Minnesota turns Alabama's gifts into Music City Bowl victory.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Brian Hamilton

NASHVILLE, Tenn. _ The Music City Bowl championship trophy was ferried from the playing field to the University of Minnesota's locker room in the hands of a bowl game volunteer. And that was just as well. Given the chance, someone from the Gophers contingent might have been inclined to give it away.

Then again, if form held, someone from Alabama's end would have failed to take it.

So it went in Minnesota's 20-16 season-ending victory Friday in the Music City Bowl, in which the Gophers did a lot of things well _ including more of their tendency to make just enough mistakes to invite disaster. But finally, in front of a bowl-record 66,089 fans at The Coliseum, an inept opponent completely unable to exploit the charity showed up.

Minnesota (7-5) turned the ball over on its first three possessions, committed 11 penalties for 84 yards, dropped two touchdown passes and missed a 31-yard field-goal attempt that would have given it a two-score margin late in the fourth quarter. But thanks to Alabama's toothless offense, which featured 21 net rushing yards and came up empty on two potential go-ahead drives in the last five minutes, it didn't matter.

What stood out instead were 187 yards rushing for game MVP Marion Barber III, another 105 yards for Laurence Maroney, a defense that played well for just the second time in almost three months, and a win to numb the pain of five losses in the previous six games.

"We missed our opportunities," Gophers coach Glen Mason said. "When you miss those type of opportunities against an opponent the caliber of Alabama, at least as far as we're concerned, it's going to go right down to the end. It should not have happened. But it did."