Golden Gophers – Page 246 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

U Crowds Decline from Record 2015

Posted on October 12, 2016October 12, 2016 by David Shama

The Gophers sold 5,100 fewer football season tickets in 2016 than last year, according to figures provided by the University of Minnesota Athletic Department. Those are nonstudent season tickets and the decline represents about a 19 percent loss in purchases.

In 2015, the sale totaled 27,885 while this year it is 22,785.

The Gophers have played four of their seven-game home schedule so far and have no sellouts. Announced attendance for last Saturday’s rivalry game with Iowa was 49,145 and there were many seats sold but not used. That is the largest crowd of the season in 50,805 capacity TCF Bank Stadium. (Stadium capacity was reduced this year because the Vikings are no longer using the facility).

Minnesota is averaging 44,901 fans per game in announced attendance. Last year the Gophers averaged 52,355 fans per game—the best in seven seasons at TCF Bank Stadium. The 2015 schedule, with high profile football opponents like TCU and Michigan, was more attractive than this fall’s teams. Other factors impacting ticket sales and attendance this year includes price increases in season tickets, lack of excitement about the 2016 team after a disappointing 6-7 record in 2015, and the loss of popular head coach Jerry Kill who resigned last October.

The 2016 total for student season football tickets is 7,006—after a sale of about 8,000 last year. “I think it’s worth noting that this year’s student sections have been quite full and quite energetic, with single-game student ticket purchases supplementing the season ticket base,” an athletic department spokesman wrote via email. “We sold out the student section for the Iowa game and have seen strong student support throughout the nonconference season as well, with good attendance.” …

Jim Carter and other advocates for Gophers football want to see the University Board of Regents approve a resource at their meetings later this week that was originally part of the Athletes Village project. Last year plans were dropped for an area called the lineman center, or also referred to as the lineman facility. This was to be part of the new indoor football practice facility in the Athletes Village but the lineman center was eliminated from plans to save money.

Upgrading football resources at the U to be equal, or better than Big Ten competitors, is a priority of the $166 million Athletes Village project that is still in early physical development. The village will also create new and upgraded facilities to benefit all Gophers men’s and women’s programs.

Carter said the lineman center would likely take up about 40,000 square feet of additional space in the football practice facility. Without the center, according to Carter, offensive and defensive linemen won’t have a large enough place indoors dedicated to improving their skills—a space big enough to accommodate not only the players but also practice equipment including blocking sleds.

Carter was a star fullback on the 1967 Gophers football team that won the school’s last Big Ten championship. He is an outspoken proponent for excellence in athletics and academics at Minnesota. He wants to see all the potential resources for football made a reality in the Athletes Village project. Gophers coach Tracy Claeys has stressed the importance of the lineman center to Carter and others.

Carter sent out an email last week asking for help in contacting members of the Board of Regents—writing that the lineman center will greatly improve the Gophers’ competitiveness. “Tracy has said a number of times that he wants and needs this facility,” Carter said in the email. “The Board of Regents can make the decision to add/include the funding for this project, but we need to let them know we strongly support this happening. Time is of the essence, so we need to be heard now! If we all contact the Board of Regents we will make a BIG difference!”

Carter said more than 20 emails have been sent to regents, and he expects that the lineman center may come up as new business on the agenda for the regents who will have meetings tomorrow and Friday. The indoor football facility, including the lineman center space, would likely be used at certain times by sports other than football, and is projected to have a cost of $6 million, according to Carter.

The overall cost for the Athletes Village is currently at $166 million and Carter sees the $6 million for the center as a minimal price to do things right. It also looks for certain that the $166 million total will be revised upward soon—likely this week.

The regents are expected to vote this week and will likely approve a final plan to place the Gophers track near baseball’s Siebert Field. That means relocating the recreation sports bubble and rec softball field to an area near TCF Bank Stadium. Carter said the track and relocations referenced will cost $19 million.

Carter said last year’s cost cutting for the Athletes Village included not only the lineman’s center but also eliminating two skyways for $2.5 million. Carter believes those skyways could be put back into play, too. If so, the projected cost for the Athletes Village could soon be revised to $193.5 million.

