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Kill Not Buying Limegrover Edge Saturday

Posted on September 28, 2016September 28, 2016 by David Shama

Matt Limegrover coached 16 years for Jerry Kill. Limegrover was a leader of the Gophers program from the time the two arrived in Minneapolis for the 2010 season, but now he works as the offensive line coach for Penn State, the team Minnesota opens its Big Ten season against Saturday in University Park, Pennsylvania.

Does Limegrover’s experience with the Minnesota program and knowledge about players give the Nittany Lions a significant edge in preparations this week? “I don’t think that’s (going to be) a major factor in the game,” Kill told Sports Headliners.

Kill said college coaching staffs are so thorough in their evaluations of opponents through films and general scouting that having someone who worked for the opposition just isn’t a big deal. But Kill does expect Limegrover, his former assistant and friend, to be motivated Saturday.

After Kill resigned as the Gophers head coach in October last year, defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys was named interim coach. A few weeks later University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler removed the interim in Claeys’ title. Then after the regular season ended Claeys fired Limegrover.

“There’s that natural instinct that you want to go beat the team that you were let go from,” Kill said. “That’s self-motivation, but that’s not going to affect how his kids play at Penn State. I think all that stuff is overrated. I think the team that prepares the most is the team that is going to win.”

With all his titles, Limegrover had a business card challenge at Minnesota. He was assistant head coach, offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. If that sounds like a lot of responsibility and work, it was. Early in the 2015 season the Gophers were struggling offensively and the pressures on both Kill and Limegrover were significant. The two were working unusually long hours trying to find answers and Kill, whose workload was also burdened by not having a permanent athletic director, resigned because of health issues.

Claeys decided he didn’t want one person serving as both offensive coordinator and line coach. He announced in late November Limegrover wasn’t going to be on his staff, preferring to eventually hire Jay Johnson as offensive coordinator and Bart Miller as line coach. It was a move that upset Limegrover loyalists but generally was supported by the media and public who understood a new head coach needs to make decisions he believes are best for the program.

Anyone who knew Limegrover, though, extended compassion to the well-liked 47-year-old. Kill wasn’t surprised about his friend’s response to the dismissal.

“Matt is a great person and I think that showed up when he was let go of his job and how he handled it,” said Kill who also remains close to Claeys. “He handled it first-class all the way, and that’s why Penn State hired him—I really do (believe). One of the things coach Franklin talked about was Matt being a first-class person. You could tell that after the situation he had. He could have come out and been very bitter. …”

Penn State head coach James Franklin created a homecoming for Limegrover when he hired him last winter. Limegrover is a Pennsylvania native and now is back in his home state able to concentrate on one task—coaching the offensive line.

The Nittany Lions, 2-2 this season, have scored over 30 points in three of their four games. With a defensive unit that has been hit hard by injuries, PSU may have to score more than 30 to beat the Gophers. That’s part of Limegrover’s mission on Saturday, even though he will be coaching against a lot of faces he knows and players he cares about.

Gophers like tight end Nate Wozniak plan to greet Limegrover sometime on Saturday but their focus will be on the Nittany Lions players. “We just know he’s there,” Wozniak said.

Worth Noting

The 3-0 Gophers will play on the road for the first time Saturday. About 100,000 fans will “welcome” Minnesota to Beaver Stadium. Wouldn’t a road game have helped the Gophers prepare for a raucous environment? “It would have been nice but at the same time it’s always fun to have played at home,” said Gophers quarterback Mitch Leidner.

Brandon Lingen, the Gophers tight end with All-Big Ten potential, is still about three weeks away from playing because of his broken clavicle, Claeys said yesterday. Other Gophers not expected to play Saturday are Carter Coughlin, Ta’yon Devers, Coney Durr, Nick Rallis, Ace Rogers, Alex Starks and Rashad Still.

Marshall, Minnesota athlete Drew Hmielewski who is missing his freshman season with the Gophers football team following shoulder surgery, will play baseball at Minnesota starting in January. Gophers assistant baseball coach Rob Fornasiere told Sports Headliners the receiver and outfielder will split time in the spring between football practice and baseball. “He’s an Eric Decker-type clone,” Fornasiere said.

Decker was drafted twice by major league baseball teams as an outfielder while at Minnesota but mostly drew attention as an All-Big Ten wide receiver for the Gophers. Fornasiere said the Gophers offered a baseball scholarship to Hmielewski before the football program did.

