The Gophers offense was looking for a certain coverage from Michigan State’s defense before Minnesota dialed up one specific pass play at Huntington Bank Stadium on Oct. 28.

Coordinator Greg Harbaugh called the play at the end of the first half, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal, and stuck with it on a key third down when trailing 6-3. The Spartans played man coverage underneath, with one deep safety.

Receiver Daniel Jackson gave a stutter-step move coming off the line of scrimmage and the quick burst out of it created separation from the cornerback; Athan Kaliakmanis found Jackson open in the middle of the field and front of the safety for 22-yard touchdown and a 10-6 halftime lead.

“At this point, it was just, ‘Screw it,’ ” Jackson relayed about sticking with the play postgame. As Jackson said that, to his left, Kaliakmanis briefly chortled and smiled.

Kaliakmanis and Jackson have established great chemistry this season; they will need many positive results on some grand experiments when the four-touchdown underdog Gophers (5-5, 3-4 Big Ten) play No. 2-ranked Ohio State (10-0, 7-0) at 3 p.m. CT Saturday at Ohio Stadium.

The Buckeyes have one of the best receivers in the nation in Marvin Harrison Jr., but the Gophers believe Jackson deserves a spot near Harrison on the all-Big Ten teams. The numbers back it up, and those honors will be voted on and announced after the regular season.

‘I think last year he was good receiver,” head coach P.J. Fleck said of Jackson in early November. “This year, I think he is a really great receiver.”

Jackson leads the Gophers in every key receiving category — receptions (45), yards (681) and touchdowns (seven). Each of those marks are in the top five on the conference leader board.

In three of the previous four games, Jackson has produced at least seven catches and 100-plus yards.

The Gophers have been plagued by drops from pass-catchers this season, which cost them at key moments in losses to Illinois and Purdue the past two weeks.

“Right now, we have not been consistent enough — maybe just around (Jackson) at times,” Fleck lamented. “If we are, we probably win a few more games.”

But Jackson has been their reliable go-to guy.

Against Michigan State, Gophers coaches let Kaliakmanis and Jackson do their thing.

“Sometimes, you have to let players play,” Harbaugh said a few weeks ago. “That is the cool thing about our guys; they are growing up. They are continuing to get better.”

Before their touchdown connection against the Spartans, Kaliakmanis was flushed out of the pocket and threw a jump ball to Jackson. It didn’t appeared to be smart throw lofted into coverage — until Jackson came down with it.

“I trust D-Jack so much,” Kaliakmanis said. “I think it meant a lot to do that. But like I said, I trust the guys around me. They are going to make plays. A couple of plays before that, I just throw the ball up and he goes up and gets it. He’s just one heck of a player.”

While Jackson is listed at 6-feet, Fleck added: “I think he plays as a really big receiver. He’s not the biggest guy. When you see him, he’s not 6-4, but he plays really big and can play really small when he needs to. He’s lightning-quick and explosive.”

Fleck pointed to Jackson’s maturity on and off the field as a key reason why he’s blossomed this fall. The Gophers have a saying: a smarter player is a better player. And Jackson has started to embody that.

“Daniel has really grown up as a man and as a person, and that is what you see on the field,” Fleck said. “I think the ability to play every position and do a lot of different things. I think he has really evolved his game.”

Jackson’s mother JaKyta Lawrie said she has seen Daniel’s maturity in how he now communicates with family members — which have also been important relationships for them.

“He’s just being more intentional with his communications and staying in touch with families, and just reminding us of how much he loves us and appreciates us,” Lawrie said Friday from Columbus, Ohio. “That’s really been a big step in his maturity and just growing into an adult and realizing all of his blessings.”

Minnesota Gophers wide receiver Daniel Jackson (9) is photographed during the team’s football media day in Minneapolis on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Now in his fourth season at the U, Jackson plays all the U’s receiver positions, from the slot and split wide. He’s also tasked with option routes based on what the defense is presenting to them.

“I think his understanding of defenses has been way better because he does run some option routes,” Fleck said. “Having a really good decisive decision when you are making those things is important. … He is running every route in the route tree, and he is doing it at a very high level.”

From the stands at every game, Lawrie has seen Jackson’s present himself in a different way on the field.

“I’m starting to see a little bit of his personality come out more on the field,” Lawrie told the Pioneer Press. “He’s not always been a very emotional kind of player, not very vocal, but he’s really coming from his own. And I can just see how he just really loves the game still, just like when he was a young boy.”

That might come in a release of emotion after a big catch or in his assertiveness in run blocking, Lawrie observes. (Jackson is also the U’s fifth-highest-graded run blocker, per Pro Football Focus.)