About $80 million has been secured through fundraising for the Athletes Village, with the University committed to borrowing a significant sum to fully finance the project. …

Sam Bradford (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings)

Through his first four games as the Eagles quarterback last season, Sam Bradford saw his team lose three times. He threw six touchdown passes and four interceptions, with passer ratings in the four games of 77.1, 65.6, 73.2 and 122.6.

With the 5-0 Vikings (Bradford didn’t become the starting quarterback until game No. 2), he has thrown six touchdown passes, zero interceptions and compiled passer ratings of 121.2, 93, 101.9 and 122.1. His overall rating is 109.7 for the season, compared with 84.6 a year ago.

Bradford didn’t join the Vikings until several days before the opening regular season game. “I think the offensive coaches have done a great job with getting him prepared,” said Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer. “The one thing about Sam is that he will communicate the things that he likes to do, and if we have a play in the game plan that he doesn’t like, he’s going to say it. He’s going to tell Norv (Turner, offensive coordinator), and we get rid of the play. So, we try to do things that he’s comfortable with, even though it has been a short period of time.”

The Vikings Andrew Sendejo continues to establish himself as the team’s starting free safety. Against the Texans last Sunday he had four tackles and one interception while playing defense, and two tackles on special teams.

“Before (Sendejo) was even playing much defense, he was our best special teams guy,” said Vikings strong safety Harrison Smith. “He has done nothing but make plays on special teams and defense since I’ve been here (2012). That’s what I know you’re getting out of Sendejo—a guy who going to make plays.”

The much publicized AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas has retracted its roof 17 times for Cowboys games since the facility opened in 2009, according to a pro football source. By contrast, the five pivoting doors at U.S. Bank Stadium have been open for three regular season games and one preseason game since the Vikings began playing there in August.

The same source said as of last week he isn’t aware of any bird-window collisions at the new stadium. The Minnesota Sports Facility Authority announced in July a scientific study to monitor such collisions will be led by Audubon Minnesota, the National Audubon Society, the University of Minnesota and Oklahoma State University. The study will begin in the spring of 2017, with analysis to be released in 2019.

The Big Ten Network will televise the news conferences of all 14 Big Ten basketball coaches tomorrow including the Gophers Richard Pitino who answers questions from the media from 8:10 to 8:20 a.m. Pitino will also be interviewed on BTN by studio hosts from 11:40 a.m. to noon. The league’s coaches will be in Washington, D.C. for Big Ten Basketball Media Day.

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Tommy Kramer All in on 2016 Vikings

Posted on October 10, 2016October 10, 2016 by David Shama

Former Vikings Pro Bowl quarterback Tommy Kramer told Sports Headliners he believes his former team can beat any club in the NFL and Minnesota could end up in the 2017 Super Bowl.

“Oh, hell, yeah,” Kramer said. “I think they could beat anybody, any time they want, if they’re playing up to their speed (abilities).”

Kramer made that statement in an interview last week before yesterday’s Vikings-Texans game. It’s not likely Kramer has changed his admiration of the 2016 team after its 31-13 win.

The Vikings, 5-0, are the NFL’s only undefeated club. They dominated the Texans in the first half, jumping out to a 24-0 second quarter lead. The Texans didn’t get a first down until about four minutes into the second quarter—and then only by penalty. The defense was at its usual NFC-best, allowing one touchdown and two field goals in the game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Kramer isn’t ready to rate the unit the equal of the famed “Purple People Eaters” of the 1970s but he is impressed with a defense that hard-nosed and creative head coach Mike Zimmer has shaped in his image. “Zim is a hell of a coach, trust me,” Kramer said.

Kramer appreciates how that defense helps quarterback Sam Bradford who threw two touchdown passes yesterday and has yet to be intercepted in four starts with the Vikings after joining the team just several days before the regular season started.

“He’s got talent and now he’s got a good defense to play with,” Kramer said about Bradford. “It makes a big damn difference to you (as quarterback). You don’t have to take so many chances. You don’t have to try to score every possession because you know your defense is going to score for you too.”

The last time the Vikings got off to a 5-0 start the Bart Favre led 2009 club went all the way to the NFC title and almost advanced to the Super Bowl. That Vikings went 12-4 in the regular season and that group rates with the franchise’s best teams. Ranking with the best, too, is the 1998 team that was 15-1.

