Golden Gophers – Page 401 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Worth Noting

Posted on November 7, 2011November 27, 2011 by David Shama

The Augustana basketball team from Sioux Falls the Gophers host at Williams Arena tonight includes senior guard Cody Schilling of Ellsworth, Minnesota. He averaged a team best 21.2 points last season. He led the NSIC in scoring at 22.6 points per game. This will be the Vikings first exhibition game of the season. The Vikings had an 18-9 record last season, 15-7 in conference.

Lindy’s Sports College Basketball Magazine includes Apple Valley High’s Tyus Jones among its top 25 high school sophomores in the country. It wouldn’t be surprising if Jones and his prep buddy Jahlil Okafor, the Chicago center also on the Lindy’s list, choose the same college for basketball.

The Wild haven’t sold out a home game other than opener, according to a Sports Headliners source. The team, though, has been able to avoid the slow early season start of last year and could play even better by increasing goal scoring. The problem? Probably too much finesse play ─ over passing the puck.

Among the early season positives is goalie Josh Harding who has won four straight games. His development offers confidence to coach Mike Yeo, that along with Niklas Backstrom, his team can have strong goalie play this season. Backstrom, who is 33 and among the NHL’s top paid goalies, might be involved with Wild trade talks.

Here are Sports Headliners’ weekly rankings of Big Ten Football teams: Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Minnesota and Indiana.

Gophers freshman wide receiver Devin Crawford-Tufts, who apparently suffered a high thigh bruise on Saturday against Michigan State, will be “okay,” according to comments made by coach Jerry Kill on WCCO Radio yesterday morning. The Gophers play Wisconsin on Saturday at TCF Bank Stadium and game time will be announced today.

Congratulations to Saint Benedict and St. Olaf for respectively winning the women’s and men’s MIAC soccer playoffs last weekend.

The National Lacrosse League’s Minnesota Swarm has been named the 2011 Deubener Award winner in the category of Family-Owned Business. The award is presented annually by the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce in honor of Walter and Lydia Deubener. John Arlotta along with his son, Andy, purchased the Swarm in 2008 and serve as the team’s owners.

Comments Welcome

Big Ten Football Glory Continues to Fade

Posted on November 4, 2011December 28, 2011 by David Shama

Big Ten Conference football long ago gave up its claim to playing the best college football in the land, but its slump in 2011 is newsworthy.

The league’s highest ranked team in the BCS standings is Nebraska at No. 10. There’s not one undefeated team among the 12 Big Ten schools. No one is betting his or her IRA account on the Big Ten having a team in the national championship game next January.

Don’t look for Big Ten players to come even close to hoarding the post-season college football individual awards that recognize player of the year and best performers at various positions. Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson was the league’s glamour guy earlier in the fall but he’s fading fast in the Heisman Trophy race.

And don’t expect search firms to park outside the offices of league coaches after the season trying to woo them to other football programs across the country. The Big Ten football coaching scene is short on star power, although Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz is among the top paid coaches in the nation and Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald ranks with the best 40 and under coaches.

What’s the problem with the Big Ten? Let’s start with the reality that the mighty Ohio State program has slipped because of tattoo-gate. And Michigan, college football’s winningest program, is trying to recover from three seasons under coach Rich Rodriguez.

Ohio State and Michigan were once national powers but not in 2011. Conference newcomer Nebraska boosts the league’s resume and adds a program serious about football, but these aren’t the Cornhuskers that Tom Osborne had winning national championships.

The Big Ten simply doesn’t have enough programs that are both capable and want to compete at the highest level of college football. Southeastern Conference teams have won the last five BCS national titles. The best college football every fall is played in the SEC and Big Ten fans can only drool in anticipation of Saturday’s game of the year showdown between No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama.

Big Ten teams have won two national championships in the last 30 years. During that time conference teams have only won 11 Rose Bowls. There have been five players from Big Ten schools who won the Heisman Trophy, and a few head coaches who have won various national coach of the year awards.

Comments Welcome

Southern Teams Got Religion: It’s Football.

Posted on November 4, 2011December 28, 2011 by David Shama

What happened to the Big Ten ─ the best conference in America in the 1950’s and early 1960’s ─ is that teams from the south long ago integrated their teams with black players. Then, too, population shifts with more Americans living in the south and west produced greater numbers of high school football players. And warm weather allows players to be outside practicing throughout the year.

In places like the deep south and Texas there’s a zeal and commitment about football that helps fuel the success of college teams from those areas. The Big Ten likes to boast about its history, but in the SEC teams are making history.

The SEC produces monster players and coaches. A lot of college coaches will tell you the most difficult high school player to recruit is a stud defensive lineman like Nick Fairley who helped Auburn to last season’s national championship. The south’s football factory specializes in guys like Fairley and South Carolina freshman defensive end Jadeveon Clowney. And the old factory turned out a monster quarterback in 6-5, 248-pound wonderman Cam Newton, the QB on last year’s Auburn team.

Two coaches with Big Ten ties will be on the sidelines when Alabama and LSU play tomorrow. Don’t hold your breath that either Alabama’s Nick Saban or LSU’s Les Miles have any plans to come back to the Midwest. Saban, who once was head coach at Michigan State, left the NFL to coach at tradition-rich Alabama and Miles reportedly turned down Michigan to stay at LSU where he’s won one national title (Saban has championships at both LSU and Alabama). Miles was once an assistant coach at Michigan.

The SEC coaching roster also includes the “old ball coach,” Steve Spurrier. He has a national trophy in his cabinet, too, winning one at Florida before going to the NFL and then landing at South Carolina.

The 12 Big Ten head coaches have a total of three national championship trophies in their awards vaults. But Penn State’s Joe Paterno, 84, won all three before his school joined the Big Ten.

So what can the Big Ten do to improve its football product? Well, don’t count too much on improvement. The league is likely to ride along on a scale that from year to year has it weighing in as somewhere between the second best conference and the fourth or fifth.

You can dream about Big Ten programs spending more money on their programs attempting to overtake the SEC, or at least be entrenched at No. 2 among conferences. More cash might attract even better coaches and produce better teams, but Big Ten programs know they are already in a football arms races and are trying to preserve some fiscal balance to maintain a long list of other men’s and women’s sports.

League teams could lower their admission standards and recruiting values to attract talented players with academic and behavioral issues. Not likely, though, since there is only so far schools will go in recruiting problem children.

More realistically what may give the Big Ten football product a boost is growing momentum among schools across the country to improve academic performance and make eligibility more demanding. It seems possible that this measure could cause more of a talent drain on some conferences than on the Big Ten.

Maybe one day we can confidently chant: “We’re No. 2! We’re No. 2!”

Comments Welcome