NCAA – Page 7 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Undrafted Brosmer Wins Confidence of Coach, Teammates

Posted on November 3, 2025November 3, 2025 by David Shama

Max Brosmer, the former Golden Gopher who made the Vikings final roster as an undrafted free agent, is now the No. 2 quarterback behind J.J. McCarthy who has a brief pro history already of injuries.

Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said this afternoon that veteran QB John Wolford is on the practice squad for now, leaving Brosmer as the game day potential replacement for McCarthy who missed all of last season with a knee injury and was out for five games this year with a high ankle sprain.

Brosmer, 24, is two years older than McCarthy who the Vikings made the No. 10 selection in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Brosmer has six years of college football experience, five with FCS New Hampshire and one at Minnesota. McCarthy is not only younger but played only three years of college football at Michigan, including two as the starter.

O’Connell said his two young quarterbacks have become close, but he also welcomes the present of Wolford who the Vikings signed last week. At 30 years old and having played for multiple NFL teams, Wolford brings experience to the quarterback room even though he last played in a regular season game in December of 2022.

McCarthy has now played in three regular season games including yesterday’s impressive performance in the 27-24 win over the Lions in Detroit. He ran for one touchdown and threw two touchdown passes.

Brosmer has played briefly in two regular-season games, attempting eight passes, completing five and throwing for 42 yards. He played in all three preseason games and completed 35 of 58 passes for 364 yards and two touchdowns.

Although the NFL trade deadline is tomorrow, O’Connell didn’t make it sound like the Vikings are anxious to change their quarterback roster. He has expressed confidence in all three of his guys.

O’Connell added that Brosmer has “been able to grow throughout the season” and that the Georgia native prepares as if he is one snap away from going into the game. Having gone through training camp and multiple weeks of the regular season, Brosmer has won the trust of his teammates, O’Connell said.

“…I think the confidence level (of teammates) would be really high in Max (if he had to replace McCarthy),” the coach said. “I know my confidence level would be very, very high in Max knowing he’s a young player, knowing it would be his first opportunity (to get in a game early). …I would have a lot of confidence in Max and certainly I know Max feels the same way.”

Worth Noting

O’Connell is upbeat about the recovery of Aaron Jones who injured the AC joint in his shoulder yesterday against the Lions. The coach said he will have an update on his starting running back later in the week.

O’Connell offered positive reports on players who have had injuries but came out okay after the game yesterday including McCarthy, Christian Darrisaw, Brian O’Neill and Andrew Van Ginkel. He added that as of today Theo Jackson will be in concussion protocol.

Three Vikings who didn’t play in Detroit because of injuries are C.J. Ham, Josh Oliver and Ryan Kelly. Their returns to game action are unknown as they work through rehab.

Radio game day voices of the Vikings, Paul Allen, Pete Bercich and Ben Leber, share their insights about the team with Capital Club attendees on November 11 at the Minnesota Vikings Museum in Eagan. More information about the breakfast gathering and club is available from Patrick Klinger, patrick@agilemarketingco.com.

The new Musco lighting system at Target Center is believed to cost lower seven figures and is paid for by the Timberwolves. The city owned facility now has lighting similar to other NBA venues, spotlighting the action on the court in theater-style.

Anthony Edwards, who suffered a right hamstring strain in a game Oct. 26, is cleared for contact basketball activities, the Wolves announced today. His game availability remains out while he continues to progress with his rehab program.

Josh Minott and Luka Garza, now with the Celtics after playing the three previous seasons for the Wolves, are averaging career high numbers in minutes played per game. Minott’s is at 21.8 minutes and averaging a career best 8.3 points. Garza is at 14.3 minutes and is near a career high in points per game, 6.2 compared to 6.5 in 2022-2023 with the Wolves.

Former Gopher men’s basketball player Parker Fox has been hired by the Big Ten Network to provide color commentary on telecasts.

The hiring of Derek Shelton as the new Twins manager was ripped by a knowledgeable source who reached out to Sports Headliners. He described it as a typical blunder by the Pohlads, a safe, cheap and sad hire.

Talk among a couple of knowledgeable Twins sources is that baseball and business operations boss Derek Falvey didn’t want to fire Rocco Baldelli after the season but was told to by ownership. Falvey hired Baldelli in October of 2018 and the two were believed to have a solid relationship.

Rawlings and Minor League baseball announced Gold Glove winners yesterday including High-A Cedar Rapids second baseman Kyle DeBarge who is the No. 11 prospect in the Twins farm system. The 22-year-old former 2024 draft pick had just six errors in 279 chances last season.

