NCAA – Page 59 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Gophers’ Mafe Draws First Round Talk

Posted on February 27, 2022February 27, 2022 by David Shama

The NFL Scouting Combine starts Tuesday in Indianapolis and former Golden Gopher defensive end Boye Mafe is a name to watch between now and the NFL Draft April 28-30. Mafe had a head-turning performance at last month’s Senior Bowl and his draft stock could be rising with some NFL teams intrigued by his talent.

When Mafe announced in December he was forgoing his final season of eligibility with the Gophers, he projected as a second or third round pick. He still might be selected on the second day of the draft, but there is increasing speculation he could go late first round.

Ryan Burns, the college football authority who has tracked Mafe since his days at Hopkins High School, told Sports Headliners there is a “chance” at the first round. Daniel Jeremiah of NFL Network has the Packers taking Mafe at No. 28 in the first round of his mock draft from last week. “The Packers love raw, explosive edge rushers,” Jeremiah wrote.

Mafe, 6-4 and 265-pounds, has long been known for elite athleticism but seen more as a project than a finished first round product. He could play as an outside linebacker in the pros where extraordinary pass rushers are among the most valued of personnel.

Interestingly, another edge rusher gaining notice is Minnesota native Jermaine Johnson who finished his college career at Florida State after previous stops at Georgia and junior college. ESPN’s Todd McShay had the former Eden Prairie DE going to the Cardinals at No. 23 in the first round of his mock draft earlier this month. McShay was impressed with Johnson’s Senior Bowl performance.

Jeremiah had the Vikings using their No. 12 first round selection on Washington State cornerback Trent McDuffie. Interestingly, Jeremiah doesn’t project a quarterback being selected in the first round until the Saints choose Pitt’s Kenny Pickett at No. 18.

Former Vikings GM Jeff Diamond told Sports Headliners he expects cornerback to be a draft priority for Minnesota: “Because you really need to have four or five good cornerbacks in this day and age,” he said.

This is the second year college athletes, including football players, can monetize deals for name, image and likeness (NIL). Big payoffs are in place in some communities around the country, or are being planned, but apparently not in this state. “I would say Minnesota is behind the ball,” Burns said when asked about the presence of NIL benefitting Gopher football.

Outsiders need to lead NIL efforts because athletic departments aren’t allowed by the NCAA to do so. NIL opportunities will become increasingly more important in recruiting success for schools and their various programs.

Burns said in the Big Ten West Division it’s not just the football Gophers who aren’t benefitting from NIL. “There’s nothing going on with NIL at Wisconsin. There’s nothing going on with NIL at Iowa.”

Meanwhile, the SEC and some of its schools are drawing attention for their NIL efforts. As an example, WBIR TV in Knoxville reported in December that over 300 University of Tennessee men and women athletes profited from NIL since its inception about six months prior.

Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is 40 years old, coach Kevin O’Connell 36. Mensah hired Ryan Grigson, with 23 years of NFL front office experience, to help with personnel decisions. O’Connell hired assistant head coach Mike Pettine with 28 years of coaching experience. “I think those both were really smart moves to bring in… experienced guys when you’ve got a first-time head coach and a first-time GM,” Diamond said.

The new regime didn’t retain veteran defensive line coach Andre Patterson, now on the Giants staff. Vikings defensive end Daniele Hunter, a top talent but injury-prone, has a $22 million salary cap hit in 2022 (second only on the team to QB Kirk Cousins). If Adofo-Mensah moves on from Hunter to clear salary cap room, could the Giants be a landing spot?

In a ranking of Big Ten football transfer classes last week, Steven Lassan from Athlon Sports had the Gophers at No. 5. Nebraska, at No. 2 behind Michigan State, was the only West Division program ahead of Minnesota.

Earlier in the month Lassan ranked the Big Ten quarterbacks for next fall and had Minnesota’s Tanner Morgan No. 8 in the 14-team league.