No Vikings team has been to the Super Bowl, though, since the group led by the “Purple People Eaters” defensive line of the 1970s. Could the Vikings make it all the way to Houston for the February 5, 2017 Super Bowl? “If all of them (the players) stay healthy, their chances are good,” said Kramer who played 14 seasons in the NFL from 1977-1990 but never quarterbacked a Super Bowl team.

Bradford’s health will be one of the team’s big concerns. Yesterday, the Texans landed some hard hits on Bradford including when Vikings second-year offensive left tackle T.J. Clemmings couldn’t stop Texans pass rusher Whitney Mercilus. The offense, of course, is already without major contributors Teddy Bridgewater, Matt Kalil and Adrian Peterson.

Too many injuries could turn the direction of this season to horns down. “You never know,” Kramer said. “Each injury could be each player’s career. He might not ever come back.”

But for now the Vikings are on an exceptional run, partly because of their attitude in every game. Through about the first one-third of the schedule the Vikings have played with exceptional focus and intensity.

“If you have ever been around coach Zimmer you don’t have any other choice,” said Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph. “That’s what he expects from us, whether it’s on Sundays, Mondays, or out on the practice field. If we don’t give that intensity and effort, and put that work in each day, then he points it out. He makes us aware that’s not good enough. So that’s the standard that he has set around here, and we just try to live up to that.”

Worth Noting

The Vikings were a seven point favorite to defeat the Texans. Bruce Marshall, writing online for the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Saturday, said Zimmer’s teams were 18-2 covering the spread going into yesterday’s game.

Kramer’s sixth annual charity golf tournament to raise funds for cancer research will be on Friday, August 11 at Mississippi Dunes Golf Links in Cottage Grove. Recognizable names who have played in the tournament include many ex-Vikings. “We’re never short on celebrities playing in it,” Kramer said. More at tk9charitygolf.com.

A franchise source said about 25 percent of Vikings fans are using light rail to attend games at U.S. Bank Stadium. Rail platforms have been cleared in less than an hour after games, while last year at TCF Bank Stadium waits were over 60 minutes.

The stadium will be open two and one-half hours before all home games this year to accommodate fans as they become more familiar with gameday travel and the new facility.

Last Friday a CNN crew was in town to produce a report likely to air around Super Bowl time next year. The segment is expected to talk about the 2018 game being at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Prescott Line, the younger brother of Vikings fullback Zach Line, is a graduate transfer at Michigan State from SMU and has been the starting fullback for the Spartans.

It’s not certain but it appears that J.D. Spielman, son of Vikings general manager Rick Spielman, will be redshirted this fall at Nebraska. The 2015 Minnesota Mr. Football and former Eden Prairie High School player is a freshman receiver for the Cornhuskers and hasn’t seen game action.

The Hawkeyes team that defeated the Gophers 14-7 on Saturday has 51 players on the roster that are Iowa natives. Among players not from the state is true freshman Amani Hooker of Minneapolis and Park Center High School. He is a reserve safety who has been playing on special teams for Iowa.

The Gophers roster has 33 Minnesotans.

The remaining opponents on the Gophers’ schedule are 21-11 in all games, but only 6-9 in the Big Ten. Minnesota, 3-2 overall and 0-2 in conference games, is at Maryland on Saturday. The Terps have 4-1 and 1-1 records.

Concordia alum and Spicer, Minnesota native Brandon Zylstra is a rookie wide receiver with Edmonton of the Canadian Football League. His position coach is Carson Walch, a former St. Thomas assistant. Walch was part of Montreal’s Grey Cup winning team in 2010 as an assistant coach on the staff of Marc Trestman, the ex-Vikings assistant and former Gophers quarterback. Carson’s brother Travis is a nine-year St. Thomas assistant.

Gophers head basketball coach Richard Pitino will bring junior guard Nate Mason and sophomore forward Jordan Murphy to Thursday’s Big Ten Basketball Media Day in Washington, D.C. The Gophers open with an exhibition game against Bemidji State on Thursday, November 3 at Williams Arena.

The Timberwolves basketball staff is giving more fans the opportunity to attend the WNBA Finals tomorrow night at Target Center. The Wolves coaching staff purchased 500 upper level tickets and this morning fans could visit Lynxbasketball.com to obtain seats (two per customer). The Sparks lead the finals series 1-0 after winning yesterday afternoon.

