. Whoever wins the turnover and field position battle (and those will go somewhat hand-in-hand) should win the game. Northwestern has an improving running game and at least has the ability to throw the ball well at times, so that could give the Wildcats the edge.

- Watch out for Berkeley Edwards, a speedy guy at running back. Northwestern has done a good job of stopping the run between the tackles, but the Wildcats have been vulnerable against backs who can get outside.

- Before last night, this was a real stat:

minnesota qb mitch leidner has completed 40 passes all season wazzu qb connor halliday averages 41.66 completions per game

— martin rickman (@martinrickman) October 8, 2014

- Whichever offense is less bad will probably win, and whichever offense turns it over the least will probably win. It's a pretty simple formula for this one.