Golden Gophers – Page 211 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

O-Line Poses Concerns for Vikings

Posted on December 12, 2017December 12, 2017 by David Shama

A Tuesday football notes column with Vikings, Gophers and prep news.

The Vikings, 10-3, have remaining games with the Bengals, Packers and Bears who have a combined 16-23 record. Two of the three games are at home. If the Vikings are to be upset before the playoffs it likely will be because of the uncertain offensive line.

Injuries to multiple starters had Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer wondering yesterday who will be available for Sunday’s game at U.S. Bank Stadium against the Bengals. A patched up offensive line struggled at times in Sunday’s loss to the Panthers who put an end to Minnesota’s eight game winning streak.

“When you have injuries, you’re going to have backup players play in there,” Zimmer said. “We’re not going to make an excuse for this game (Panthers), or for players that come in or anything else. We’ll take ownership of what we did Sunday and we’ll move forward.”

While Zimmer could end up as NFL Coach of the Year, his former boss with the Bengals is on the hot seat. The Bengals are 5-8 under longtime coach Marvin Lewis who is 0-7 in playoff games since taking over in Cincinnati in 2003.

It will be 10 years next month that Lewis hired Zimmer as defensive coordinator. Past Bengals coordinators had struggled including Leslie Frazier who was fired after the 2004 season. Zimmer, in his fourth season as Vikings head coach, helped the Bengals earn top 10 defensive rankings in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Bovada has made the Vikings, at 8/1 odds, the NFC favorite to play in the Super Bowl, according to a story yesterday by Nbcsports.com/Philadelphia.

Stats: the Vikings defense ranks third in the NFL giving up 293.4 yards per game. That unit is second best in fewest rushing yards allowed, 88.3. The offense is seventh best in the league with 369.3 yards a game. Wide receiver Adam Thielen ranks third in total receiving yards at 1,161.

Ray Anderson, the athletic director at Arizona State since 2014 who made the surprise hire this month of Herm Edwards as Sun Devils head coach, was once the agent for former Vikings boss Dennis Green.

Antonio Montero, the Eden Prairie senior who won the 2017 state Mr. Football Award Sunday, may decide to walk-on with the Gophers. He visited the Minnesota campus last weekend and plans a trip to the University of Illinois in January where a scholarship offer could be forthcoming from the Illini, he said.

Montero, who also is considering opportunities at the Air Force Academy and with North Dakota State, projects as a linebacker in college after playing that position and running back for the 6-A state champion Eagles. Montero is about 5-11 and 215 pounds.

Eden Prairie coach Mike Grant raved about Montero. “He’s worked extremely hard,” Grant told Sports Headliners. “He’s not the tallest guy. He’s not the fastest guy. He’s just a great player.”

When Grant watches Montero, he sees an instinctive player who had 190 career tackles with the Eagles. “We like guys who make plays, and that’s what he does,” Grant said.

Major college recruiters can miss on players who are undersized. Recruiting is an inexact process for sure. Recruiters make judgment errors on many players who aren’t undersized, too. “I have given up trying to figure out how anybody recruits,” Grant said. “No one listens to me. …We like guys to make plays, that’s all I know.”

Grant has won 11 state championships. His players work during the offseason on physical development including speed and explosiveness. “We don’t worry about how big guys are,” Grant said.

The Mr. Football Award, sponsored by the Minnesota Football Coaches Association and the Vikings, started in 2004. Grant’s had three recipients with J.D. Spielman in 2015 and Blake Sorensen in 2006 also winning the award. That’s more than any other school.

Grant might have a fourth winner next year in quarterback Cole Kramer. He has played 22 games without throwing an interception during his sophomore and junior seasons.

Grant said Benny Sapp III, the defensive back who will sign with the Gophers on December 20, is close to a full recovery after missing all but two games with the Eagles because of a knee injury. “They were able to fully repair the cartilage,” Grant said. “He’s going to be a 100 percent. He’s running. He will be ready to go in probably a month or so.”

St. Cloud Tech’s Brevyn Spann-Ford was the only finalist among the 11 Mr. Football candidates who will be a scholarship recruit in the Gophers 2018 class. Ford, a 6-6, 237-pound tight end, told Sports Headliners his college decision was difficult but he liked the Minnesota coaching staff and the idea of staying close to home. Other scholarship offers included Missouri, North Dakota State and West Virginia.

Jerry Burns, who turns 91 in January, was at Southtown Shopping Center last Saturday as part of Triple Crown’s sports memorabilia show that included a bobblehead of the former Vikings coach. What did he think of the bobblehead?