Photo credit: Matt Krohn/University of Minnesota athletics

Coach Bob Motzko’s Gopher hockey team finished February with an 8-0 record for the month, including a weekend home sweep of the Badgers, 8-0 and 5-0, that gave Minnesota its first Big Ten championship since 2017. Minnesota outscored opponents 37-11 during the win streak.

As the No. 1 seed for the Big Ten Tournament, the Gophers have a bye in the quarterfinals and will host a semifinal game at 3M Arena at Mariucci March 12.

The Gopher men’s basketball team ends its home schedule tonight against Indiana and will not have one sellout crowd for 2021-2022.

Wishing a successful recovery to Mike Wilkinson after falling at home and having back surgery. Wilkinson authored the biography about former Gophers football national championship coach Murray Warmath, The Autumn Warrior.

Condolences to family and friends of Tommy King, the Edina native and halfback on Warmath’s 1960 national championship team, who passed away earlier this month. Tommy’s father, Ray King, was a 1937 All-American end at Minnesota who played on national championship teams in 1935 and 1936.

Popular Dave Schwartz, who many viewers expected to succeed Eric Perkins as KARE TV’s No. 1 sports anchor, turned 43 Friday and has a new career in communications with the Minnesota Wild.

Celebrity sightings at the Timberwolves-76ers game Friday night at Target Center included O’Connell. Sitting courtside was MLB Hall of Famer Dave Winfield who played on championship Gopher baseball and basketball teams. It was 50 years ago this winter Winfield and his teammates won Minnesota’s first Big Ten basketball championship since 1937.

Eagan resident Pat Fraher, with more than 18 seasons of NBA officiating experience, was in Minneapolis Thursday night working the Timberwolves-Grizzlies game.

The CORES luncheon group welcomes Stew Thornley as its guest speaker March 10 at the Bloomington Event Center. The Minneapolis native has authored numerous local sports books and is a long time official scorer for the Twins. Reservations must be made by March 7. For more information contact Jim Dotseth: dotsethj@comcast.net. CORES is an acronym for coaches, officials, reporters, educators and sports fans.

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Even in Winter Iowa a Gopher Target

Posted on February 22, 2022 by David Shama

The game won’t be played until late November, about nine months from now. Yet even in the dead of winter the importance of it casts a shadow over the 2022 University of Minnesota football schedule.

P.J. Fleck will be in his sixth season as Golden Gophers head coach next fall. Fleck’s overall record at Minnesota is 35-23 and he is 23-10 the last three seasons (16-9 in Big Ten games). His overall winning percentage of .603 is third best among Gopher coaches who coached in 45 games or more. The Gophers are 3-0 in bowl games under Fleck and have won two of the last three against that rival school to the east.

But no Big Ten West Division championships yet.

What will it take for Minnesota to win the West and advance to the Big Ten championship game against the East Division champ?

“Get over the Kirk Ferentz hump.”

Those words come from Gopher Illustrated and 247Sports authority Ryan Burns who tracks U football year round. He told Sports Headliners that in talent Minnesota has pulled even with coach Ferentz’s Iowa Hawkeyes and the Wisconsin Badgers. But Iowa is 5-0 against Fleck and the 2021 West Division champion Hawkeyes stand in the way of a Minnesota breakthrough.

The Hawkeyes will be in town Saturday, November 19. Right now the offseason expectations are high for both Iowa and Minnesota. Count the two programs among early favorites to win the West. If that holds, the late season game in Minneapolis will have national focus and plenty of hype. And even if it doesn’t, Minnesota players and coaches will be hot to face the Hawks.

“To get Iowa at home on Senior Day, I can assure you there is no other game—outside of maybe Wisconsin—that these guys want to win (so much) because they’re sick and tired of losing to Kirk Ferentz,” Burns said.

The last time Minnesota defeated Iowa was in 2014. Ferentz is 17-6 all-time against the Gophers. His tenure as Iowa head coach dates back to 1999. His teams are almost always competitive and frequently among the elite in the Big Ten. The Ferentz way is to run a developmental program built around a firewall defense that some years is among the best in the country. The offense, though, often looks like an after thought, tasked as much with not losing games as scoring points.