“Sometimes he’ll do a celebration; that’s not something that he’s just always done playing football the majority of his life,” Lawrie said. “I just see him being aggressive in his blocking and just holding his own.”

One of Jackson’s finest moments came with his toe-drag touchdown to help the Gophers beat Nebraska in the season opener in late August. Afterward, NFL Hall of Fame receiver Calvin Johnson reached out to Jackson on social media.

“That meant a lot to him,” Lawrie said. “He definitely wasn’t expecting that. But that game was very special. I think it really did something, just overall, for Daniel to have that type of exposure.”

Jackson aspires to play in the NFL, but his primary goal this season has been to play in every game. He’s on his way, playing in all 10 games so far. He missed two games apiece in the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

Jackson, who has one final year of eligibility for 2024, will make a decision about turning pro after the season, Lawrie said. Right now, he’s just enjoying the moment.

The indelible experience this year for Jackson and Co. came when 20 family members traveled from his home in Kansas City, Kansas, to Iowa City for the U’s game against the Hawkeyes in October.

Lawrie and husband Kenneth travel to every game, but for that occasion Lawrie rented a passenger van well in advance and they drove north and east for four hours and 30 minutes to see Jackson play.

The van was used to better accommodate elder family members, including Lawrie’s mother and Jackson’s grandmother, Janice Sullivan. The 76-year-old is coming off surgeries to her back and a knee earlier this year, but she was determined to see Jackson play college football in person for the first time.

As Jackson made seven receptions for 101 yards in the 12-10 win over Iowa, Sullivan kept saying: “He’s doing that for me because he’s knows I’m here watching!” Lawrie relayed. “Every run, every catch, it was: “I told my baby to do it for me! He’s doing it for his grandma!”

I drove a 15 passenger van to Iowa full of family to support Daniel and the team, and this win meant so much! My mom saw her grandson play college football live for the first time. Thank u to the Gopher and Iowa fans who helped my mom on those stairs. #floydishome #gopherswin pic.twitter.com/cR0OGajgzM

— Dr. JaKyta Lawrie (@jakyta_lawrie) October 22, 2023

After the Gophers won the Floyd of Rosedale rivalry trophy, Jackson, still wearing his jersey, made his way into the stands to be with his family at Kinnick Stadium.

“He wanted to make sure we got pictures with everyone, that he gave everybody hugs and thanked them for coming out,” Lawrie said. “It was just a really special moment. It really was.”

Jacking it up

Daniel Jackson’s stats and his Big Ten rank in receiving categories this season:

45 receptions — 5th

681 receiving yards —3rd

7 touchdowns — tied for 3rd

15.1 average yards per catch — 4th

68.1 average yards per game — 3rd

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A generation ago, film director Eli Roth made “Hostel: Part II,” one of the most heinous things, never mind movies, on the planet — a film of lingering torture sequences, bad faith, worse misogyny and galling laziness.

Now Roth has made “Thanksgiving,” based on a mock trailer (2 minutes, 19 seconds) he shot that same year in 2007, for the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez double feature “Grindhouse.” And get this: “Thanksgiving” works. It’s predictably gory but, at its best, unpredictably nimble. In a career pockmarked by lows, Roth’s latest stands out as a zesty example of holiday stress in extremis.

Director Eli Roth on the set of “Thanksgiving.” (Pief Weyman/Sony Pictures/TNS)

Screenwriter Jeff Rendell takes the original fake trailer as a reference point, not as a guidebook for feature-length expansion. The setup is terrific. At a locally owned Walmart-type big-box store, one Thanksgiving night in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Black Friday shoppers seethe and rage in the cold, desperate to get past the security guards. Meantime the store owner’s daughter Jessica (Nell Verlaque, a wide-eyed, easygoing presence) and her high school friends cavort inside, taunting the rabid customers on the other side of the glass.

The ensuing melee leaves at least three dead, and the escalating craziness of the opening sequence toggles between bloody black comedy and weirdly plausible thrills. A year later, there’s a Thanksgiving killer on the loose, with an apparent grudge against Jessica and company. Screenwriter Rendell lays out a buffet of potential suspects, likely all residents of the tight-knit community unraveling a little more with every corpse.

Patrick Dempsey is the kindly sheriff; Jalen Thomas Brooks and Milo Manheim trade dirty looks as Jessica’s competing, jealous romantic interests. The movie’s final third feels increasingly routine, by which time we’ve seen a lot of entrails and vivisections (one by dumpster lid). But getting there, Roth manages a pace and a merrily sadistic vibe recalling the better “Scream” movies, as well as a worthy protagonist determined not to die.

