Talk about incentives.
The Golden Gophers can “exorcise a lot of demons” if they defeat Missouri in the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl on January 1. Coach Jerry Kill’s team learned yesterday they have an invitation to that prestigious New Year’s Day bowl.
A source told Sports Headliners last week the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida was Minnesota’s preferred bowl destination. The Citrus is the highest ranking bowl game the Gophers could have been invited to and provides Minnesota with its first New Year’s Day matchup since 1962. The Citrus is the Big Ten’s second-oldest current bowl partner behind only the Rose Bowl. Big Ten teams have played in 24 Citrus Bowls, including each of the last 22 seasons.
The Gophers have lost six consecutive bowl games. All, of course, have been disappointing but some were particularly bitter defeats including last December’s loss in the Texas Bowl to a mediocre Syracuse team. To this day the Gophers will shake their collective heads over their effort and performance.
The Gophers don’t want to lug yet another bowl loss into their offseason workouts and spring practice. The program picked up momentum this season with a 5-3 Big Ten record, Minnesota’s best since 2003. Wins included trophy game triumphs over Michigan and Iowa. A season-ending loss to Wisconsin, along with a defeat in the bowl game, will take some shine off this year.
The flip side, though, is the Gophers cannot only put themselves in good spirits during the off-season but also put more juice into the fan base. More ticket sales and interest in the program are for sure if the Gophers defeat Missouri, a team that is among the best in the SEC—America’s top college football league.
The Tigers, 10-3, won the SEC’s East Division and are No. 16 nationally in the College Football Playoff rankings. The Gophers, 8-4, are ranked No. 25.
The Tigers are perceived as the team with the better personnel and figure to be a wagering favorite, at least by a touchdown. The Gophers, though, will embrace the underdog role they have played throughout the season. Last summer virtually no one predicted Minnesota would contend for the Big Ten’s West Division title but the Gophers went into the last game of the regular season with a chance to advance to the conference championship matchup with East Division champ Ohio State.
The Gophers cannot only help their own image by winning on New Year’s Day against an SEC team. They can help pump life into the Big Ten brand. Dating back to 2000, conference teams have only twice won more bowl games than they lost. The last four years the Big Ten record in postseason is 10 wins, 21 losses.
The national exposure on New Year’s Day can help Minnesota’s recruiting which is already on an upswing because of this season. The Gophers target recruiting high school players in the Southeastern part of the country, so playing in a major bowl game in Florida for the first time since 2000 is valuable.
Minnesota players who have been injured will have extra time to heal before the Citrus Bowl. An earlier bowl date meant, for example, that wide receiver Drew Wolitarsky would have less chance of recovering from his high ankle sprain. A starter in the Illinois game when he was injured, Wolitarsky would be a welcome returnee for quarterback Mitch Leidner who has played on a bad knee.
Like other bowl teams, the Gophers will receive 15 extra practices. That’s an incentive for a lot of players to improve and impress the coaches.
There’s that incentive word again.
Worth Noting
The Vikings have won consecutive cold weather games the last two Sundays at home. Yesterday the temperature was 32 with a wind chill of 21. A week ago Sunday the temp was 12 and the wind chill at minus seven. Vikings running back Ben Tate said players stiffen up in the cold. “You feel like you’re running in slow motion,” he told Sports Headliners.
The Vikings have one home game remaining, December 28 against the Bears, and then next year more outdoor football before moving into their new enclosed stadium in 2016. When it’s miserably cold at TCF Bank Stadium can a bad team that is losing to the Vikings by a big score give up? Tate thinks so. “In a climate like this, probably pack it in and just want to get the game over. I definitely think that’s an advantage for us playing in the cold weather.”
Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen is in his first season as a starter. The team’s other starting end, Brian Robison, believes Griffen has been playing at an All-Pro level. “I absolutely think so,” Robison told Sports Headliners last week. “The guy’s been playing out of his mind this year. To have 11 sacks (12 after yesterday) at this point in the season is huge. I think he’s done a lot more things than that (too)…so I think the guy is playing on a tremendous level right now.”
The Pro Bowl will be played January 25 in Glendale, Arizona and Griffen could be among the players selected. Pro Bowlers are determined by voting from fans, players and coaches. “I would think it would be a shame if he didn’t make the Pro Bowl for sure,” Robison said.
Former Gopher Simoni Lawrence, now a linebacker for Hamilton in the CFL, started all three playoff games for the Tiger-Cats including their Grey Cup loss to Calgary.
TwinsFest tickets—$20 for adults and $10 ages 14 and younger—go on sale to the general public on Thursday. Twins president Dave St. Peter said in the past all players on the 40-man roster have usually made appearances at TwinsFest, and for 2015 that means fans will likely be able to meet top prospects like Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario and Miguel Sano. The event, January 23-25, will be at Target Field for a second consecutive year and attendance could total a capacity maximum of 15,000, or about half the size for some TwinsFests at the Metrodome.
St. Peter said new manager Paul Molitor has “made contact” with players and will do more off-season communications at TwinsFest. Molitor’s contacts have been made with players here in town, not out of Minnesota.
Baseball’s winter meetings began yesterday in San Diego and are a catalyst to rumors about free agent signings. St. Peter said the Twins are shopping for pitching but wouldn’t predict how soon the club might have an announcement about acquisitions. “It could play out over 60 to 90 days,” he told Sports Headliners.
The North Dakota basketball team that plays the 6-2 Gophers tonight at Williams Arena has a 3-4 record including a 37 point loss to Utah and 12 point defeat against Northern Iowa. The North Dakota roster has six Minnesotans including sophomore guard Quinton Hooker, the 2013 Minnesota Mr. Basketball from Brooklyn Park, who is averaging 9.6 points—third best on the team—and leads in assists with 17.
Gophers basketball and baseball public address announcer Dick Jonckowski is recovering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma; and his last chemotherapy session is tomorrow.
If the Gophers season is to be a success, junior college transfer Carlos Morris needs to be a leading contributor. Morris was important to Minnesota before the season began, but is even more vital now with fellow small forward Daquein McNeil off the team indefinitely after being arrested for an off-court incident. Morris’ athleticism has been impressive including on Friday night when the Gophers defeated West Carolina, but coach Richard Pitino expects a lot from the 6-5, 175-pound junior.
“You can’t play 32 minutes at the small forward spot and only get two rebounds (Friday),” Pitino said. “He did a lot of good things—16 points, four assists, three steals—but you gotta rebound the ball at that spot.”
Pitino doesn’t plan to be overly patient with Morris who is the team’s second leading scorer at 11.6 points per game. He wants consistent effort and versatile production from Morris. “A lot of times with jucos it takes them a year,” Pitino said. “We don’t have a year with him. Just like we didn’t have a year with DeAndre Mathieu (juco point guard transfer in 2013).
“He’s gotta figure it out right now because he’s our only true small forward in the program. He’s gotta figure out a lot of things quickly which is normally difficult, but he’s got the talent which is good.”
The Gophers will wear black uniforms for their January 6 Big Ten home opener against Ohio State. The “Barn Blackout” game will encourage fans to wear black clothing.
Former Gophers golfer and New York Times bestselling author Harvey Mackay will ring a bell for the Salvation Army from 2 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday at Byerly’s in St. Louis Park. This will be Mackay’s 12th consecutive year helping with the organization’s holiday fundraising effort. Mackay usually tells WCCO Radio listeners if they make a contribution to his kettle they will receive one of his books for free.