Burns expects another lights-out defense in Iowa City in 2022. “…”But that offense is still dreadful,” he said. “If Minnesota can find a way to put up 20 points at home against Iowa this year I think they should be in pretty good shape. To me if you want to win the West, you have to finally get over that Iowa hurdle, especially when you get them at home and especially when it’s going to be on Senior Day.”

Gophers Newcomer Notes

The Gophers are rebuilding the offensive and defensive lines, with most starters not returning in 2022. Candidates to fill in are veteran reserves from 2021 along with transfers Quinn Carroll and Chuck Filiaga on offense, and Darnell Jefferies, Chris Smith and Lorenza Surgers on defense.

Fleck and his staff worked the transfer portal aggressively in past months, also adding cornerbacks Shannon Bishop and Ryan Stapp. Minnesota’s transfer class ranks No. 4 in the Big Ten, according to a February 247Sports story by Brandon Marcello.

Carroll, the former Notre Dame and Edina lineman, could play at tackle if his footwork is reliable. If not? “You just slide him into guard,” Burns said.

Filiaga projects as a guard at Minnesota and started four games last year for Big Ten champion Michigan. He was a 247Sports four-star prospect coming out of high school in Texas.

Jefferies, who turns 23 in July, saw his total snaps go down each of the last three seasons at Clemson. He is expected to at least provide depth at defensive tackle.

Smith, who made All-Ivy League at Harvard while studying human evolutionary biology, might make a big impression at that position for Minnesota. Burns predicts the impact could be similar to what the Gophers received from 2021 Clemson transfer Nyles Pinckney.

Burns said Surgers, a defensive end transfer from Vanderbilt, has impressed in winter conditioning. Getting noticed, too, are Bishop and Sapp, who both were all-conference corners at Western Kentucky and Abilene Christian.

Although potential All-Big Ten cornerback Justin Walley returns, the Gophers lose two corners in Coney Durr and Justus Harris who played significant snaps in the past. Veteran safeties Jordan Howden and Tyler Nubin are back after impressing with their improvement in 2021. Burns believes they could be the best safety duo in the West Division. He also thinks the mix of returnees, including corner Terel Smith and promising transfers, makes the secondary the strength of the defense.

After spring practice ends in April the coaches might look for more transfers. That could be prompted by two developments. First, some players on the current roster, after they see their ranking on the depth charts, may choose to enter the transfer portal.

The other “wild card” is Minnesota’s running back roster. Veterans Mo Ibrahim, Trey Potts and Bryce Williams are coming off significant injuries last season. The team’s leading rusher, Ky Thomas, transferred to Kansas.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see them take a transfer running back after the spring because I think we’re going to learn a lot more about how the injuries are going in that room,“ Burns said.

A development to watch, too, is whether true freshman Zach Evans is part of the running back rotation next fall. Burns expects Evans and Alexandria’s Kristen Hoskins to be at the front among freshmen who could see significant playing time in 2022.

Hoskins, a potential electrifying 5-9, 160-pound wide receiver, might not be targeted for passes next September but he may emerge as a regular punt or kickoff returner. Burns said Hoskins could well be the fastest of the wide receivers.

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Ex-Vikes GM: Cousins Needs to Stay

Posted on February 20, 2022February 20, 2022 by David Shama

Count former Vikings general manager Jeff Diamond among those in favor of retaining controversial 33-year-old quarterback Kirk Cousins, the team’s starter since 2018.

Minnesota has missed the playoffs for two consecutive seasons, and Cousins prompted a storm of criticism by refusing COVID vaccination last year, and his current contract is a huge burden on the payroll, but Diamond says not so fast to the chorus of critics wanting a change in 2022.

Diamond ranks Cousins in the top half of NFL quarterbacks and believes the timing is right to retain him. “I think Cousins needs to stay for one more year because I think the team is not that far away from being a playoff team,” Diamond told Sports Headliners.