Condolences to the family and friends of former Gophers assistant football coach Bruce Vandersall who died last week. Son Mark is married to NBC TV’s Michelle Tafoya.

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Bumpkins vs. City Slickers at U Saturday

Posted on October 7, 2016October 7, 2016 by David Shama

As a kid growing up in Minneapolis, I never thought about crossing Minnesota’s southern border and venturing into Iowa City without an army helmet. My parents were ardent Gophers football fans and they warned me about the dangers Minnesotans faced if they dared visit Kinnick Stadium.

Mom and Dad lectured me that the stands in Iowa City were filled with nasty folks. Many Hawkeye crazies behaved wildly after consuming adult beverages. The Iowans hated the Gophers players and didn’t much like Minnesota fans either. The warning for visitors to Kinnick Stadium was be ready to duck a pointed insult, or wayward whiskey bottle.

My parents’ perceptions had their roots in the 1930s and 1940s, and while exaggerations influenced their feelings and words, so did the facts. The Gophers, playing in Minneapolis in 1934, roughed up Iowa rusher Ozzie Simmons so badly he had to leave the game. The next year it was Iowa’s turn to host the annual game and Iowa governor Clyde Herring aroused Hawkeyes fans with this message to the Gophers: “If the officials stand for any rough tactics liked Minnesota used last year, I’m sure the crowd won’t.”

Wow!

Minnesota governor Floyd Olson responded with diplomacy by sending a telegraph to Herring: “Minnesota folks are excited over your statement about Iowa crowds lynching the Minnesota football team. I have assured them you are law abiding gentlemen and are only trying to get our goat. …I will bet you a Minnesota prize hog against an Iowa prize hog that Minnesota wins.”

Détente.

The 1935 game came off without any major incidents on the field or in the stands. The Gophers won and also claimed a live pig from Rosedale Farms in Iowa. Olson later commissioned a bronze statue of a prize pig that to this day is known throughout the country as Floyd of Rosedale.

Tomorrow the Gophers and Hawkeyes play for possession of Floyd at TCF Bank Stadium. The pig is one of the iconic trophies in college football, and while Floyd eased tensions back in the 1930s, emotions, strong words and memories still characterize the Minnesota-Iowa rivalry.

Gophers 2016 captain and senior quarterback Mitch Leidner was born 103 years after the first Minnesota-Iowa game was played in 1891. But he has the attitude about the rivalry to play the Hawkeyes during any era.

“I wouldn’t say I like them one bit,” Leidner said Tuesday. “There’s a lot of hatred between the two states and the two teams. I think everyone on this team understands that. Hopefully the freshmen understand that, but if they don’t by Wednesday they will. I am pretty excited for this one, and to be able to bring the pig home (my) senior year is everything you want.”

Growing up in Minnesota Leidner was wired about the rivalry. As a Lakeville South High School senior he attended the 2011 game at TCF Bank Stadium. He was so excited about the Gophers winning 22-21 that he went on the field after the game to celebrate with Minnesota fans and players.

That was a far more pleasant day for Minnesota fans than the 2002 Iowa win at the Metrodome. Hawkeye fans made national news by storming the field after the game and tearing down a goalpost. Then they tried to carry pieces of the goalpost out through the Metrodome doors.

Black and gold dressed rubes? Yeah, that’s the way some Gophers fans have long viewed their neighbors to the south. Chad Greenway, who was on that 2002 Hawkeyes team, is aware Minnesotans can have a superior attitude toward Iowans. “We’re the country bumpkins coming from Iowa without the big city,” said Greenway, who has played for the Vikings since 2006. “You get that feeling a little bit, but it’s a good rivalry. It’s been back and forth over the last 10 years.”

The Hawkeyes have won six of the last 10 games including last year’s 40-35 victory in Iowa City. The Gophers lead the all-time series against Iowa with a record of 62 wins, 45 losses and two ties.

There’s not been a coach on either side who didn’t feel the intensity of the rivalry but perhaps no one was more locked in than Minnesota’s Joe Salem. He had been a key contributor as a spark plug quarterback on the Gophers’ 1960 national championship team. The run to the title included a matchup on November 5, 1960 in Minneapolis between No. 1 ranked Iowa and No. 3 Minnesota. The Gophers won 27-10 before a delirious crowd of 65,610 at Memorial Stadium.

