Author: David Shama

Unless the University of Minnesota football team can surprise everyone, the season will end with a school record 11^th loss.  The Gophers could finish at 1-11 overall, 0-8 in the Big Ten Conference with a loss to Wisconsin in the Metrodome on Saturday.

This would be the first time since 1994 that Minnesota has finished alone at the bottom of the conference standings, although the Gophers shared bottom finishes in 1996 and 2001.  In the previous 10 seasons, all under coach Glen Mason, the Gophers’ Big Ten finishes were ninth, seventh, fourth, fourth, 10^th, seventh, fourth, eighth, seventh and sixth.

Last year the Gophers’ conference record was 3-5 (6-7 overall).  As recently as 2003 the Gophers were 5-3 in the Big Ten, finishing in fourth place, with a 10-3 overall record.  Mason and his staff weren’t able to better or equal the annual records beyond that. During his career at Minnesota, Mason’s conference record was 32 wins, 48 losses. When Mason was let go after last year’s Insight Bowl collapse against Texas Tech, the talent he and his staff had on campus was below that of more recent seasons.

This season that talent met a new coaching staff with new ideas and systems.  Coach Tim Brewster and his staff talk about creating a new culture, partially based on attitudes, behaviors and strategies. The results will have a lot to do, too, with how physically gifted the next group of players are that they bring to Minnesota.  The staff’s reputation as superior recruiters is on the line as an impatient public and cynical media watches, and as a new $288.5 million stadium and the expectations that go with it are being readied for 2009.

Coaches in the Big Ten and elsewhere who have turned around programs often have started their projects at ground zero, experiencing bad first year records and sometimes close losses like the Gophers who have lost five games by six points or less. What follows are the tales of other places and coaches.

Kansas State was the outhouse of college football for most of the 20^th century.   A .500 season in Manhattan was as commonplace as March sun bathing in Minneapolis.  The four seasons before Bill Snyder came to Kansas State, the Wildcats won a total of three games.  In 1989, Snyder’s first season, he was 1-10.  After that his program took off and Kansas State became a top 20 program and Big 12 Conference champions.

Northwestern and Kansas State had more in common than the nickname Wildcats before Gary Barnett showed up in Evanston.  The NU “Mildcats” were always a favorite homecoming opponent and hadn’t been to the Rose Bowl since 1949. The three seasons before Barnett’s arrival Northwestern had won three conference games.  Barnett’s 1992-1994 teams were 3-9, 2-9 and 3-7-1, but he preached a “you gotta believe” message.  Then came back-to-back Big Ten championships in 1995 and 1996, the school’s first titles since 1936.

Barry Alvarez is the winningest coach in University of Wisconsin football history. The Badgers had won a total of nine football games in the four seasons before he became Wisconsin’s coach.  He was a loser in his first season in Madison, going 0-8 in the Big Ten, 1-10 overall in 1990.  Two more losing seasons followed and then came a Big Ten championship in 1993.  Alvarez took three teams to the Rose Bowl, winning all his games in Pasadena.  He won three Big Ten championships.

Hayden Fry stared at a miserable statistic when he started his first season as Iowa’s head football coach in 1979: the Hawkeyes had gone 17 consecutive years without a winning season.  After two losing seasons, Fry had Iowa in the Rose Bowl as Big Ten champs.  He went on to win two more conference titles, compiling a record of 143-89-6 in 20 seasons at Iowa.  By the late 1990s his program had slipped and in 1998 Fry finished 3-8 in his final season.  In came Kirk Ferentz, now considered one of college football’s best coaches. His first two seasons he won four games and lost 19.  Later came two conference championships within three seasons.

Kansas is a basketball school, right?  Not so much anymore.  Historically, Kansas has sometimes been about as bad as Kansas State and coach Mark Mangino came into this season with these records: 2-10, 6-7, 4-7, 7-5 and 6-6.  Check out the Jayhawks now: 10-0, ranked in the top five in the country and possibly headed to the national championship game.