The Vikings have significant personnel holes to fill, but they also possess talented players in multiple positions. They lost four games by four points or fewer last season and had other ulcer inducing defeats. Several NFL teams made the playoffs in 2021 who hadn’t qualified the year before, an indication of how fortunes change from one season to the next.

Diamond, who was the NFL Executive of the Year for 1998 when the Vikings went 15-1, made those points in his Sports Headliners interview. He added Cousins isn’t that different from Matthew Stafford, the veteran quarterback who was a key contributor to making the Rams 2022 Super Bowl champions after years of frustration playing with the hapless Lions. “He’s at least good enough to see what Kevin O’Connell can do with him,” Diamond said of Cousins.

O’Connell, the new Vikings head coach, is known as something of a “quarterback whisperer.” He was Cousins’ quarterback coach for the 2017 season in Washington. Since taking over in Minnesota, O’Connell has publicly been upbeat about his quarterback.

O’Connell and new GM Kwesi Odofo-Mensah are tasked with finding a solution to Cousins’ guaranteed contract for $35 million that counts as a $45 million hit to the salary cap as of right now. Diamond is doubtful Cousins, now in the last year of his deal, will accept a new contract paying him less money but is laden with incentives.

What Cousins might agree to is a contract extension of a year or more. Such a deal involves converting a portion of his salary into a signing bonus amortized over the length of the contract. The result can be a significant reduction to the franchise salary cap and help the Vikings add or retain impact players.

Cousins was willing to do a contract extension in 2020 so this is not new ground for him. There are also potential salary restructures with other players on the roster.

Cousins’ willingness to extend his contract now could be impacted by a favorable relationship with O’Connell. Cousins and former head coach Mike Zimmer appeared to have a distant relationship, at times not even meeting on a regular basis.

The culture under Zimmer has been criticized since his firing in January, with linebacker Eric Kendricks referring to a lack of communication and a “fear-based organization.” Zimmer was known for his cantankerous ways and the 36-year-old O’Connell is expected to create a new culture.

O’Connell talked last week at his news conference about consistent communication. “They’ve got to know we care about them from day one,” he said about his players. “I will not hire a coach that will not connect on a one-on-one- basis with their players in their (meeting) rooms.”

Diamond was impressed with O’Connell at the news conference. He liked the first-time NFL head coach’s personality and intelligence. There was no missing O’Connell’s enthusiasm and intent for a collaborative organization.

“I think that he’s going to be…kind of a breath of fresh air to the players, compared to the previous regime,” Diamond said. “I like Zim. … (But) This is a big culture change.”

Worth Noting

At this weekend’s NBA All-Star break the Timberwolves’ record is 31-28, with 23 games remaining on the regular schedule. The Wolves will have to go 14-9 the rest of the way to fulfill my prediction before the season they could have 45 wins. The club has earned that many victories or more just once since the 2003-2004 season.

The Big Ten’s media rights expire in 2023, with major networks expected to show plenty of interest. Front Office Sports speculated a new deal might provide $1.1 billion annually for the Big Ten. Split between the conference’s 14 schools that could mean about $79 million per year for the University of Minnesota Athletic Department.

The Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program will host a virtual discussion Friday about the future of college sports and athletes as school employees. There are ongoing legal challenges on the issue and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the NCAA violated antitrust law by restricting educated-related benefits to athletes. A four person virtual discussion will include former University of Minnesota regent Michael Hsu and Big 12 Conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby. Contact: jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org

Tongue-in-cheek from Dick Jonckowski who said the Twins are donating a new field in Minneapolis called Miguel Sano Park. It has three swings and a bench, the “Polish Eagle” joked.

The Shakopee-based event speaker and former Gophers basketball public address announcer is recovering from COVID after being hospitalized in January. He hopes to do PA work for state tournament girls and boys basketball games next month.

A 1982 mint condition rookie Hulk Hogan collector card is generating live bids today on Heritage Auctions, including $6,750.

The Minnesota State High School Coaches Association awards ten $1,000 scholarships to children or grandchildren of current or lifetime members of the MSHSCA. Contact: jmarshall@isd192.org

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