Salem took over as Minnesota coach for the 1979 season. Although Salem never had a winning Big Ten record in five years at his alma mater, he defeated Iowa three consecutive seasons from 1979-1981. Salem wanted badly to beat the Hawkeyes and during Iowa week he was on a mission.

“He was very focused on the rivalry,” said former Gopher lineman Jon Lilleberg via email. “One thing he always did was wear OshKosh B’gosh Bib Overalls to practice a couple days that week (Iowa week). But he was never mean or demeaning; (he) just made the week fun and dialed in on the rivalry.”

A friend said Salem told Iowa jokes like this one: A Hawkeyes fan comes to Minneapolis with a $20 bill and his underwear—and never changes either one. Salem also joked that Iowa fans became frustrated trying to get their tractors into big city parking ramps.

Okay, timeout. Minnesota jokes told by Iowans are just as bad. Try this one: Several Gopher football players are riding down the highway. What kind of a vehicle are they in?

Answer: A police van.

Hayden Fry took over as Iowa coach the same year Salem arrived at Minnesota. Fry was not only a superb coach who revived Hawkeyes football but he was a psychologist, too. He had the visiting team’s locker room walls painted pink with the intent that visiting teams like the Gophers would play passively.

Fry had defeated the Gophers four consecutive seasons when the Hawkeyes lost at home to Minnesota in 1989. A mediocre Minnesota team beat Iowa 43-7 and after the game Fry was tardy in doing his radio show. Finally he went on the air and the interviewer asked about the coach’s postgame delay. Fry explained he wanted to share some personal thoughts with his seniors about playing their last college game.

What did Fry reportedly tell the boys? “I just told them that they were all fine, upstanding young men…but that they just weren’t very good football players!”

Darrell Thompson, the Gophers all-time leading rusher, almost found Fry’s straight talk and charms too much to resist when he was being recruited out of Rochester, Minnesota. Fry was a terrific recruiter and the Hawkeyes had just been to the Rose Bowl in 1986, but Thompson stayed home and played for Minnesota from 1986-1989.

Now the Gophers radio analyst, Thompson pays homage to Floyd of Rosedale every year during Iowa-Minnesota game week. He eats bacon—lots of it—each day. “In honor of Floyd, in honor of the University of Minnesota and in honor of the Hawkeyes,” he said.

Former Gophers defensive back Tom Sakal recalled a story about tomatoes in an email to Sports Headliners. In the 1965 game at Kinnick Stadium the former schoolboy star from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania broke up a pass in the end zone in front of the Hawkeyes student section. “As I was getting up to my feet, I lifted my head only to see a huge tomato coming straight at my face. It hit squarely in my facemask, smashing into a hundred pieces all over my face and uniform. The student section went wild hollering and laughing.

“I thought to myself, ‘Welcome to Iowa’…and then proceeded to give them the Aliquippa hand gesture for ‘thank you.’ Ha! That was not the thing to do because then the tomatoes really started flying. I hurried back to the huddle.”

Sakal, then a sophomore, had actually been introduced to rambunctious Iowa fans about 13 hours prior to kickoff. “Around midnight or later the night before the game, hundreds of students in cars were outside our hotel blowing car horns and singing the Iowa fight song until the police arrived to send them on their way,” Sakal remembered.

The Gophers won that game in 1965, and two years later were back in Iowa City where Sakal, the team captain, helped Minnesota win again. The 1967 Gophers went on to win a share of the Big Ten title.

That was Minnesota’s last Big Ten championship. Since then Gophers fans, young and old, have had to look for glory in rivalry games and upsets of Big Ten goliaths. “I really can’t stand Iowa and will take great joy if we beat them on Saturday,” a Gophers fan said. “I have to admit that part of my feelings towards them stems from jealousy. In my lifetime, 41 years, the Iowa football program has been better than the Gophers, and that hurts.”

Tomorrow the Gophers and Hawkeyes play for the 82nd consecutive time to determine 12 months of bragging rights to Floyd of Rosedale. Yes, the Minnesota students will yell themselves hoarse, chanting “Who hates Iowa? We hate Iowa!” There may also be groan-inducing jokes from fans of both teams —and probably a lot of good football. Sportsmanship will likely prevail on the field and in the stands.

Enjoy.

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