Even at talent overload and tradition-rich USC, things don’t always start out so hot.  In 2001, Pete Carroll’s first season, he lost four straight games, finished with a 6-6 record and had the embarrassment of losing to Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl.  Better days, to say the least, followed as the Trojans won national championships in 2003 and 2004.

What all these tales of success come down to is this: Brewster deserves patience and support while he goes about his business.  Don’t judge him today. Wait for the results of 2008 and 2009.

In a pop culture quiz, former Gopher and Dallas star Marion Barber tells Sports Illustrated his childhood hero was Jesus Christ, and the vegetable he won’t eat is spinach.

The guess here is the Twins won’t re-sign Torii Hunter and will trade Johan Santana.  The payroll savings will be used to acquire other talent and retain younger core players.

Sporting News predicts that “regardless of where he ends up,” Hunter will be among the top three vote getters next season in league MVP voting.

Sporting News includes four Vikings on its all-NFL mid-season team: running back Adrian Peterson, guard Steve Hutchinson, defensive tackle Kevin Williams and cornerback Antoine Winfield.

Wolves’ rookie Corey Brewer played his best all-around game as a pro on Saturday night at Sacramento. Brewer scored 15 points, including seven-for-seven from the free throw line, grabbed eight rebounds, had two assists and two steals in 29 minutes.

Three of the Gophers’ outstanding basketball players from the 1960s and basketball community leaders over the years will be presented with the Jim Dutcher Award by the Minnesota Magic Basketball Club on Friday evening at Golden Valley Country Club.  The recipients are Bill Davis, Al Nuness and Paul Presthus.  The award recognizes a “lifetime dedicated to basketball” and the event generates scholarship money.  More information is available by calling 612-331-5600, or via kelly@silhouettellc.com

The early signing period for college basketball prospects starts Wednesday and continues through November 21.  Among the players the Gophers hope to sign is Ralph Sampson III of Duluth, Georgia.  Gopher fan Bob Klas remembered that Ralph Sampson II almost became a Gopher but chose Virginia where he developed into a No. 1 NBA draft choice. Virginia painted “The House that Ralph Built” on the roof of its arena, took Sampson up in an airplane to view it, and then signed him to a tender, according to Klas.

The Minnesota athletic department is sponsoring a trip for fans to Tallahassee, Florida where the Gophers will play Florida State as part of the annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge on November 27.  The trip package includes airfare, hotel, game ticket and more. To make reservations call 612-626-2258 no later than November 19.

The Wild recalled goaltender Nolan Schaefer and right wing Aaron Voros from the Houston Aeros yesterday.  Schaefer, 27, was 2-4-0 with a 2.93 goals against average and a .902 save percentage in six games with the Aeros.  Voros, 26, had eight points (four goals, four assists) and 46 penalty minutes in 12 games with Houston.  The 6-foot-3, 205-pound forward led the Aeros in penalty minutes, and was second in scoring and in goals.

Kyle Okposo, expected to be a steady point producer for the Gophers’ hockey team, went eight games without a point until Saturday night when he scored two goals to help Minnesota beat Minnesota State.  The Gophers swept the weekend series to win their first two WCHA games of the season.

Dick Jonckowski, Gopher baseball public address announcer, said Minnesota coach John Anderson will be inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in Philadelphia in early  January.

Jonckowski is friends with former St. Louis manager Whitey Herzog who led the Cardinals to the 1987 World Series against the Twins.  In September Jonckowski emceed a 20 year reunion banquet in St. Louis for the Cardinals.

Concordia-St. Paul’s senior quarterback Kole Goodchild was named to the 2007 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District V First Team as voted on by members of the College Sports Information Directors of America.  Goodchild has accumulated a 3.89 grade point average while double-majoring in accounting and finance.  This fall he set the single season school passing record with 3,027 yards. He holds school single-game records for completions, yards, touchdown passes and interceptions and single-season records for completions and attempts.