Little dome of horrors

As a football fan, I have witnessed many a disastrous performance at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. When the Bears schedule comes out every season, I usually can be pretty confident in marking an "L" next to the date they will be in Minneapolis.\nMy most infamous memory occurred in 1992 when Jim Harbaugh called an audible that resulted in a Vikings interception return for a touchdown, which caused "Da Coach," Mike Ditka, to verbally undress an embarrassed Harbaugh on the sideline. The season was all downhill from there, leading to Ditka's firing.\nEven the best quarterback of his generation, Brett Favre, has laid one egg after another under the unfriendly roof of the House that Hubert Built.\nBut the distinction for the worst performance ever put forth on the paper-thin turf of the Metrodome might just belong to your Indiana Hoosiers, who were on the wrong side of a 55-7 pasting to the No. 19 Minnesota Golden Gophers Saturday. It was the most lopsided Big Ten win for Minnesota since 1949, which was well before anyone thought it would be ideal to play football on a plastic surface.\nThough it doesn't seem possible that things can worsen for IU, it manages to work out that way every week. This was the second consecutive week that the IU defense surrendered over 500 yards in total offense. The Metrodome PA announcer's trademark, "And that's another Golden Gopher … FIRST DOWN!" has been permanently ingrained in my memory. \nThe offense struggled once again, managing only one touchdown for the second consecutive game. Of course, this one was doomed from the start. Late Friday, Gerry DiNardo was informed that it was unsafe for quarterback Matt LoVecchio to play as a result of his suffering a concussion last week. This was in spite of the fact that LoVecchio had practiced all week, and somehow his head looked A-OK until the team got to Minnesota.\nThrown into the shuffle was freshman Graeme McFarland, who didn't know he was playing until 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Considering he hadn't expected to play, McFarland did an admirable job, and the offense was exciting to watch as IU attempted throwing the deep ball several times, albeit to no avail.\nPlaying on the turf at the Metrodome was about as rude an introduction as any player could ask for in their first collegiate start. In addition to being hard to land on, the surface has roughly the same composition as coarse-grained sandpaper, which likely left McFarland and a score of other Hoosiers looking for the nearest bottle of Neosporin to take care of some nasty scrapes and rug burns.\n"I was surprised. Being a professional facility, I thought it would be a lot nicer," McFarland said. "It's a lot like Mellencamp … it's not soft. If you get tackled, you're gonna get scraped up."\nThe coaching staff was snakebitten in the form of malfunctioning headsets. DiNardo's headset was not working properly throughout the game, and other coaches were having problems communicating, too. This led to IU burning its last timeout of the first half when only 10 men showed up on the field to play defense.\nIU's Metrodome woes were worsened as right guard Chris Jahnke, safety Joe Gonzalez and fullback John Pannozzo all left the game with injuries.\nWith performances like this, you would believe that the Metrodome gives the Gophers the same type of home field advantage that it has shown the Twins and Vikings over the years. Alas, this is not the case. Since moving to the Dome in 1982, Minnesota is only three games over .500 at home and has not won a Big Ten title.\nSo it makes sense that Minnesota alum Denny Sanford wants to donate $35 million to build an open-air, on-campus stadium. I'm guessing the outside temperature of 39 degrees would have been just as good of a home field edge for the Gophers Saturday. (Against IU, though, one doesn't really need an added advantage).\nThere's no timetable for the new stadium to be built. I just hope that by the time it happens, it will be worth driving 10 hours to watch the Hoosiers play.