Gophers second team redshirt freshman punter Jacob Herbers, from Battle Creek, Michigan, was a first baseman on the baseball team last season and is expected back next year. Gophers running back Rodney Smith hit .587 as a baseball middle infielder in his senior year of high school in Georgia. Fornasiere said Smith hasn’t asked about coming out for baseball.

Fornasiere’s daughter Katie will be married Saturday in the Twin Cities area to Steve Mathei.

The attitude of Cordarrelle Patterson was questioned in his first three seasons with the Vikings but he seems different this year. Patterson looks better as a route running wide receiver, remains explosive on kickoff returns and even is willing to take a spot on the kickoff coverage team.

Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer admitted the coverage role is one Patterson probably wouldn’t have accepted in the past. Why the change? “I think he wants to play,” Zimmer said.. “I think he’s trying to do everything he can to get on the field.”

The 3-0 Vikings, who have defeated two of the better teams in the NFL in the Packers and Panthers, have created a lot of hype with their impressive defense that has allowed a league second-best 13.3 points per game. Zimmer, though, isn’t interested in listening to gushing praise. “Typically, I don’t even look at the stats until at least Thanksgiving. So, I don’t know where we fall defensively or anything like that. I just try to get us better each day in the things that we’re doing,” he said.

Lynx owner Glen Taylor told Sports Headliners his WNBA club will have its most profitable year ever in 2016. He expects the profit to be between $1 million and $2 million for his defending WNBA champion franchise. The Lynx has its first 2016 playoff game tonight at Xcel Energy Center against the Mercury. The Lynx had a league-best regular season record of 28-6.

Media and coaches polls have made Bowling Green the preseason choice to win the WCHA. Bill Robertson, the league’s Edina-based commissioner, said several schools will compete for NCAA berths next March. “It will come down to the last weekend,” he said.

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Does U Need to End Thursday Games?

Posted on August 26, 2016August 26, 2016 by David Shama

The opinion here is the Gophers need to fix their problem of opening their home football schedule on Thursday nights.

Next Thursday evening the Gophers play Oregon State at TCF Bank Stadium while less than two miles away the Vikings host the Rams in the second football game ever in the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium. While it’s only an NFL exhibition game, your average Minnesota elementary school sports fan knows the Vikings are much more popular than the Gophers.

And it’s not just the Vikings the Gophers will compete against for attention next Thursday evening. The Twins will play the White Sox downtown that night—just a long walk from U.S. Bank Stadium. The St. Paul Saints also have a home game, and Canterbury Park hosts its usual Thursday night racing. High school football teams also begin their seasons. The topper among attractions next Thursday is the eighth day of the Minnesota State Fair. Attendance for the day and evening combined might be a number approaching half the population of St. Paul.

“Nobody will be at home that night,” a friend and Gophers football season ticket holder said to me this week.

My friend will be at the Gophers game but others who might normally attend or watch on TV won’t. U athletic department officials will likely announce a crowd of 40,000 to 45,000 in 50,800 seat TCF Bank Stadium. Could it be a record low attendance in the stadium that opened in 2009? The smallest announced crowd to watch a game at the Bank is 41,062 for the Purdue game in 2012.

The last three years the Gophers have also opened their seasons at home on Thursday evenings. The last two years the Vikings played on those dates but their games were on the road—providing TV competition but not entertaining football fans a couple of miles from the U campus.

With a promising Gophers team and playing a potential national championship team, Minnesota drew a TCF Bank Stadium record crowd of 54,147 for its opener last year against TCU. This year the Gophers are down a reported 10 to 20 percent in non-student season ticket sales. There is a public wait-and-see attitude about new coach Tracy Claeys and the team. It’s a similar situation to 2013 when the Gophers were coming off a 2-6 season and drew an announced attendance of 44,217 for a game against UNLV. The Vikings played that same night in the Metrodome.

The Gophers are scheduled to play future Thursday night games at home in late August of 2017, 2018 and 2019. The Vikings will also be playing on all of those Thursday evenings.

How do we know?

The NFL mandates all teams must play their fourth games of the exhibition season on a Thursday, 10 days prior to the beginning of the regular season. Those Thursdays usually come in late August, or this year September 1. The league schedules each franchise’s first three preseason games. Teams are told who they will play and where for the first three games. The fourth game and opponent are determined by each franchise. Teams play two home preseason games and two on the road. If the Vikings have been told by the NFL that two of their first three games are on the road, they will schedule the fourth game at home—up against the Gophers.