Ty France, who started the season with the Twins before being traded to the Blue Jays, won the American League Gold Glove Award for his fielding at first base. He was +10 Outs Above Average in 2025.

The 6-3 Gopher football team has lost all three of its road games, with remaining away games at Oregon and Northwestern. The Gophers, on a six-game home winning streak, have one remaining game in Minneapolis, the season finale against Wisconsin. Minnesota was 4-2 in away games last year including the bowl win in Charlotte.

The Golden Gopher 2027 lineup of Big Ten home games is a marketing dream for selling tickets at Huntington Bank Stadium. Minnesota has five league games (happens every other year) with a glitzy lineup of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Washington and Wisconsin.

With last Saturday’s 45-0 win over Marist, St. Thomas head football coach Glenn Caruso and associate head coach Wallie Kuchinski coached their 200^th game with the Tommies. Their all-time record is 163-37 at St. Thomas.

The Minnesota Football Coaches Association has a membership drive to exceed 1,200 members. The organization is a pillar for the success of high school football in the state with its awards, events, scholarships and other activities to promote the game. https://www.mshsca.org/joinnow

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Harbaugh or KOC? Who Would Have Been Better for Vikings?

Posted on October 21, 2025October 21, 2025 by David Shama

When the 3-3 Vikings play the 4-3 Chargers in Los Angeles on Thursday night Minnesota will compete against a legend who might have been their head coach. Jim Harbaugh, now in his second season leading the Chargers, will face the Vikings for the first time in his return to the NFL after nine seasons at the University of Michigan.

It was February of 2022 when Vikings ownership and new general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah were seriously considering Harbaugh for the head coach opening after firing Mike Zimmer. In Harbaugh’s first tenure as an NFL head coach, he led the 49ers for four seasons and took his teams to three NFC Championship games. In San Francisco he had an overall record of 49-22-1 and was 5-3 in the postseason including a 2013 Super Bowl loss to his brother John Harbaugh of the Ravens.

Not only did Harbaugh have a flashy resume, but it was clear going into an early February interview in Minnesota that he had a serious interest in the Vikings job. He reportedly told recruits and people back at Michigan that a change for him could be coming.

Harbaugh’s relationship with Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel may have been less than ideal. Back in 2021 Manual had cut Harbaugh’s $8 million salary in half after some struggles including Michigan’s disappointing 2-4 record in COVID year 2020.

Sources reported Harbaugh was confident about getting the Vikings job. Not only did he have the impressive resume, but he had worked with Adofo-Mensah with the 49ers. And at age 58 Harbaugh was still young enough to guide the Vikings for a decade or more. For whatever reason that may never be known unless the Wilf family writes a tell-all-book, an offer to coach the Vikings reportedly was never made.

Harbaugh can be an aggressive personality, a stern leader, with a no surrender approach. Maybe the Vikings interviewers found Harbaugh’s demeanor too crusty and unpredictable for their liking. After all, they had just fired Zim who was known for his fiery and old-school temperament.

A former front office executive with NFL teams was asked via text if he had insights about what fell apart. “I don’t know specifics of negotiations with Harbaugh but perhaps they preferred (the) younger (Kevin) O’Connell coming from (the) popular (Mike) Shanahan/(Sean) McVay coaching tree. I think Jim Harbaugh is a great coach. …I’d rather have O’Connell at this stage of their respective careers.”

Now 61, Harbaugh has won everywhere he has been starting with the collegiate San Diego Toreros and going on from there to Stanford. The Cardinal was 1-11 before Harbaugh arrived. In his fourth and final season Stanford finished 12-1 including an Orange Bowl win.

After things didn’t materialize with the Vikings, Harbaugh went back to Michigan for two more seasons including his 15-0 team that won the 2023 national championship after advancing through the College Football Playoffs.

In 2024, his first season with Chargers, there was more Harbaugh magic. He took a team that was 5-12 the previous season and went 11-6 including a spot in the playoffs.

Kevin O’Connell image courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings

O’Connell’s pleasant demeanor could get him a job as a friendly neighbor on a TV sitcom. He’s also a terrific quarterback developer, offensive schemer and play caller who is admired by his players for the culture he has created in three-plus seasons with the Vikings.

In his fourth season O’Connell has the highest winning percentage among all head coaches in franchise history, including playoff games. His 37-22 overall record and .627 percentage tops Bud Grant’s overall win percentage (.607) from 1967-83 and 1985. He became the fastest Vikings head coach to record 35 wins, achieving that in the opening game of the season against the Bears.