“No big deal, a bobblehead of me,” Burns said. “I am an ugly guy to start with and a bobbehead makes me ugly too, so I am happy for it.”

Grant, 60, has known Burns for a long time, including back in the days when Grant was a ball boy at Viking training camp. Burns, a former Vikings assistant and later head coach, is a Grant favorite.

“I loved being a ball boy down there and trying to interpret what he said to the players,” Grant said. “Burnsie, great guy.”

The Gophers Signing Day Social December 20 at TCF Bank Stadium will inform fans about Minnesota’s 2018 football recruiting class. Doors open at 11 a.m. and a buffet lunch will be served prior to the 1 p.m. program. The cost is $30 per person with more information at GoalLineClub.org.

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Here’s Your College Football Finale

Posted on December 7, 2017December 7, 2017 by David Shama

The University of Minnesota season is over but my college football notebook has unfinished business. Here’s an offering of year-end thoughts about not only the U, but also the Big Ten Conference and national scenes.

Many Gophers fans remain open-minded after one season of the P.J. Fleck era—disappointing as it was at 5-7, ending with just two league wins and outscored 70-0 by the final two opponents. That’s the fair approach because it’s too soon to judge Fleck and his staff.

The 37-year-old coach has big ambitions for Minnesota and will mostly either realize them or fail based on the talent of his players. Minnesota’s 2018 recruiting class is No. 31 nationally in the 247Sports composite rankings. If that impressive ranking sticks through Signing Day on December 20, the Gophers will have their highest ranked recruiting class since 2008 and head coach Tim Brewster.

A prominent businessman, U alum and big-time Gopher booster thinks Fleck is going to be a coaching star. He told me this fall Minnesota will be on its way as soon as Fleck’s second season. The view from here: with so many inexperienced and new players in 2018, that’s not likely.

Fleck needs to not just eventually breakthrough with a couple of winning seasons, but more importantly develop a program with continued success. Can he do it?

That’s the golden question in Dinkytown. He has only been a head coach for five years. At Western Michigan he had one knockout season, his last one in 2016 when the Broncos were 13-1 and a damn good team. His first season at Western, in 2013, the record was 1-11, then came two 8-5 years.

Fleck’s combined record as a head coach is 35 wins, 29 losses. Certainly circumstances, including resources available, have much to do with a coach’s record but it’s interesting the Broncos program he left behind was just 6-6 overall and 4-4 in Mid-American Conference games this past season. Maybe the Broncos missed Fleck’s leadership that much, or perhaps he left a program still not built for sustained high level success.

The Mid-American has long been an incubator of coaches going on to big-time jobs—from Ara Parseghian to Urban Meyer. The league has also produced its share of Big Ten coaching busts including Darrell Hazell who was a one-season hit at Kent State before piling up the losses at Purdue over four years. Brady Hoke used some brief success at Ball State to move on to San Diego State for two seasons before he failed at Michigan.

Gophers’ athletic director Mark Coyle is all in on Fleck, having hired him for more than $3 million annually last January. This fall Coyle proposed extending Fleck’s original five-year contract through the 2022 season (pending Board of Regents approval next week).

The opinion here is the first attribute an athletic director needs is the skill to identify and hire the best coaches. How is Coyle doing?

It’s too soon to judge Coyle who was hired at Minnesota in 2016. However, it’s interesting that Fleck isn’t the only ex-Mid-American head coach with limited experience and success that Coyle has hired. As Syracuse’s athletic director he hired Dino Babers who coached at Bowling Green where he was 18-9 in two seasons and won the 2015 MAC championship. Babers has coached Syracuse for two seasons with 4-8 overall and 2-6 ACC records both years.

Among the best things that have happened to Gophers football this century is being placed in the Big Ten’s West Division. The power in the conference rests in the East where bullies Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State are usually better than most teams in the West—or is that all except for Wisconsin?

Mike Riley was the wrong coach for Nebraska but his presence in Lincoln was a plus for the Gophers who beat his team 54-21 this season. New hire Scott Frost looks like instant improvement for “Big Red” and leaves the West Division with only one apparent coaching soft spot, at Illinois where Lovie Smith is 5-19 (2-16 Big Ten) in two seasons.

The coaching scene in the West Division looks like it’s really settling in except for some drama at Minnesota and with the Illini. Frost, the former Nebraska quarterback who turned UCF from a 0-12 team in 2015 to an undefeated one this fall, looks like a perfect fit in Lincoln. Northwestern, with former Wildcat All-American linebacker Pat Fitzgerald heading the program with success since 2006, is already the West Division’s legacy model fit.