The Vikings aren’t changing their scheduling. The Twins, with 81 home dates each year, may also be playing at Target Field on future Thursday nights. The Saints, Canterbury Park and high school football are lesser entertainment rivals for the Gophers at the box office and provide no TV competition.

The Gophers and State Fair authorities made an agreement before TCF Bank Stadium opened, which resulted in all these Thursday night games. The agreement runs through June 30, 2022, and it states that any Gophers home game prior to Labor Day will be played on a Thursday evening. A U spokesman said he isn’t aware of any discussion to change the agreement.

The reason for the agreement is that during the State Fair drivers can park their cars for free on the University’s Minneapolis campus and ride free buses to the fairgrounds in nearby Falcon Heights. The Gophers usually play their home schedule on Saturdays but because of larger fair-going crowds on the weekends, U officials agreed to switch their games to Thursday evenings to better accommodate fair customers.

The existing agreement inconveniences fewer fair-goers but it’s not a winning policy for the Gophers. Fans have to fight rush-hour traffic to attend Thursday night games. Next Thursday those who choose light-rail will likely find cars jammed to the max with everyday commuters, plus Gophers, Vikings, Twins and Saints fans. Fans at home have to make viewing choices between the Vikings and Twins games that start about 7 p.m. and the Gophers game at 8 p.m. Then, too, fans and companies with season tickets and suites for both the Vikings and Gophers face an obvious conflict with the two teams playing at the same time.

There’s no doubt the Gophers could maximize revenues from ticket sales, concessions, parking and perhaps other sources if they were playing Oregon State on Friday night or Saturday afternoon next week.

It’s highly unusual for the NCAA to allow teams to start their seasons before the primary kickoff to college football which begins on Thursdays and continues into the weekend—so the Gophers probably can’t look at Wednesdays in the years ahead. Switching to a Friday night goes up against high school football but out of scheduling necessity the Gophers did that with success at the Metrodome.

Friday night or Saturday openers for the Gophers at TCF Bank Stadium in future years make sense. If U officials tell fair officials they need relief from the competition of Thursday nights it would be a smart move. Fair-goers can find their way to Falcon Heights without free parking on the U campus—even on a Saturday. It’s a safe bet the fair would survive and continue to set record annual attendance.

It should be documented, too, that Gophers fans park free at the State Fair and ride free buses to U football games after Labor Day. That’s been beneficial for fans and the U athletic department.

Worth Noting

When entering TCF Bank Stadium next Thursday fans will be screened with a hand-held metal detector. This is a new security procedure for Gophers games and a best practice at other venues drawing large crowds. The hand-held device was used for Vikings games at TCF Bank Stadium the past two seasons.

Fans can ask new athletic director Mark Coyle about scheduling and other topics at the State Fair. He will be at the fair’s University of Minnesota Building at 3:30 p.m. next Tuesday. The building is located at the corner of Dan Patch and Underwood.

The Lynx, with the WNBA’s second-best record at 21-4, resume play tonight after the long Olympics break. The Lynx had four players on the gold medal winning U.S. team, and those additional minutes of travel, practices and games in Brazil are a concern. Lynx owner Glen Taylor said coach Cheryl Reeve has monitored WNBA game minutes for Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles, Maya Moore, and Lindsay Whalen.

Time management for the Lynx’s four Olympians this season has been a priority. “She (Reeve) has come down like eight minutes a game (per player),” Taylor said.

Taylor, who also owns the Timberwolves, has spoken this summer to 40-year-old future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett. Will Garnett retire or return for another season with the Wolves? “I have no new news,” Taylor said. “He hasn’t indicated to me if he’s made a decision or not.”

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Kepler Top Rookie of Year Candidate

Posted on August 3, 2016August 3, 2016 by David Shama

With a three home run game on Monday night, and another last evening, the Twins Max Kepler is now a favorite to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award.

Despite joining the Twins after the season started and for awhile not being a regular, Kepler has hit 15 home runs this year, including seven in his last 15 games. His home run total leads all American League rookies, and a baseball authority predicted yesterday he could finish the season with 25 homers.

Kepler is averaging a home run every 13.6 at bats. When former Senators and Twins great Harmon Killebrew played his first full season in the majors in 1959 he homered every 13 at bats.