So why only a middling star rating? I’d place “Thanksgiving” halfway between “fair” and “good.” Inevitably, Roth can’t keep his baser storytelling and filmmaking instincts at bay forever. The culminating sequence depicts the masked killer basting and roasting a female alive, and the movie dies, temporarily, along with the female.

It’s supposed to be grotesque, of course — the diseased doings of a diseased mind, which means anything goes. The Motion Picture Association’s hilariously forgiving definition of an R-rating means the same thing. Roth knows it. He owes his career to it.

What I didn’t know is that Roth even had two-thirds of a good, legit genre movie in him, though his breakout film “Cabin Fever” came close. We’ll see the “Thanksgiving” sequel either in 2024 or 2025, I’m sure.

———

‘THANKSGIVING’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual material)

Running time: 1:47

How to watch: In theaters Friday

Rather than reaching for an espresso martini next time you’re hankering for a caffeinated cocktail, consider mixing up a cozier, more complex alternative: the Chartreuse Cappuccino.

This recipe comes from the pages of a new cookbook by the Portland-based all-things-coffee publication Sprudge, called “But First Coffee: A Guide to Brewing from the Kitchen to the Bar” by Sprudge cofounders Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen.

They credit this recipe to their friend, Paul Einbund, the San Francisco restaurateur behind the Morris and Maison Nico. Einbund combined his knowledge about coffee with a passion for Chartreuse — an herbal French liqueur made by monks at a single distillery in the French Alps — in this drink, which pairs well with Bay Area fog and cozy sweaters for sophisticated and atmospheric sipping.

“Espresso is rude and milk is forgiving,” Einbund says in the cookbook. “When you add a little bit of sugar and Chartreuse into the mix, that’s when things get really interesting.”

Union Square & Co. publisher

Chartreuse is in the midst of a global shortage, so sourcing it may be the hardest part of preparing this recipe. While demand has risen due to home cocktail-making, the monks, who use a secret recipe from the 1600s that contains 130 botanicals, have decided not to increase their production, citing environmental concerns and a desire to focus on other aspects of monastic life like solitude and prayer.

Einbund’s recipe uses yellow Chartreuse, and doesn’t look very different from a classic cappuccino. The cookbook’s authors, however, prefer using green Chartreuse, which gives the drink a sweet, vegetal note that blends well with the espresso. To make the drink appear more green, they add a dash of matcha powder — about 3/4 teaspoon — to the milk mixture before steaming.

 Note: This recipe requires an espresso machine steam wand.

Chartreuse Cappuccino

Makes 1 drink (8 ounces)

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce yellow or green Chartreuse

4 ounces whole milk or alternative milk of your choice

1 teaspoon palm sugar syrup or Demerara sugar syrup

3/4 teaspoon matcha powder, optional

1 espresso shot (1.5 ounces or 3 tablespoons)

DIRECTIONS

Add the Chartreuse, milk, palm sugar syrup and matcha powder (if using) to a steaming pitcher for milk. Steam the mixture using the steam wand on your espresso machine. You’re looking for traditional cappuccino foam here — frothy and not too wet. You will notice that the steamed milk is fragrant from the sugar and Chartreuse, which is very much the point.

Pull a shot of espresso and pour it into a cappuccino cup. Pour the steamed milk mixture over the espresso and serve immediately.

— Reprinted with permission from “But First, Coffee: A Guide to Brewing from the Kitchen to the Bar” by Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen (Union Square & Co., $20). 

There’s a new buzz around the NFL, and it grew louder in front of a prime-time national television audience Thursday night at M&T Bank Stadium.

Ravens tight end Mark Andrews is likely out for the season after suffering an ankle injury in the first quarter of Baltimore’s 34-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. Linebacker Logan Wilson brought down the 2021 All-Pro and three-time Pro Bowl selection with a controversial hip-drop tackle, which is when a defender encircles a runner and drops his weight on the opponent’s knee or ankle to bring the player to the ground.

“When they do it, the runner becomes defenseless,” Rich McKay, chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, said during league meetings in October, adding that the play is a “cousin” of the horse-collar tackle, which was made illegal in 2005. “They can’t kick their way out from under. And that’s the problem. That’s where the injury occurs. You see the ankle get trapped underneath the weight of the defender.”

That’s what happened to Andrews when Wilson brought him to the ground on the Bengals’ 4-yard line less than four minutes into Thursday night’s AFC North matchup and landed on his left ankle.

Quarterback Lamar Jackson, who connected with Andrews on a short pass before the tight end turned upfield and raced toward the end zone, knew immediately that the injury was significant. Andrews stayed down writhing in pain and Jackson slammed his helmet in anguish.