Despite all the success in four seasons, including twice winning 13 regular-season games or more, the 40-year-old O’Connell has yet to deliver a playoff win. He is 0-2 after the 2022 and 2024 regular seasons. The Vikings are his first head coaching job at any level.

So, who would the Vikings have been better off hitching their coaching future to back in the winter of 2022? If you’re talking about a five-to-eight-year horizon, the logic dictates Harbaugh. He has a vast edge over O’Connell in experience and success. Part of that experience includes judging personnel and evaluating it. You can be assured that while Harbaugh would have had the title of coach with the Vikings, his voice and authority regarding personnel, including drafting, would have been loud and authoritative enough to cut through a heavy San Francisco fog.

Fleck’s Tenure, Culture & Thoughts for Iowa Week

With the recent dismissal of James Franklin at Penn State, the Gophers’ P.J. Fleck, at age 44, is now the second longest tenured head football coach at his Big Ten school. Franklin was in his 12th season; Fleck is in his ninth while Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz is in his 27th.

The Gophers, 5-2, and Iowa, also 5-2, play in Iowa City Saturday before a national TV audience on CBS. The Hawkeyes have been one of the most successful programs in the Big Ten under Ferentz. His way of doing things has not only produced nationally ranked teams and Big Ten titles, but he is the all-time winningest coach in conference history with 209 victories.

When Fleck took the Minnesota job in 2017, he spent the early years talking a lot about culture and was an admirer of Ferentz’s long tenure at Iowa and the benefits of stability to a program. Fleck was asked yesterday about the payoff from cultural sustainability.

When expectations and familiarity are in place it helps significantly to deal with challenges, he said. If coaches and players have been together for a period of time, the coach said, you know how they’re going to respond. “…Cultures are all about connecting people,” he explained. “That’s how I define culture.”

Fleck said dating back to his first season of 2017 he’s had the same defense. The offense, although adjusted over time, is similar, too. “We know what works here, what type of person works here. If (on the other hand) all those roles are constantly changing then you kind of have a hodge podge and it’s really hard to connect all those people (to have success, face adversity and try to get through it).”

Part of that cultural sustainability, too, is athletic director Mark Coyle who was hired in 2016. He hired Fleck. “I have a boss who allows me to be me,” said Fleck who wants his players to be themselves—authentic and accountable.

“We all have to answer to the culture, including me,” said Fleck. “I am no bigger than the culture I create.”

Systems may change and people, too, but not the culture that makes up a formula “where everybody knows what to expect.”

The culture has been successful for Fleck who is the fifth longest tenured coach in Gopher football history. He is fifth in overall wins with a 104 and his seven victories over top 25 nationally ranked teams is a career school coaching record. His 63-41 record and winning percentage of .605 is third best at Minnesota among coaches with at least 45 games.

Iowa is more than a touchdown favorite to win Saturday against a Gophers team that played its best game of the season last Friday night in dominating then No. 25 ranked Nebraska. The Gophers won that game 24-6 but lost to so-so California and 42-3 against No. 1 ranked Ohio State.

The Hawkeyes have a three-point loss to a solid Iowa State team and a five-point loss to No. 2 ranked Indiana. They also have the advantage of playing at home on Saturday in front of perhaps the Big Ten’s most rabid fan base.

Fleck has long regarded Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium as the “hardest” place in the conference to play. The Gophers will do everything possible in practice this week to replicate the chaotic environment they will face Saturday afternoon. That includes music, crowd noise and even derogatory comments like the Kinnick faithful may utter.

“…Football is a game of emotion, and we want our players to play with incredible emotion,” Fleck said. “We just never want you to cross the line to emotional (letting outside things dictate behavior). …”

Fleck is 1-7 against Iowa, with the only win coming two years ago in Kinnick Stadium. A controversial but correct fair catch ruling that went against Iowa helped Minnesota escape with a 12-10 victory. Incensed fans threw objects on the field in the tradition of Hawkeyes patrons dating back to at least the 1930s when whiskey bottles were a favored projectile.

A wit might say that’s cultural sustainability, too.

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Glen Mason Speaks Out about Honoring U Football Players

Posted on October 7, 2025October 7, 2025 by David Shama

It’s Homecoming Week at the University of Minnesota where events lead up to Saturday night’s football game against Purdue. Inside Huntington Bank Stadium the names of five all-time great Minnesota players are prominently displayed for alums and other fans to see.

The more knowledgeable patrons know the famous five have their numbers and jerseys retired—Bobby Bell, Paul Giel, Bronko Nagurski, Bruce Smith and Sandy Stephens. All are deceased except for Bell who plans to attend the Homecoming game and participate in recognition of the 65^th anniversary of the 1960 national championship team.