Kepler’s home run totals have probably surprised everyone. In six minor league seasons through 2015 he homered every 46.8 times at the plate. His minor league batting average was .281.

Max Kepler (photo courtesy of Minnesota Twins).

“He’s got that kind of bat that he’s going to hit for average and show a little power,” former Twins executive Jim Rantz told Sports Headliners back in April.

Turns out Kepler is showing more than a “little power” with his line drives that are going over the fence and positioning him to possibly become the sixth Twins player to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award. The 6-4, 207-pound Twins right fielder is impressive at bat with a leveraged swing and exceptional plate discipline. He is hitting .259 with 46 RBI in 205 at bats with the Twins.

“We all thought that he was probably going to be a line drive type hitter that was going to put a lot of doubles up,” Rantz told Sports Headliners yesterday. “It’s a beautiful swing that he puts on the ball…(and) if he gets elevation, it’s going to go because when he hits a ball it carries.”

The German-born Kepler comes from an athletic family. His parents were ballet dancers. As a youngster Kepler played not only baseball but other sports including soccer, swimming, skiing and tennis. Mark Rozycki and Mary Kepler may also have raised the next AL Rookie of the Year.

“No telling how this is going to finish if he keeps going like he’s going,” Rantz said.“He’s liable to hit 25 before it’s over (the season).”

Worth Noting

Vikings owners and brothers Mark and Zygi Wilf didn’t attend yesterday’s groundbreaking event for a new privately funded practice facility and team headquarters in Eagan because their father is ill, a source told Sports Headliners. Leonard Wilf, Mark and Zygi’s cousin and another Vikings owner, represented the Wilf family.

General manager Rick Spielman, speaking at the event, predicted the new complex will be the most “unique and best” of its kind in the NFL. The 40-acre Vikings campus will have offices, a 100-yard indoor practice building and four outdoor fields including a 6,000 seat stadium that is likely to host premiere high school games.

While there’s been no announcement, it seems likely the Vikings eventually will move their preseason training camp from Mankato to Eagan. The new complex will be known as the Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center and TCO Stadium. It is scheduled to open in March of 2018.

Steve Poppen, the Vikings chief financial officer, said Eagan was “clearly” the best of three sites considered. Eagan mayor Mike Maguire said before the Vikings’ headquarters was built in Eden Prairie, the Eagan site had been promoted by a St. Paul developer in the 1970s.

Twins’ right-hander Tommy Milone, who this week was assigned to the bullpen, pitched five-plus innings in four of his last five starts after not achieving that in any of his first six starts this season. Milone hasn’t walked a batter in his last two starts.

Rob Antony, the Twins assistant general manager who could be a finalist to succeed Terry Ryan as the franchise’s baseball boss, started out in the media relations department. So, too, did Twins president Dave St. Peter and director of travel Mike Herman. The organization has long been known for its loyalty to employees and for promoting from within.

The Gophers open preseason football practice Friday. Saturday’s 10 a.m. practice at the Gibson Nagurski Football Complex is open to the public.

Former Gophers coach Glen Mason compared Minnesota senior quarterback Mitch Leidner to a 10-handicap golfer last week while doing analysis on the Big Ten Network. Mason said a 10-handicapper is inconsistent and Leidner needs to more like a five-handicapper.

Gophers coach Tracy Claeys told reporters at last week’s Big Ten media days in Chicago it will be important for he and new offensive coordinator Jay Johnston to give Leidner assignments that he is comfortable with during August practices.

A lot of college football programs, including the Gophers, are discounting tickets to boost sales. Big Ten rival Purdue has single game tickets starting at $5.

The U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team, with four Lynx players and Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve on the staff, has its first game in Rio de Janeiro Sunday. The U.S. team, favored to win gold, plays its opening game against Senegal starting at 10 a.m. CDT.

Vashti Cunningham, the 18-year-old daughter of former Vikings quarterback Randall Cunningham, isn’t expected to win the high jump in Rio but could surprise, and the Nevada native has already put Olympic coaches on notice she is a special talent.

Hamline has hired ex-Gophers women’s tennis star Julia Courter as its new head men’s and women’s tennis coach. The Pipers now have four former Gophers as head coaches with the others being Becky Bauer Egan (volleyball), Natalie Darwitz (women’s hockey) and Cory Laylin (men’s hockey).

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