“We’ve been bread and butter, peanut butter and jelly — whatever you want to call it,” said Jackson, who was drafted by the Ravens along with Andrews in 2018. “It’s very tough, because that’s my boy. That’s receiver [No.] 1 sometimes, and for him to go out [in the] first quarter … He’s been having a remarkable year.”

The hip-drop tackle has also been getting a lot of attention, this season and last.

Last month, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith injured his knee after New York Giants linebacker Isaiah Simmons landed on the back of his legs during a tackle. In January, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and two-time NFL Most Valuable Player Patrick Mahomes suffered a high ankle sprain during the divisional round of the playoffs when Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Arden Key came down awkwardly on Mahomes’ right ankle. And in last season’s wild-card playoff game between the 49ers and Cowboys, Dallas running back Tony Pollard broke his leg and suffered a high ankle sprain while similarly being dragged down by San Francisco safety Jimmie Ward.

The NFL is gathering data and conducting a study on the hip-drop as it considers possibly banning it, with league executive Jeff Miller, who is in charge of overseeing player health and safety, saying in October that the tackle increases risk of injury by 25 times the rate of a regular tackle.

“It is an unforgiving behavior and one that we need to try to define and get out of the game,” Miller said. “To quantify it for you, we see an injury more or less every week in the regular season on the hip-drop.”

That nearly included two more Ravens on tackles by Wilson.

Not long after Baltimore lost Andrews, Jackson injured his ankle as he scrambled toward the sideline and was dragged down from behind by the linebacker. The 2019 NFL MVP stayed down momentarily and trainers tended to him before he gave a thumbs-up and returned on the Ravens’ next possession without missing a play. Later, wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., landed awkwardly on his shoulder after Wilson tackled him from behind.

Neither were clear hip-drop tackles, though all eyes were on Wilson, who was not made available to the media after the game. Bengals coach Zac Taylor, meanwhile, said only that he didn’t “definitively” know what the tackle was when asked about the play involving Andrews.

“It was definitely a hip-drop tackle, and it is being discussed,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “It’s a tough tackle. Was it even necessary in that situation? The other one on the sideline … There are always plays you send into the league to have them look at and have them interpret for you.”

In the meantime, Baltimore will look to fill the massive void that Andrews’ injury leaves in the locker room and on the field.

Over the past six years, the 287 passes Andrews has caught from Jackson is 123 more than any other Ravens player. The 33 touchdowns the two have connected on also rank behind only Mahomes and Travis Kelce among quarterback-tight end combinations during that span.

It will be a team effort, Harbaugh said, but in terms of who will take over at tight end, that duty will go to Isaiah Likely. A fourth-round pick out of Coastal Carolina in 2022, he has just nine catches for 89 yards this season. Before Thursday’s game, he had been on the field for only 27.2% of the team’s offensive snaps.

He did flash during his rookie year, however, with four games of at least four catches, including in Week 17 against the Bengals when he had eight grabs for 103 yards while filling in for Andrews.

“It hurts,” Likely said of losing Andrews. “Mark is like a big brother in my eyes.

“I feel like I’m ready. I really just feel like me holding on to little details on how Lamar sees things, and then getting that same input on how Mark would have probably done it for him, and then just really trying to incorporate it into my game, and how I do things and going from there.”

Behind Likely is second-year tight end Charlie Kolar. A fourth-round pick out of Iowa State, he has played sparingly, however, appearing in 11 total games with five career catches for 62 yards. Fullback Patrick Ricard also has experience at tight end.

It’s also likely that Jackson will lean even more on his wide receivers.

Zay Flowers’ 53 catches and 588 yards this season are second and third, respectively, in the NFL among rookies and don’t include the 68-yard touchdown pass he had called back Thursday for a questionable holding penalty. Beckham, Rashod Bateman and Nelson Agholor are next in line with 24, 20 and 19 catches apiece.

Over the past three games, Beckham in particular has started to find a rhythm with Jackson, with 10 catches for 212 yards and two touchdowns in that span. That included 116 yards Thursday, the most he’s had in a game since Week 2 in 2019 with the Browns.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Beckham, who said his shoulder injury isn’t that bad. “Been a lot of hard work.

“Early on in the season, I was hurting. I couldn’t be myself. I didn’t have the explosion. I couldn’t move the way that I wanted to and I don’t think people really knew what I was dealing with.”

And now the Ravens (8-3) are going to have to figure out how to deal with not having Andrews the rest of the season.

Week 12

Ravens at Chargers

Sunday, Nov. 26, 8:20 p.m.

TV: NBC

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

Line: Ravens by 3 1/2

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