Bell’s last season at Minnesota was 1962 when he was the Outland Trophy winner and was named an All-American tackle for a second consecutive season. Giel’s last season was 1953, Nagurski’s 1929, Smith’s 1941 and Stephens 1961.

With its rich football history, the athletic department has an opportunity to soon add to the recognition of the greatest ever football Gophers. Greg Eslinger, the superlative 2004 and 2005 All-American center who blocked for some of the best running attacks in school history, will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in December and is deserving of a spot at the Bank.

Glen Mason, Eslinger’s coach, said it’s overdue to retire the number and jersey of the 2005 Outland Trophy and Rimington Trophy winner. Mason told Sports Headliners “I can’t understand” why Eslinger isn’t keeping company with Bell, Giel, Nagurski, Smith and Stephens.

Mason describes Eslinger’s absence as a “pet peeve.”

Eslinger (No. 61) photo courtesy of University of Minnesota

Eslinger’s resume is eye-popping and includes being the 2005 Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year (only Gopher ever honored). He was named All-Big Ten three times in his career, and he was awarded the 2006 Big Ten Medal of Honor (the conference’s oldest and most prestigious award). He was also a two-time Academic All-American.

Two other players who Mason coached deserve consideration for having their numbers and jerseys retired. Tyrone Carter won the 1999 Jim Thorpe Award and was a two-time All-American safety. Matt Spaeth won the 2006 John Mackey Award as an All-American tight end that year.

“Why those guys’ names (Eslinger, Carter and Spaeth) wouldn’t be up there is mind boggling to me,” Mason said. “You know, the players’ names that were there up were great players but none better than these guys…and these (five) guys are ancient. Nobody knows who they are. It’s stupidity.”

Mason added “another thorn in my side” is that Spaeth isn’t in the M Club Hall of Fame for Gopher athletes. Spaeth, a two-time All-Big Ten selection who holds the school career record for tight ends of 1,293 receiving yards, was a four-year starter for Mason.

“Outrageous, because I could name a few guys that you could say, what are they doing in there? He’s not in there, it’s embarrassing,” Mason said.

Asked about plans to expand the number of retired numbers and jerseys, an athletic department spokesman said via text “we are continually engaged in conversations about how best to recognize and honor the contributions former football players have made to the program.”

The department will honor Eslinger at the home Nebraska game on October 17. The Gophers also plan to have representation at Eslinger’s induction into the Hall of Fame in Las Vegas in December.

The National Football Foundation sponsors the Hall of Fame which is located in Atlanta. Tickets are available at https://NFF2025.givesmart.com.

Eslinger will join 32 other former Gophers players and coaches in the Hall of Fame, including Bell, Giel, Nagurski, Smith and Stephens. Here are brief capsules on the five and what made them so special.

Bell could have been a great player at multiple positions, perhaps even quarterback. He settled for terrorizing opposing offenses as a defensive tackle on national title and Rose Bowl teams that went 22-6-1 from 1960-1962. To this day, there are Gopher historians who maintain the superbly athletic and instinctual Bell is the greatest football player ever at Minnesota.

Giel was an elusive single-wing tailback who was an All-American in 1952 and 1953. Despite playing on mediocre teams, he finished third in Heisman Trophy balloting in 1952 and second in 1953 when he lost in a controversial vote to Notre Dame’s Johnny Lattner. United Press International, though, named him College Player of the Year. He twice won the Chicago Tribune’s Silver Football Award as the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player.

Nagurski is one of the most famous names in college football lore. In the late 1920s he played tackle, fullback, defensive and offensive end, linebacker and even quarterback. A beast whose strength was way ahead of his day, he was named a consensus All-American in 1929 at two positions, tackle and fullback. Sports Illustrated named him college football’s best player of the first half of the 20th century.

Smith, also a great tailback in the single-wing, was a back-to-back All-American on Minnesota’s 1940 and 1941 national championship teams. Those teams were undefeated and in the 1940 season he scored three game winning touchdowns. He is also Minnesota’s only Heisman Trophy winner, being honored in 1941. And, oh yeah, Hollywood made a move about him: “Smith of Minnesota.” He was one of the stars, of course.

Stephens finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy balloting after his senior season of 1961. Quite a feat for an African American who was a pioneer at the position. He was the starter on the 1960 national championship team, but his play went to another level in 1961when he made numerous first team All-American teams and was named the Chicago Tribune’s Silver Football Award winner as the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player. He led the Gophers to a 21-3 win over UCLA in the 1962 Rose Bowl.

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