As head coach, Wisconsin’s Barry Alvarez resurrected Badgers football in the 1990s. As athletic director, he remains the CEO of the program. Now with Madison native and Alvarez disciple Paul Chryst as head coach the Badgers keep winning division titles, and it’s “On Wisconsin” every year.

It’s not easy to win at Iowa but head coach Kirk Ferentz has made an 18-year career as the Hawkeyes boss. Here and there Iowa has known glory including the 2016 Rose Bowl and the day this fall when they embarrassed Ohio State with a 55-24, beat down in Iowa City. Things remain stable at Iowa with Kirk’s son, Brian Ferentz, seemingly a solid bet to one day succeed his dad as head coach.

Jeff Brohm’s first season as Purdue head coach gave long suffering Boilermaker fans some bright moments including a 31-17 win over the Gophers. Purdue, with an overall 6-6 record and 4-5 in the Big Ten, will play in its first bowl games since 2012. A year ago Purdue finished 1-8 and 3-9 under Hazell. With his offensive pedigree, Brohm could be the right guy at a school that years ago was referenced as “Quarterback U.”

The Gophers are the opposite of “Quarterback U.” Minnesota’s last All-American quarterback was Sandy Stephens in 1961. The NFL last drafted a Gophers quarterback in 1972 when Craig Curry was an eighth round pick.

Quarterback Victor Viramontes, the junior college transfer from California expected to sign with Minnesota December 20, is already a social media fave of Gophers fans. He was even interviewed on WCCO Radio’s “Sports Huddle” last Sunday before going to church.

Perhaps Viramontes, who has drawn comparisons to former Florida Heisman winner Tim Tebow, can emerge as a starter next year and also a star. The Gophers will need box office appeal not only because of this year’s record. The home schedule is not exactly a who’s who of college football—New Mexico State, Fresno State, Miami (Ohio), Iowa, Indiana, Purdue and Northwestern.

Speaking of college football’s elite, the Big Ten was left out of the four-team playoff to determine the national champion. The selection committee may well have put the best teams in the field—it’s hard to vote for the Big Ten champion Buckeyes after the debacle in Iowa City—but the playoffs do have a provincial look. Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Oklahoma collectively cover a small part of America geographically.

The prediction here is that won’t happen in a few years because the playoff will likely be expanded from four to six teams. Champions from the five Power Conferences, plus a wild-card team would ensure more geographic balance and lessen second-guessing about who gets in the field. The motivation for going to six teams will also be to create more TV viewers and advertising revenues.

In case you didn’t notice, TV is king. The guy who spends $100 per ticket at the stadium isn’t as important as all those folks sitting at home in their recliners watching the endless parade of TV commercials. The ticket buyer is fortunate if he or she is provided more than six-days notice regarding the start time for the next game.

Meanwhile, the viewer at home may be sitting in his pajamas and enjoying all the game action up close on an Ultra HD TV. Commercials? Whoever invented the mute button is a genius.

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Vikings Spielman Shows the Skeptics

Posted on December 5, 2017December 5, 2017 by David Shama

It looks like Rick Spielman’s critics will have to rethink their second-guessing of the Vikings general manager. Skeptics said this summer the 2017 Vikings might struggle to make the playoffs, but with a 10-2 record the club is one of the NFL’s elite teams and headed toward a postseason run that could end in the Minneapolis Super Bowl.

The Vikings rank third in the NFL in yards given up per game at 289.1 and have made a statement offensively ranking fifth and averaging 370.4 yards. Mike Zimmer, in his fourth season leading the Vikings, is an advanced defensive teacher and strategist. In his first full season as offensive coordinator, Pat Shurmur has impressed with varied schemes, play calls and tempos. But without gifted players the Vikings wouldn’t be on an eight-game win streak and in the company of the NFC’s best teams.

Before the season there was speculation Spielman’s job could be on the line this fall. General managers, like coaches, are subject to constant scrutiny—especially those who have been making personnel decisions with the same organization for a long time. Spielman has been out front on Viking scouting, drafting and trading since 2006. During that time the Vikings have won three division titles and advanced to the playoffs four times.

The Vikings have one playoff win in the Spielman era and from season-to-season often struggled to maintain success. The 2015 team’s record was 11-5 and the club won the NFC North title. Last season was a disappointment with an 8-8 record and no playoff appearance. A major source of misery was the offensive line and the Spielman critics faulted him for not drafting an o-lineman in the first round for five years, 2013-2017.

