Category: NCAA

Brian Kelly is having a disastrous season as Notre Dame’s head football coach. Despite winning 10 games last season and reviving the Fighting Irish program since taking over in late 2009, Kelly has become the most criticized college coach in the country.

In today’s “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” society, many Notre Dame fans wanted Kelly unemployed even before last Saturday night’s home loss to Stanford that sent the Irish to a 2-5 record. Kelly has generated criticism not only because of his record, but also with his hothead personality—clashing with coaches and finding fault with players.

A football legend with an opposite style is former University of Minnesota quarterback Tony Dungy, the ex-assistant coach with the Gophers and Vikings who became one of the nation’s most revered pro head coaches with the Colts. Now retired from coaching and working as an in-studio NFL TV analyst, Dungy is seeing his name mentioned as a successor to Kelly.

Dungy, 61, took a calm approach to coaching and conducted himself as a patient teacher. He won a Super Bowl coaching the Colts and retired after the 2009 playoffs. In the years since he has focused on not only his TV work, but writing inspirational books and following a spiritual path sharing his faith in God across the country.

Gossip and speculation move fast in the new millennium but don’t count on Dungy moving to South Bend and taking over the Irish. Kelly, whose team entering this season was considered a possibility for the college football playoffs, hasn’t been dismissed yet. He has a contract through 2021 and Notre Dame administrators aren’t likely to be as trigger-happy as fans and media.

Dungy’s name was rumored with the Notre Dame job several years ago and there’s been more than a little talk about him again this fall. Speculation, though, is one thing. Reality is another.

Notre Dame doesn’t have a job opening and sources Sports Headliners talked with don’t see Dungy having an interest even if the opportunity came about. A former Gopher teammate, who asked that his name not be used, said his friend wouldn’t be caught up in the hype of being the Notre Dame coach and leading a storied program whose glory has been compared to baseball’s revered Yankees organization.

The source said Dungy’s values are too grounded to make an ego-driven decision to take on the Fighting Irish job. The expected Dungy reaction to the job, if asked by school officials, would be a respectful no—appreciative of being considered but quickly ready to move on.

“I think it would be really, really shocking if he were to come back and be a college coach again,” said Darrell Thompson, another Minnesota friend. “I think the phase of life that he is in—he is in a phase of giving back. …He gets to do what he wants. Saves lives and do that type of thing.”

Thompson, who played at Minnesota nine years after Dungy, is the Gophers all-time leading rusher and one of many admirers Dungy has in Minnesota. Those who think highly of the Jackson, Michigan native include Joel Maturi who twice approached Dungy about becoming the Gophers head football coach. As Minnesota’s athletic director, Maturi talked to Dungy before hiring Tim Brewster in 2007 and then Jerry Kill in 2010.

Maturi saw Dungy as a transformational coach for the U, a leader who could show the program the next step that “the Gophers have been waiting for, for 50 years.” Dungy said no to Maturi on both occasions but was willing to help with the search.

Willingness to assist didn’t surprise Maturi because he believes Dungy has a “heart for Minnesota.” Dungy was a three-year letter winner as Gophers quarterback from 1974-1976. After a brief playing career in the NFL, he was a part-time assistant coach for head coach Joe Salem and the Gophers in 1980.

That is the extent of Dungy’s college coaching experience. It’s not surprising that when Maturi talked to Dungy, he thought the former Gopher was more interested in NFL coaching. “I think if he were to have gone back into coaching at the college level, I would think Minnesota would be high on his list because he has a great passion for the University and what it did to set him on his career,” Maturi said.

Thompson agrees. “I think he has a tremendous fondness for the school—just from people he still watches and checks, sees what’s going on. But I don’t think it makes sense for him to come back and coach.”

Maturi and Thompson said if Dungy wanted to be a college coach he would be able to recruit successfully, even at a not so easy place to attract top high school players like Minnesota. Dungy not only has the football pedigree, but is well-known for his devotion as a husband, father, and leader of community and church causes as an evangelical Christian.

“He’s got that reputation of being as classy a guy as there is,” Maturi said. “If you read his books, they’re just about being the best that you can be. Good character, good values. I don’t know how any parent wouldn’t want their kid to play for a coach like that, and I don’t know any kid that wouldn’t enjoy that opportunity.

“Let’s face it, he can open doors…and certainly meet with people that some other coaches might not be able to. I think he’d have been a great recruiter. I think he would have been a great (college) coach.”

In the 1980s Thompson was a highly recruited player out of Rochester, Minnesota. He knows what it’s like to be wooed and he could see the impact of Dungy in the living rooms of recruits. The verdict of a father, Thompson said, would often be the following after a Dungy home visit: “I want my son to hang out with Tony Dungy and the people he’s surrounding himself with. Period.”

But Thompson doesn’t see that happening for Notre Dame, Minnesota or any other college football program. “I just think for where he is at (in his life) and the time commitment that it takes, I don’t see he and his family making that sacrifice.” Thompson said.

Notre Dame’s remaining five opponents this season are Miami, Army, Navy, Virginia Tech and USC. The Irish could lose most or all of those games. A winning season looks almost impossible, earning a bowl game invitation seems dicey and Kelly’s return as coach is worthy of speculation. But Tony Dungy in South Bend?

Maybe on a book tour but not in the coach’s box at Notre Dame Stadium.

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.