The line is part of the success story this fall, though. During the offseason Spielman signed free agent tackles Riley Reiff and Mike Remmers. He drafted center Pat Elflien who as a rookie moved into the starting lineup joining Reiff and Remmers. As of late Remmers has been injured but Rashod Hill has been an effective sub. The Vikings added Hill to their practice squad about a year ago when the Jaguars let him go.

It was a great 2017 offseason for Spielman who also signed Case Keenum as a backup quarterback to Sam Bradford. Keenum has emerged as one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks, with both observation and analytics testifying to his high level of play. Bradford, acquired by Spielman before the 2016 season after future franchise quarterback Teddy Bridgewater was sidelined for the year, turned in a career season for the Vikings despite the awful performance of the offensive line. Bradford, though, has a history of knee injuries, and has only played in two games this season. Keenum was a journeyman quarterback until this season but Speilman looks prophetic in acquiring the five-year veteran who was named NFC Offensive Player of the Month for November.

Keenum is one of several players on the roster worthy of NFL postseason honors, including Pro Bowl consideration. Spielman and his staff found wide receiver Adam Thielen as an undrafted free agent in 2013 and the Minnesota native heads any list of offensive players along with Keenum. Other names include these Spielman draft choices: linebacker Anthony Barr, wide receiver Stefon Diggs, defensive end Everson Griffen, safety Harrison Smith and cornerback Xavier Rhodes. There is also defensive tackle Linval Joseph who Spielman acquired as a free agent in 2014.

The presence of Keenum, 29, is particularly significant for Spielman and the Vikings. Criticism has been targeted at the general manger for years regarding the quarterback position. Brett Favre was a short-term fix in 2009 and Spielman hoped he had a long-term solution with 2011 No. 1 draft choice Christian Ponder. The Ponder experiment didn’t succeed and the Vikings started over with the drafting of Bridgewater in 2014, only to see him sustain a career threatening knee injury last year.

During the Spielman era there have admittedly been personnel moves that didn’t work out. The Leslie Frazier hire as head coach in 2011 didn’t succeed either but it’s difficult to know how much authority Vikings ownership played in that decision—and perhaps even the hiring of Zimmer.

What is known is that without assembling a talented roster and winning on the field, general managers can’t maintain job security. It looks like Spielman will be around for awhile.

Worth Noting

Bobbleheads of Vikings legends Jerry Burns and Bob Lurtsema, costing $40 each, will be on sale this weekend at Southtown Shopping Center as part of Triple Crown’s Sports Card & Bobble Show. Lurtsema will be at the show from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, while Burns is there from 1 to 4 p.m. Show hours Saturday are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. More information is available from Joe Florenzano, vikingstwinsman@gmail.com.

Mary Hardin-Baylor, the school that defeated St. Thomas 24-10 last Saturday in a Division III quarterfinal playoff game, started its football program in 1998. Until playing the Tommies, the Crusaders had never been held under 150 yards of total offense, or less than 10 yards rushing. St. Thomas limited MHB to 143 yards on 55 plays, including minus 16 rushing yards on 30 carries.

St. Thomas graduated four defensive All-Americans from the 2016 team but this season still achieved historic statistics. The Tommie defense allowed only 21.6 rushing yards per game—something no NCAA team in Division I, II and III has done in the last 16 seasons. St. Thomas gave up 0.7 yards per rushing attempt, ranking with the best seasons by an NCAA defense. Eight of 13 opponents were held under 15 net rushing yards (six gained one or less total yards).

Darrell Thompson, the Gophers all-time career leading rusher and now head of the Bolder Options nonprofit, hosted a thank you event for his youth mentoring organization last night at Cambria Gallery in downtown Minneapolis. Bolder Options celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2018.

The No. 14 ranked Gophers basketball team will be 2-0 in the Big Ten Conference for the first time since 2013 with a win tonight in Lincoln against the Cornhuskers. Minnesota is 8-1 overall and 1-0 in league games, while Nebraska is 6-3 and 0-1.

Statistics as of yesterday showed Gophers forward Jordan Murphy leading the conference in scoring at 21 points per game and rebounding at 12.9. Center Reggie Lynch led the nation in blocks per game with 4.8.

Sunday’s home attendance of 11,097 for the Rutgers game was disappointing after last week’s sellout crowd of 14,625 for nationally ranked Miami. The Scarlet Knights aren’t a strong draw, plus the Vikings and Timberwolves had games on Sunday.

Jim Bruton, who has authored books with Jerry Kill, Lou Nanne and Fran Tarkenton, is working on a book coming out next year about Dick Jonckowski, the former public address announcer for Gophers basketball and funny man storyteller who has made a career of emceeing and speaking at events.

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